Condos of the Day: 231 Bergen Street
In the current market, condo conversion is the most compelling way to squeeze out a profit on a brownstone. From a buyer’s perspective, the prices often seem crazy (like this place in Clinton Hill). It’s hard for us to get our arms around buying 1/2 or a 1/4 of a brownstone in one nabe for…
In the current market, condo conversion is the most compelling way to squeeze out a profit on a brownstone. From a buyer’s perspective, the prices often seem crazy (like this place in Clinton Hill). It’s hard for us to get our arms around buying 1/2 or a 1/4 of a brownstone in one nabe for the price of a full brownstone a little further out, but for some people it’s obviously worth it. The latest such project to come to our attention is the conversion at 231 Bergen Street that’s being marketed as The Distinctive Condominiums of Bergen Street. Cobble Heights Realty has the listings and there’s a flash site up at 231Bergen.com. The offering consists of three units ranging in price from $1,050,000 for an 1,100-square-foot two-bedroom on the parlor floor to $1,600,000 for the 1,900-square-foot upper duplex. And just to sweeten the deal, all units come equipped with flat screen televisions. There was an open house yesterday. How’d they look?
231 Bergen Street [NY Times]
GMAP P*Shark
Anon@ 4:12. Not sure if there needs to be a story on 206 Bergen. The houses you allude to were all in the 20-22 foot wide, 3000-3600+ square foot category. 206 Bergen and 211 Wyckoff Street are in the 17-20 foot wide, 1700-2200 square foot category, hence the price difference.
Shortened the front door? Did they raise the entire floor level of the Parlor in order to get more head height at the garden level? Or was it shortened for some other reason?
This house has been worked on for a couple of years. The builder extended the house ruining neighbors views and jutting in to their yards. I’m pretty sure there were work stop orders while people protested. It looks freaky from the front. They shortened the front door so the stoop goes really high up.
Has to be some sort of a story with 206 Bergen St. I know that in the past six months 3 houses on Dean between Bond + Nevins sold, all at $1.8 mm+. House around the corner on Bond (between Dean + Pacific) sold for $1.6 mm. Don’t know how a house 1 block away could go for $925K?
That was me above. Forgot to sign in.
Had to do a little digging in the memory bank, but, yes, 206 Bergen Street (a 3-story runt of a house) sold 1-12-07 for 925K according to property shark. 211 Wyckoff (another small house) sold for 973,500 in March 2006.
Crouchback,
Are you saying that a whole townhouse on Bergen sold for close to $1,050,000 in the past 14 months? That seems wasy low.
No need to go “further out” to demonstrate how silly the pricing is. I believe on that very same block there were at least two houses in fairly decent condition (on of them 2 or 3 houses down from 231 Bergen) that went for 1.6 Million or less within the last 14 months. Also, there was a smaller house at the opposite end of that same block that came close to the 1,050,000 they are asking for a two-bedroom. It is unfortunate that this particular block is not landmarked which explains the horrible iron stoop the builder concocted. This builder did not waste anytime in generating negative goodwill with this project.
Answer for “Question:”
There are a number of different ways to occupy and use a brownstone. One way is to be a non-user owner. In the current market, many multi-family brownstone properties are marketed and sold as condo conversion candidates. While they vary greatly in their actual ability to to be converted the pricing of the property reflects that theoretical possibility. The investment return for holding the property as a rental, based on its acquisition price, is therefore compressed to a level that doesn’t make sense as a short to interemediate hold investment. The real risk is not adequately reflected in the first year return.
While the current market appears to be able to still absorb these brownstone condo units it will only be known in time whether the condo conversion investment strategy has short-term validity.
My comments are based on an interpretation of BS opening sentence to be from an investor’s perspective, not a current owner-user’s perspective.