Real Estate Market

Another beautiful structure in Crown Heights. According to the listing, the two-family property has been fully renovated, with particular focus on maintaining the original architectural details. The photos reveal wonderful wood beams, fireplaces, and original built-in book cases. New kitchens and bathrooms. This place sounds fairly priced at $899,000 given other recent listings in the area but we would love to hear from someone who knows the Crown Heights market well and can provide some comps.
868 Prospect [Ettelson RE]

Regular readers know how positively disposed we are towards Lefferts Gardens. Unfortunately, like just about every other neighborhood, bargains are few and far between. This 20-foot wide, 4-story house is a slightly grander scale than the 3-story, rounded front rowhouses that typify the area. It has tons of old-world charm (fireplaces, stained glass windows, pocket doors) and a sizeable rear yard to boot. Listed for $895,000, the 3,750 square foot house is priced at about $240 a foot. If the interior is in decent shape, that seems reasonable to us; if it’s going to require a lot of cash to get it in shape, we’d think twice.
Midwood Street Townhouse [Halstead]

A reader brought this turn-of-the-century 2-family house in Stuyvesant Heights to our attention. It’s clearly an interesting opportunity to create your dream home from scratch in a gorgeous historic neighborhood–but we are concerned about the expense. If you think you can get the gut reno done for $150 a foot or less-not an easy thing given how gutted this place looks-this could make sense. But keep in mind that the landmark status will certainly add a good deal of time and expense to the process. We’d be interested to hear from anyone who has restored a shell like this in a landmark district. Any words of advice?
Hancock Street Townhouse [Halstead]

This attractive brownstone in Bed Stuy caught our eye. Located on Vernon Avenue between Marcy and Tompkins, the 4-story, 4-family is fully occupied at present, so it could be a little sticky for a buyer who wants to live there. The $625,000 listing also does not include any other pictures so we’ve got no idea about what kind of shape the interior is in. That said, the exterior looks nice and the block is clearly a decent one. Sorry we don’t have much more to go on, but for some reason, this one just has a nice feel to it. Our biggest concern about this place is that it is probably full of difficult-to-remove tenants.
Listing #656 [New Millenium]

The latest addition to the Aguayo & Huebener website caught our eye, frankly, because you don’t often see houses in Park Slope for under a million bucks. Granted it’s not on Seventh or Eighth Avenue and it is only three stories, but we thought it was still worth a look. For your $989,000, you get an owner’s duplex and a one-bedroom rental in addition to the rear deck and yard. The interior looks okay but nothing spectacular. Anyone checked this place out yet?
President Street 2-Family [Aguayo & Huebener]

We had several readers saying that the Pfizer House in Clinton Hill wasn’t worth it at $300 a foot, so we wonder how they will feel about paying almost $1,000 a foot for this Park Slope mansion. The five-story, single-family spread consists of 7,000 square feet spread over three lots. Original details–like stained glass and terazzo floors–abound. But can the listing broker really have kept a straight face when she wrote that this was a “great value” at $7.5 million? Also, does anyone in the Slope know the exact address of this place so we can dig around for some sales history on it? Addendum: Does anyone have more specifics on the rights to build on the rear lots of this property, as one reader noted in the comments? Obviously that would change the whole calculation…
2nd Street Mansion [Douglas Elliman

Built by the Pfizer family, this 1888 mansion on Washington Avenue in Clinton Hill is easily the most exciting property to hit the market over the holidays. The ornate 12,000 square foot structure makes a 25′ x 150′ footprint on the 200′ lot that goes all the way through the block. In addition to a 3-car garage and original elevator, there are 10 fireplaces, 3 stairwells and 3 verandas. Probably the most impressive aspect of the house, though, is the quality and condition of the finishes and details. Truly amazing. At an asking price of $3.595 million, this is valued at $300 a foot, which is certainly not expensive on a relative basis for the nabe given the condition and pedigree of the property. We have a nagging feeling, though, that this place changed hands only last year and at a significantly lower price. Is this a flip job or are we just a little slow on this first business day of the new year?
Pfizer House [Corcoran]