Real Estate Market

Here’s an interesting one. An 1840’s house on Prospect Park for only $1.165 million? Granted, it’s not on the best side of the Park, but Windsor Terrace is no slum. Located at 85 Prospect Park Southwest (A&H gave this away in the file name of the photo!), the house has tons of old-school character from the outside. Which leaves us with the interior and the answer to our riddle: It looks like someone got a little carried away back in the early Eighties. Every photo is cropped below crown molding-level, suggesting there ain’t any. Much of the flooring looks recent and the bathrooms, well, let’s just say they will probably need to be redone. That said, we bet we could have this place looking pretty good for $1.5 million all in (a little salvage could go a long way here), which would be a steal for a parkside residence, no? We don’t think this will last long.
Jewel on Prospect Park SW [Aguayo & Huebener] GMAP

We’re not expecting this one to generate a lot of controversy (or to fall into most of our readers’ budgets) but we couldn’t let it pass unnoticed. The 8,000-square-foot palace has 12 apartments, killer views of Manhattan and one of the most amazing staircases we’ve seen in a Brooklyn residence. We would have appreciated it if the brokers could have included a little more info on the status of the rentals, without which it’s impossible to comment on the value of the property. Has anyone had the good fortune to climb these stairs?
Columbia Heights [Corcoran]

EAST FLATBUSH $540,000
4206 Avenue J
Semidetached two-family home, 2,478 square feet, with a finished basement. Property has a three-bedroom, one-bath unit over a two-bedroom, one-bath unit; also features a private driveway and a garage. Asking price $599,000; home on market 51/2 months. (Broker: Tracey Real Estate)

MARINE PARK $515,000
1927 Gerritsen Avenue
One-family attached three-bedroom, one-bath brick duplex, measures 1,280 square feet with a formal dining room, modern kitchen and finished basement; property features rear deck and yard, private driveway and garage. Asking price $495,000, home on market 175 days. (Broker: Tracey Real Estate)

OLD MILL BASIN $410,000
1682 E. 46th Street
One-family semidetached three-bedroom one-plus-bath duplex, 1,216 square feet with new windows, new bath. Set on a 30-by-100 foot lot. Has parking for four cars. Asking price $429,000, on market 350 days. (Broker: Tracey Real Estate)

PARK SLOPE $528,770
393 Dean Street
Two-bedroom, two-bath floor-through condo, 874 square feet, with state-of-the-art kitchen, Jacuzzi, private balcony and N/S exposures. Park Slope Manor has an elevator that opens into the unit. Common charges $216, taxes $35. Asking price $528,770, on market 61/2 months. (Broker: Joyce Batarse, Jessica Buchman and Peter Noonan, the Corcoran Group)

Just Sold! [NY Post]

“Anyone know what’s up with the brownstone at 327 President Street, between Smith and Hoyt?” A reader writes in to ask. “It’s been abandoned since I moved in down the street about a year ago, and by the looks of the building, much longer. It’s smack in the middle of some of Brooklyn’s finest brownstones on a block where all the houses have extended front yards. Just seems a shame.” GMAP

Did anyone else notice that Aguayo & Huebener has dropped the price of Tuesday’s House of the Day to $995,000 from $1,060,000? Oh, and looks like yesterday’s Windsor Terrace house has been marked down $100K to $1,600,000 too.
House of the Day: Clinton Hill Brick [Brownstoner]
Enchanting Gem [Aguayo & Huebener]
House of the Day: A Lot for That Muffler [Brownstoner]

Some good friends of ours have one of these lovely rounded bay front houses in Windsor Terrace. Like this one a block away at 246 Windsor Place, it’s incredibly charming and well-appointed. It is not, however, huge. They paid about a million bucks than three years ago; we’d thought similar houses in the area had appreciated to $1.3 or $1.4 million, so we were a little surprised to see that Douglas Elliman has this house listed for $1.7 million. Not a bad thing to say about it, but we’d have to think that this would be a record by a substantial margin if this goes near asking price. Maybe the locals can let us know if we’re just behind the times on this one. It wouldn’t be the first time we were wrong.
246 Windsor Place [Prudential Douglas Elliman] GMAP

We know we focus a lot on square footage around here–often too much, as our cool-headed critics occasionally point out. It’s a helpful measure to put a house’s price in perspective, but in the end a well laid-out 2,000-square-foot space can be much better than a poorly organized 3,000-square-foot one. Which is all a long way of introducing the fairly small house of the day, a 2-story plus English basement in the South Slope. The place has clearly just been reno’d, and while we can quibble on points of taste, the bottom line is that there aren’t a lot of houses for under $800,000 in move-in condition out there, so this may make a lot of sense for some young couple. We are not intimately acquainted with the South Slope enough to guess where this is located from the photos, but we’re hoping one of you can. Our favorite thing about the house? The grassy garden with the high wall of bountiful ivy. Anyone been inside?
Adorable Two Family Frame [Betancourt]

Here’s a lovely 1870’s brick 2-family that Aguayo & Huebener currently has on the market for $1,060,000. We don’t recognize it off hand and, as is their habit, A&H do not give an address, so we can’t confirm whether this is Clinton Hill proper or “Clinton Hill East”. It also looks like this is really a 3-story house (not 4 as advertised), as the basement apartment is about 75% below grade. Regardless, the place appears to have retained much of its original charm and this is certainly on the low end of the price spectrum for Clinton Hill these days. We don’t know the square footage, but in general houses in Clinton Hill are selling for between $300,000 and $350,000 per floor. By those metrics, this is right in line even as a 3-story house. We expect whether this is a good deal or not hinges on the exact location.
Enchanting Gem [Aguayo & Huebener]