House of the Day: 234 Baltic Street
At first blush, the asking price of $1,650,000 seemed too good to be true for the four-story brick house at 234 Baltic Street. Turns out, it was. The house, which just got a nice exterior tune-up, has a rent control tenant in the owner’s duplex. Doh! So how does this look as a pure investment…
At first blush, the asking price of $1,650,000 seemed too good to be true for the four-story brick house at 234 Baltic Street. Turns out, it was. The house, which just got a nice exterior tune-up, has a rent control tenant in the owner’s duplex. Doh! So how does this look as a pure investment property? Well, the rent roll is $61,200. Figure $15,000 for taxes, insurance and maintenance and you’re left with $46,200. Let’s say you put down $350,000 to buy the place. Your $1,300,000 mortgage will run you a good $100,000 a year. Hmmm. Looks like you’ll be subsidizing your tenants to the tune of about $50,000 a year. Update: At the risk of being completely morbid, a tipster just emailed us to report that the rent control tenant is indeed an elderly man. About 80, she’s guessing.
234 Baltic Street [Smith Hanten] GMAP P*Shark
Hello all. Rent control normally cant be kicked out, but if they are rent control AND elderly, they are actually untouchable under ANY circumstances under NY State law. We have one of those in my moms place here in LIC, It’s Rent Stabilized. He floods out his one bedroom at least once a year, sometimes we believe intentionally, sometimes he falls asleep. He doesn’t care. The cops and the fire Dept cant to anything when he does it. He’s been trying to get us to buy him out for many years now. We refuse. We never asked him to leave. He just wants a payday off all our years of sweat equity. F him and all the other RC leeches like this nasty sob we got stuck with. Also, he’s 87-ish we think, but he’s tough as a horse! Still works and leaves everyday at 6am. He’s gonna be with us for awhile. Seems like how it usually works out. $250. and change is his rent BTW. We wouldn’t mind the low rent, if he wasn’t such a prick. We also bought mid-90’s, decent price compared to today’s market, though it was a wreck initially, also because it was filled with so many troubled tenants, that the previous owners would walk away, till my tough as nails Mom had the guts to take a chance on it, so getting involved in something like that, with today’s prices, especially this house, I would have to say stay away, just my opinion. But for someone with enough capital and a longterm outlook, this could workout for someone, especially if the geezer is nice at least. RC is a pain, but RC and acting like a scumbag, like our guy, man, it sucks.
As far as succession rights our lawyer explained it to us that a person (close relative obviously) would have to have been living there continuously for two years with a very solid paper trail to follow to prove they’re living there, but only one year if they’re elderly. Also, per posts 5:29 and 5:41, that person in 5:29 can give his landlord grounds for eviction if he collects more than his payment of rent for profit, at least under rent stabalization laws and in RS buildings. I’m not sure how that would apply to say this unstabilized townhouse on Baltic. Maybe the geezer is renting out the lower duplex to some of those cute sweaty tattoo’d girls who usually work the Gowanus Yacht Club 😉
Seriously, I hope this has been of some help, sorry about the long post, and much love to Bk form Queensbridge! Cheers.
I live on the block and walk by his front room. The tenant has a pc and is probably reading this crap. There are a lot of selfish children on this site.
80 years old? This listing needs to include actuarial tables along with the floorplans. And a medical history.
Seriously, wouldn’t you to be a fool to buy this place in the expectation of how much linger he’ll live? Because damn sure since this post went up, he’s been contacted by several prospective “nieces” and “nephews” if he doesn’t have one already.
And the old guy’s probably a red-diaper baby who’ll take on a fake family member just to screw over all the bloodsucking plutocrats on this site.
NYC was rooting for the other team during the Cold War? Where the hell do you get that from?
are you kidding? did you live here in the 70’s and 80’s?
Capitalism was bad, greedy private interests were thought of as passe and barbaric. Socialism and Communism was the wave of the future don’t you know? Nobody in a million years thought that the private sector would revive NY. Of course those were the years of subway car graffitti and Ford to NY: drop dead, etc etc.
NY was often referred to as “Moscow on the Hudson: and I don’t think it was because of the gold domes.
I worked with so many dyed in the wool commies in those days, it was normal.
nobody remembers those days I guess,
it was not so long ago, like maybe twenty years?
NYC was rooting for the other team during the Cold War? Where the hell do you get that from?
my grandparents owned their own homes.
They also had tenants, whom they treated like friends. Rent control laws broke down that human relationship by bringing in the courts and the state into the equation.
It was a mistake. But remember that New York City was rooting for the other team during the Cold War. We have always been anti-American, and prefer to side with foreign powers than with our own.
The Soviet world went kablooey, but rent control lives on.
I hope your grandparents all receive the same love and respect you give to the elderly.
I also hope they’ve left you nothing, but I suppose if that was true, none of you would own the real estate you’re so precious about, would you?
Only buy if the RC leech is “accident” prone.
Just wait a month or two until the owner defaults on his mortgage and then buy it from the bank for 750 mil.
Which is about what it’s worth w/a permanent r/c tenant.