Open Houses: Four With Fireplaces to See This Weekend in Brooklyn
Our open house picks this weekend include a pair of massive brownstones in fixer-upper condition in Bed Stuy and Clinton Hill, as well as a chic, newly renovated number in Park Slope and a brick row house in Greenwood Heights. The looker of the bunch (and, not coincidentally, the priciest) is a three-story brownstone on…
Our open house picks this weekend include a pair of massive brownstones in fixer-upper condition in Bed Stuy and Clinton Hill, as well as a chic, newly renovated number in Park Slope and a brick row house in Greenwood Heights.
The looker of the bunch (and, not coincidentally, the priciest) is a three-story brownstone on 8th Street in Park Slope, nicely renovated three years ago with an industrial rustic flair. It’s a one-family, with three bedrooms on the top floor and an additional one on the garden level. This one has an open-plan parlor floor, with exposed wood beams.
In notably less pristine shape is a five-story 1887 brownstone on Washington Avenue in Clinton Hill. The richly detailed Queen Anne exterior is wondrous, and the house has original details including marble fireplaces, a wainscoted mahogany staircase, stained glass and inlaid floors. It’s also large — nearly 5,500 square feet. It’s in “estate condition,” though, so plenty of work is in order.
On Jefferson Avenue in Bed Stuy is another five-story brownstone of similar size, also with original details including fireplace mantels, moldings, pocket doors and parquet floors. This one likely needs some work done (photos are few), and on top of that it has an SRO designation, though it can be delivered vacant.
Last up is a brick row house on 17th Street in Greenwood Heights. A three-story, it’s set up with a one-bedroom apartment on each floor, though it could be converted to a single family or a duplex with a garden rental. Neither grand nor dismal, it’s a modest home in seemingly decent shape. It could be noted that we’re living in odd times when such a home carries a price tag of $1,395,000 even as it’s billed as “priced to sell!” but so it is in 2015 Brooklyn.
459 8th Street in Park Slope
Price: $3,195,000
Broker: Brown Harris Stevens (Charles L. Ruoff)
Sunday 12-2:30 p.m.
Photo by Brown Harris Stevens
See it here ->>
398 Washington Avenue in Clinton Hill
Price: $2,995,000
Broker: Corcoran (Zack Fox, Daren Herzberg)
Sunday 12-3 p.m.
Photo by Corcoran
See it here ->
266 Jefferson Avenue in Bedford Stuyvesant
Price: $1,395,000
Broker: Corcoran (Gregory Todd)
Saturday and Sunday 1-3 p.m.
Photo by Corcoran
See it here ->
290 17th Street in Greenwood Heights
Price: $1,395,000
Broker: Brown Harris Stevens (Cynthia Acevedo)
Saturday and Sunday 1-2:30 p.m.
Photo by Brown Harris Stevens
See it here ->
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Park Slope house is small, looks to be 2100 sf excluding the cellar, but it’s a nice reno and has a functional layout. They probably will get close to ask.
Greenwood Heights should be listed as a “brick” row house.
I don’t know what would make you assume those things. In most cases utilities really don’t need to be replaced; yeah it’s easier to do it if you gut a place, but this isn’t a gut job. This house is never going to be ‘oozing with details’ or have ‘wedding cake plaster ceilings’ it’s not that type of house.
For the 2 unit setup all you would need to do is remove the kitchen upstairs; you’re only putting down similar floor from the dining room, redoing drywall, and removing a gas line, you could cap the plumbing it’s not necessary to remove it. Maybe put in new lighting so the ‘dining room’ had a more consistent look.
Now if you want to renovate the 2nd floor kitchen and all the bathrooms I guess that would cost something but nowhere remotely close to 500k.
For a SFH I guess it would be more involved but not 500k dollars involved. More like 200k unless you want to do something ridiculous like buy a 40k dollar oven.
Fwiw I’ve tallied my reciepts this year since we agreed to quit renovations for hte year and we spent about 35k doing gut renovations on two bathrooms one with mid tier finishes, the other with very high end finishes (think double shower with slabs instead of tiles) both under 130 sq ft.
It isn’t bad, but it’s not a great spot either. You aren’t insulated in nice street 4 blocks away closer to a park like your example…. You are close to a highway. It’s like people buying off the Q train with the train in their backyards. You aren’t right next to the train, but you will always have that unmoving obstruction to deal with and any buyer will always be aware of it.
That said, a fancy pants renovation in the middle of park slope makes perfect sense. You can find a house that sells for 4m dollars and one that sells for 2m on the same block. The price gap indicates high end renos done right get rewarded.
In Greenwood 1.4m is pretty much a baked cake in terms of price for a house of that size. You can see it pretty clearly on zillow, all the sfh (under 2000sqft) go for 1.2-1.4, the larger multi/comm combos (over 3500sq ft) go for about 2m. Unless part of your reno included adding an entire floor to the building you could find better place to invest your money for a higher ror.
I agree about the cost of renovations.
However this block isn’t under the highway. It’s the sunken part of the expressway. Not a bad part of the hood, actually.
As to the 8th st house, here it is a few years ago when it sold for half the price. It was pretty nice then. Why did they do a fancy pants renovation for a decent looking house, and make personalized design decisions, and then after just a few years sell it? the rich get richer?
http://streeteasy.com/sale/562522
what are you talking about? That sounds like an entirely made up number from someone with little to no experience in renovations.
First rule of renovations, never ever spend more than the comparable houses are selling for!
Second rule, unless you intend to live there, never go high end unless you are in a high end area (under a highway isn’t high end)!
Third rule do not pursue unnecessary renovations! Yeah the kitchen sucks but that’s cosmetic – it’s doubtful that you would have to redo all the utilities which would easily double the costs.
I would bet you could renovate this house for less than 150k and get it up to the point most people on here would be fawning over.