Turning Water into Wine in Eastern Williamsburg
This place took some vision! Overcoming fears of environmental contamination, Wellington Fan and Jennifer Dalton bought this run-down split-level brick house directly from an estate in 2002 for $274,000. Then they embarked on a DIY reno that blew out some walls in the living area and moved the kitchen downstairs. One major sewage back-up and…
This place took some vision! Overcoming fears of environmental contamination, Wellington Fan and Jennifer Dalton bought this run-down split-level brick house directly from an estate in 2002 for $274,000. Then they embarked on a DIY reno that blew out some walls in the living area and moved the kitchen downstairs. One major sewage back-up and $22,000 later, they had a comfortable 1,100-square-foot family home with a clean, mid-century modern feel. Since their purchase, signs of encroaching hipsterdom have begun popping up and the value of the house has roughly doubled.
Worry Triumphs over Fear [NY Times]
charging it may be the problem
them fightin’s words…are you going Maui?
I’ll take that challenge. Post your budget & I’ll have your family in Maui by the end of 2006.
Approaching 300k is a far cry from 500K in NYC for a family of 4 or more. We pay a huge chunk in federal and state income taxes, although we are only just over the threshold for our tax bracket. Do you know how much it costs to feed a family of five? Clothing them? Do you have any idea what shoes cost? As I said, I am NOT complaining. We are comfortable. We have choices. But our income and our basic needs keep us from being what anyone would call “rich” in terms of our life style. What I said is it does make me think (often) about people who have far less and must be struggling terribly to live here. If I have to count nickles and dimes, there must be a hell of a lot of people counting pennies out there. By the way, if you can show me where the extra money is in our budget after we pay all our monthly bills, take care of our children’s needs, maybe buy a new suit for work or a winter coat for ourselves (and having to charge it because there isn’t enough spare in the kitty), please do! I’d love a week in Maui. Or even the Jersey Shore.
to 7.04 pm, let me get this straight, you make mid 6 figures (mid would be at least 300, lets say 500K a year, and your just about breaking even? even with no money down a 700k mortgage would be about 4600 dollars a month. that adds up to about 70000 dollars a year when you throw in the heat/maintanence. not to mention the equity you made on your house since you bought a few years ago. and your just breaking even? boo hoo, go call suzie orman.
The cost of living in NYC is outrageous – period. My husband and I pull in an income approaching the mid six figures. We own a home in a “transitional” neighborhood in Brooklyn, which we bought for about $700K a few years ago. No rental units, because we are a family or 5 and need all the space. We have 3 kids who attend public schools, eat out once week, but do not spend lavishly on clothes, vacations, gadgets, etc… In fact, we have less “things” than most people I know who make far less and live outside NYC. Even though our taxes are low, we are just about breaking even. We are far from living a luxurious lifestyle, and it’s because we can’t stretch our budget that far. I don’t know how people on smaller incomes make it in this town. I feel for them. And I’m not complaining – we are fortunate and have a nice life. But we would have more, materially, if we lived elsewhere. It’s a choice we’ve made. We love living in Brooklyn, the urban feel, and want our children to grow up in a liberal, intellectually stimulating, multi-cultural envivonment. It’s a trade off.
Alberta is in the middle of a crazy oil boom. Properties are not dirt-cheap and a 55k/year income does not make you king of the mountain.
Housing prices are crazy in Brooklyn, but the difference here is that most “houses” are multi-family properties which generate rental income along with tax breaks, which offsets the monthly mortgage payment. And property taxes are very low.
The downpayment on a house can be as low as 10%. And many people who buy brownstones are trading up from apartments which they have sold to get the downpayment for a bigger place. If the rentals cover the mortgage, it is possible for a professor to afford a 800K brownstone.
You could get an apartment for much less. 274K can buy a nice 1BR condo in Clinton Hill Co-ops for example (with a dining room that can be converted into bedroom #2). If you want a small house in that price range, look in surrounding areas Staten Island, Queens, parts of Jersey and Long Island. It’s a little closer than Alberta…and may help to avoid a property war.
This is the type of place I’d like to buy–but Wow, I guess there are just a lot of wealthy people in the U.S., or at least in NY–I’m from rural New England, and my $55,000/year which is good back home, gets me nothing here. I have to wonder what the people in this town make in order for $274,000 to be cheap, or maybe there’s just money laying around. Police, teachers, fireman–how can regular people have a house? There’s either going to be a crash, or a property war–lots of poor people, nowhere to live.
I ran into someone on Vanderbilt Ave. (Navy Yard) who bought a “historic brownstone”. I was there for a block party, and he asked my other friend, presumably because she was white, if she owned one of the buildings there. She said no, she was just visiting friends on the block where she used to rent before it got too expensive. Anyway, the guy who bought the brownstone was a professor, the brownstone itself was $800,000. How does a professor afford that? Anyway, either way, the poor people who’ve lived in it all their lives are being forced to move. I guess he can do that because he lives on the premises.
All I want is a small bedroom for my kid and maybe a little yard for her bigwheel. We should move to Alberta.