Just to be clear, I'm pretty sure, unless someone in Brooklyn has figured out the science of time travel, that everyone responding to my post will just be taking an educated guess.

Posted by: icrwly at August 14, 2008 8:50 PM in response to Park Slope housing prices - 12 months from now.

Thanks for your input, Chaka. You make some good points.

Posted by: icrwly at July 28, 2008 9:02 PM in response to Beverly Square West - Landmark Status?

How much is a framed shell worth vs just getting the land? Can the design be changed at all?

Posted by: icrwly at July 28, 2008 2:17 PM in response to House of the Day: 1216 Albemarle Road (Re-Revisited)

Speaking of weird... This one is on Marlborough Rd in Beverly Square West. Haven't seen the inside, but I drove by and there was a "beware of dog" sign in the window. I would assume that they would take a low offer though since it is in such bad shape it faces the subway tracks.

http://brooklynproperties.com/house172.htm

Posted by: icrwly at July 27, 2008 9:36 PM in response to Beverly Square West - Landmark Status?

My wife has seen both. She liked the one on Ditmas Ave (one family + apt) a lot more. Her report on Argyle was big, weird layout, needs a lot of work.

Posted by: icrwly at July 27, 2008 8:11 PM in response to Beverly Square West - Landmark Status?

The risk is that there would be more of this:

http://home.att.net/~ebasics/hallofshame.html

Posted by: icrwly at July 27, 2008 7:30 PM in response to Beverly Square West - Landmark Status?

Interesting post. I think I'm more scared of you than the teenagers you speak of. Your descriptions of future violence are too specific.

Posted by: icrwly at July 24, 2008 9:28 PM in response to 14th Street Btw 7th/8th

Different place, but the concerns are the same. Construction worries me more than the Armory.

Posted by: icrwly at July 24, 2008 1:02 PM in response to 14th Street Btw 7th/8th

I from Long Island. I have lived in NYC - Manhattan, Park Slope, and Windsor Terrace for the last 9-10 years. I know all about noise, traffic, and development. I lived in the Slope back when Aunt Suzie's was the best restaurant (sorry 200 5th) and if you wanted to get money to pay for your dinner you had to go to the Checks Cashed place since there were no banks in the area. I feel like I have enough cred to have an honest discussion about quality of life issues in the Slope.

So, back to my question. Any information on the block would be great.

Posted by: icrwly at July 24, 2008 8:08 AM in response to 14th Street Btw 7th/8th

Very interesting. Thanks for all the info. Another thing I was wondering is how much houses are discounted on blocks like Marlborough Rd with the Q being in the backyard. There are two on the market that I know of right now: one through Mary K for 990k and another on Brooklyn Properties for 700 something. The one on Brooklyn Properties looks like it needs A LOT of work. I saw the Mary K house and it was very nice. However, the train must have gone by at least 4 times while I was there and it's really loud.

Posted by: icrwly at June 26, 2008 12:16 AM in response to Ditmas Park (Victorian Flatbush) Real Estate Market

I hope the good ones in every neighborhood hold their value here for the next few years. Anything weird, as WTbound says, will get a haircut. I'd like that word "weird" to appear in more broker listings for full disclosure!!

Posted by: daveinbedstuy at August 15, 2008 8:09 AM in response to Park Slope housing prices - 12 months from now.

In 12 months? Slightly down, except for great properties.

In 24 months, down across the board.

Full recovery in approximately 10 years.

Posted by: lechacal at August 15, 2008 10:29 AM in response to Park Slope housing prices - 12 months from now.

Full recovery from what? Townhouse prices seem like they've held up pretty well given everything that's gone on in the past few years.

Posted by: Boerum Hill at August 15, 2008 11:19 AM in response to Park Slope housing prices - 12 months from now.

Full recover from what is about to happen.

Posted by: lechacal at August 15, 2008 11:44 AM in response to Park Slope housing prices - 12 months from now.

My last post wasn't supposed to come off as creepy. What I mean to say is that I think prices are about to start dropping and will keep dropping for a few years (sort of like a delayed replay of the national housing market) and it will take about 10 years for prices to recover. Exact same thing that happened starting in the late '80s. New York isn't going to avoid the housing flu, it's just happening later here for lots of reasons that I have explained in various other posts.

Posted by: lechacal at August 15, 2008 11:49 AM in response to Park Slope housing prices - 12 months from now.

The trend now is flat or dropping. Even the bullish realtors are admitting it. There are lots of unknowns, so it's hard to predict, but I'd say flat at best in 12months. 20% down is possible. Lower than that seems unlikely, but who knows, and it could well be a steeper decline for sub-prime properties. Prime properties will hold up better but anything fringe in any way (4/5 ave, lots of work needed, etc.) will definitely suffer. We already sold and are looking to buy a bigger place, and are frankly relieved to have our sale behind us. Main frustration now is lack of inventory - I think sellers are nervous. But I don't quite get why they are, when they can still make huge profit from what they paid (provided they purchased before 2006). If anything, I would sell sooner rather than later. Prices have been holding up OK of late, and are just starting to trend down - I think sellers who wait for the market to get better are in for a long wait, and would be better served to sell now - indeed the recovery could be long (as witnessed by past downturns).

Posted by: Miss Muffett at August 15, 2008 12:41 PM in response to Park Slope housing prices - 12 months from now.

I am a bit more bullish. Wall street will start to recover next spring and NY housing will pick up after that. As everyone knows, there is not a lot of brownstone/townhouse inventory and I think these are and will hold up particularly well.

Posted by: Colonel at August 15, 2008 1:13 PM in response to Park Slope housing prices - 12 months from now.

I'm a complete amateur in this area, so take this with a grain of salt, but there are so many little niches to teh Slope market that I am not sure a single answer gets you where you want to go. For instance, South Slope frames seem to have gone up quiet a bump in the last year, just from anecdotal observation. Can you generalize from that to new condos along 4th? Small brick houses near Altantic Yards? Park Block name street Brownstones? While the same neighborhood, the buyers for each of these cagtegories are quite different. Can't see all these niches moving in lockstep in the next year. For example, we're not so tied to Wall Street bonuses down in the Hardiplank zone.

Posted by: slopefarm at August 15, 2008 1:46 PM in response to Park Slope housing prices - 12 months from now.

Here is something I posted a couple of days ago, which I think is relevant here (it was in response to someone asking me why I thought prices would go down). None of this is particularly ground-breaking.

"As I see it, the following factors are already in place and will cause prices to decrease. As with all things in the real estate market, this will probably take a couple of years at least.

1. Basic affordability issues. As in any classic bubble, people have been swept up in a feeling that they need to get in before prices get out of their reach, which feeds the bubble more. Once this natural cycle turns, the opposite happens on the way down. Put another way, the market has momentum in both directions and the upward momentum has clearly stopped.

2. Financing. There will probably never again be the same cheap and readily available mortgage financing that there was in the bubble run-up. This will put negative pressure on the market for a while.

3. Local economy. New York is going to go through a period of higher-than-usual unemployment in the finance industry.

4. High levels of foreign ownership (foreign buyers can turn into foreign sellers, and unlike residents they are not replaced by natural turnover). This is similar to the high levels of speculation in Florida, although the motivations of the foreigners is different."

Posted by: lechacal at August 15, 2008 2:18 PM in response to Park Slope housing prices - 12 months from now.

This is the part in these debate that always confounds me: why do people think there be anything on the market to buy at all, if prices went down? We already see so little that's great even now. Look at recent threads where people who really want to buy a house despite the economy can't find anything they like.

The suburbs where there is an endless supply of houses, that is a whole other scenario. Nothing like the limited inventory of the brownstone (and brownstone coop and prewar coop) market at all.

Posted by: traditionalmod at August 15, 2008 2:19 PM in response to Park Slope housing prices - 12 months from now.