Breaking $1,000 psf in Northern Greenpoint
Amazing things happening in Greenpoint. We hear that the top floor unit at the Glass House on Green Street, which is a 1,300 s.f. 2-bedroom apartment with 475 s.f. of terrace, is asking a whopping $1,750,000. Our geography ain’t so hot, but from what we can tell, the location is Northern Greenpoint, far from booming…
Amazing things happening in Greenpoint. We hear that the top floor unit at the Glass House on Green Street, which is a 1,300 s.f. 2-bedroom apartment with 475 s.f. of terrace, is asking a whopping $1,750,000. Our geography ain’t so hot, but from what we can tell, the location is Northern Greenpoint, far from booming McCarren Park and a lengthy skateboard ride away from the L train. Quite incredible.
The Glass House [Prudential Douglas Elliman] GMAP
The Glass House Condos [Wired NY Forum]
Very High cost, McCarren Park is a dump. They should have renovated the park first so people would want to live here. I live here all my life. Fix McCarren & maybe, just maybe greenpoint has a chance
I looked at the units and they are not that big. The measurement is typically “optimistic”. You cannont believe any square foot measurement anywhere as there is no law that says they have to be accurate. That makes this asking price even more ridiculous.
Prices in Greenpoint have doubled in the last year for raw space. I nearly bought a building on Freeman St to convert a year or so ago and recently the building just behind it, which was half the size went for almost the same amount of money. Having said that, we are talking about $375 a foot.
I love the neighboorhood and like the Glass House, but not at anywhere near the prices they are asking. You can buy an amazing apartment at Schaefer Landing for that kind of money and have a killer view, a doorman, parking and a ton of amenities.
is this really on green near mcguinness? dudes, you can’t IMAGINE how UGLY it is over there, and it’s NOWHERE NEAR the “L”. it is blocks from the slow running “G”, and it will indeed take 40 minutes, on a good day, to get from the door to union square.
and, believe me … IT’S UGLY. there’s no chance that it will get any better, either, because mcguinness isn’t going anywhere.
man, elliman … put down the crackpipe, stat!
I see someone just pointed out that the B61 goes up this block. ‘Tis true, along with all other traffic looking to go over the Pulaski bridge to LIC. It’s the last turn off Manhattan Ave to do that.
The block, as with much of Greenpoint, is pretty hideous. Drooping vinyl siding homes, a filthy brick building with the front door hanging off its hinges, and two flat tire fix lots on the corner of McGuinness. “Luxury,” as they say, I guess.
Greenpoint is extremely safe, sure, but anyone who doesn’t see that it’s loud, dirty, overcrowded, and smells like the nearby sewage processing plant most days, is absolutely crazy. How pricing like this does not completely parallel the crazed pricing of junk stocks in the dot-com era… Someone explain that to me. Also, I live at Manhattan and Bedford, and Union Square is at least 30 minutes from my door. Pushing 40.
Final note: The supposedly much nicer place mentioned in the Wired NY forum, located around the corner on McGuinness? First of all, it’s on McGuinness — a six-lane thruway clogged with everything from cars to delivery trucks to semis. Second of all, it’s across the street from a 24-hour car wash popular with cabs.
“Luxury.”
the glass house is totally out of context relative to other houses on the block, an unimpressive one at that. in addition, the b61 actually turns off of manhattan ave onto mcguiness boulevard over there–nothing like 24/7 bus traffic on a residential street. if there’s a helipad on the roof, you should be able to get to union sq in 20 minutes. anyway, i live (and own) in greenpoint, so i can’t get too bent out of shape when i see $1,000 psf, though i certainly scratch my noggin.
Actually, new construction (read: condos) is a virtual certainty to avoid RE taxes in the present, via abatements. Typically these are applied for after a C of O is granted (pending final approval of the offering or “Book” from the AG in Albany). Abatements usually last anywhere from 10-20 years – 10 years, with a 10 year phase in period.
I agree with that estimated range: $600K to $1.1 million. Mind you, you could buy a 3-family in the area for $600k or so if you avoid the big brokerages, and then you’d have house with income. (Run a comp on propertyshark.com). One other big issue: new construction is always taxed at a much higher rate than you’d pay buying an existing building.
It’s not too hard to do the sort of calculation Krugman mentions in that NYTimes article, regarding future rental income, for this place.
If we assume that the annual rental income is $48,000 ($4,000 a month), and that rent increases at 3 percent a year, then the sum of rental income over the next 30 years is $2.3 million. This amount needs to be discounted, because a dollar 30 years from now is not the same as a dollar today, etc.
Using a 5 percent discount rate (which is pretty low, but I picked 5 percent as it seems to be the current long-term mortgage rate), the present value of 30 years of rental income on this property is $1.1 million.
To get to the asking price, $1.75 million, you need to calculate the present value of 70 years of rental income, which seems like way too long of a time horizon to be realistic.
If you raise the discount rate to 10 percent, the present value of 30 years of rental income drops to $590k.
I think a reasonable price might range somewhere between $590k and $1.1m, assuming you could really get $4,000/month in rent.
The remainder, getting you to $1.75m, is pure speculation that the housing market is going to keep increasing at astronomical amounts each year, and thus deliver enormous capital gains. That doesn’t seem realistic, as incomes are not growing that fast.
I must correct myself — it’s apparently 2 blocks from the G train. HA!! While that’s technically the subway, it’s no 20 minutes to Union Square.
The best part of the realtor’s description: “Greenpoint is poised to become one of the city’s most sought-after neighborhoods.”
Again, it’s nice, but most-sought after?