Inside Third & Bond: Week 126
Saturday was the Opening Day Parade for the 78th Precinct and St. Francis Little Leagues. Third + Bond sponsors one of the teams in the 9 year old Cub division of the 78th Precinct, and it was great to see our sponsorship on the red jerseys in the middle of the fantastic parade on a…
Saturday was the Opening Day Parade for the 78th Precinct and St. Francis Little Leagues. Third + Bond sponsors one of the teams in the 9 year old Cub division of the 78th Precinct, and it was great to see our sponsorship on the red jerseys in the middle of the fantastic parade on a gorgeous Brooklyn spring day, just a hop, skip and a homer from Third + Bond. After all, most real estate is primarily local, and in fact, at our Open House the next day, we calculated that 80% of our prospective buyers lived in a neighborhood within walking distance of Third +Bond. What better place to advertise then, than in a swarming sea of baseball parents who meet our demographic?
And yet as we marched in the parade next to other corporate sponsors such as Pizza Plus, Shawn’s Wine & Spirits, and Upperdeck Silkscreening, it occurred to us, what are we doing? Are we aiming for the impulse buy? After our kids earn a victory on the mound, let’s go celebrate with a slice of pizza and a new 2 bedroom condo? It reminds us of clowns on stilts holding balloons outside car dealerships. What exactly are they thinking? Oh kids, see the cute clown, let’s go purchase a new vehicle.
The fact is, we are often in the dark about the effectiveness of our marketing endeavors…
…We ask every buyer to fill out a form when they visit us to figure out which units make sense for them, and one of the questions we ask is, how did you hear about Third+ Bond? However, the answers are never as reliable as we’d like. Customers might check the box for our website. But did they get to our website from a Google search, or a print ad or a Brownstoner banner ad? They might check site signage, but they might have decided to drive by the buildings because a friend heard about the Pratt-designed models. They might check New York Times, but you’re not sure whether it’s the print ad or the online ad or an article in the Times about if you’re thinking of Living in Carroll Gardens. Of course we could give each buyer the fifth degree until we got to the initial source of marketing, but usually we’re just happy if they fill out the form and are ready to see some sweet units.
So which of these marketing efforts are worthwhile? In the case of the 78th Precinct, the sponsorship didn’t break the bank and a son of a Hudsonsite plays in the Cub division. It would be incredibly helpful for our cost/benefit analysis if there were room on the uniform to say, mention the 78th Precinct in the sales office, and Third + Bond will donate a free set of bases and baseballs to Little League when you close. But these are kids, not the adult-sized billboards you see at Nascar. At the parade, one of the Third + Bond baseball moms came up to us and said, Ben just asked what Third + Bond is. He thinks it’s a prison. So there you go, we’re now being confused with bail bondsmen. Perhaps next year to save money, we’ll go in halfsies with one of the Atlantic Avenue guys and the sponsor will be Third + Bail Bonds.
And what happened in the season opener, you ask? The Hudson kid changed teams at the last second and is not even on the Third + Bond team. He’s on the Shawn’s Wine & Spirits team. We won the opener, 20-10, and as the game was winding down, one of the dads said, We should go celebrate at Shawn’s Wine & Spirits. We added, And then go buy a condo at Third + Bond.
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Inside Third & Bond: Weeks 1-124 [Brownstoner]
Our legal fine print: The complete offering terms are in an Offering Plan available from Sponsor. File No. CD080490. Sponsor: Hudson Third LLC, 826 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.
I too went to the open house last weekend. Some of the horizontal fence railing on the inside face of the fences at the adjoining property gardens, which are at a higher elevation than the 3rd & Bond gardens, had yet to be completed. Because of that, one could see the H piles and wood planking that form the support of the higher earth of the adjoining gardens. There was no concrete retaining wall cast in front of the planking nor could I see evidence of a concrete wall having been constructed at the obverse dide of the planking. I checked on past 3rd & Bond posts and, sure enough, there was reference to the planking being the permanent support to the higher soil at the adjoining gardens. My question is, won’t the planking eventually (granted not in this decade, but maybe next) rot and result in the neighbors gardens collapsing into the 3rd & Bond gardens? If that happens, isn’t the cost of getting equipment into the enclosed garden space to remedy the situation is going to make any solution horrendously expensive to the condo association?
I admit that I just had a couple minutes to run thru the open house quickly. But I didn’t think bedrooms seemed small and thought very attractive place. Nice job.
Trying to find the apartments that other commentor is comparing with yours…
LOL
Some how that image reminds me of the Bad News Bears.
I went to the open house last weekend, hoping to be impressed. The building has a nice appearance from the outside, and the views on both sides of the development have a good feel (aside from the issue of its proximity to the superfund site). I was sadly disappointed by the cookie-cutter apartments, which feel tiny compared to the square footage advertised (I am not sure how they justify their square footage claims, but something stinks, and it ain’t just the canal). The bedrooms are tiny, and most units have a combined kitchen/living space that feels like the size of a walk-in closet, with planned kitchen “islands” that would be in the only pace available to put a couch. No thanks. In my opinion, if these apartments sell at the current prices, it will be due to the glitz of the marketing campaign, not any value in the actual living space.