bhabe's Profile
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February 13, 2008
Next move: house or additional floor?
My gf and I keep debating our next move and can't seem to agree.
Current situation: we live in a duplex apt (parlor + above) in a brownstone coop in the Heights. Quiet street, great location, big backyard (accessed from the parlor floor via stairs). The building has a garden apt with finished basement, and 2 floor-thru apartments above us. The apartment is nice and airy (building is 25ft wide) with high ceilings. Not a lot of original detail left in the apt aside from the original fireplaces.
We're thinking of moving up into a bigger place if prices dip here.
The people living above us indicated they are looking to move in the near future since the apt is getting too small with the kids.
Here's the dilemma: do we look to buy a whole house (prob can only afford 3 stories + basement, 20ft wide unless we really really dip here) in a different location (ie. park slope, but maybe not prime prime park slope) or do we buy the apt upstairs and extend our staircase another floor?
I think the latter will result in same cost but would leave us in the Heights in an apt we love, but we'd still be living in a coop. The house idea seems nice (no neighbors above or below us), but we'd give up the prime location.
What do you all think? Is a triplex in a coop something that would be sellable in the future?
Author's Comments
ding = thing
dinges is a word often used in Belgium to basically say "and other stuff"
Posted by: bhabe at February 21, 2008 6:05 PM in response to Today on the Brownstoner Backpages
3000 sq ft? Where? How? The building is 27x53, so total sq ft could max be 2862. Subtract the stairwell to the apts above and you probably end up at 2000 sq ft.
Rich if you ask me.
Posted by: bhabe at April 16, 2008 12:58 PM in response to Co-op of the Day: 9 Pierrepont Street
Responses to Author's Forum Comments
I'm intrigued - you say you have the parlor floor but you have garden access - does this mean that the garden is exclusively yours? Anyway, I'd definitely buy your neighbor out and in a few years, buy out your top neighbor. At this point, your bottom neighbor would sell to you when and if they did and you would make a huge profit once you owned the whole place. I would seriously look into making the place a condo.
Posted by: guest at February 13, 2008 11:28 PM in response to Next move: house or additional floor?
I'd be tempted to talk to a good local real-estate broker to get feedback on the marketability of a 4BR triplex coop in the Heights. When we were looking last year, the cost of a nice 3BR in the Heights was not substantially different from a house in the Slope. If a 4BR is going to be the cost of a NICE house in the Slope, you're going to have a pretty small pool of buyers who would want an apartment with a shared (?) garden and the hassles of a coop board.
Also, do the economics of adding on make sense? We never thought seriously about combining in our building because the numbers didn't add up. We didn't think we'd make much of a profit; we took the estimated market value of a 3BR in our building, then subtracted the market value of our 2BR, the purchase price of an adjacent 1BR, and the renovation costs for the combination. If you do the reverse math (value of your place, purchase price of one floor-through, reno costs), where do the numbers end up?
Posted by: zeebee_in_bklyn at February 14, 2008 10:59 AM in response to Next move: house or additional floor?
OP here: thanks for your comments so far.
Maintenance would jump to just over 2k for what would then be a 4BR apt.
We would indeed have majority of voting shares.
I do think it is likely the top floor could be selling in a couple of years, which makes this an attractive option to move up in space over time if we can afford it at that time. Garden is probably unlikely to move.
Posted by: bhabe at February 13, 2008 5:16 PM in response to Next move: house or additional floor?