The One That Got Away
Harvey Araton, a sports writer for the Times, penned an epic tale for the paper’s real estate section this weekend about making peace with his decision to sell low in Brooklyn Heights nearly 17 years ago. According to Araton, he wrote the article as a form of therapy, since he’s often kicked himself for selling…
Harvey Araton, a sports writer for the Times, penned an epic tale for the paper’s real estate section this weekend about making peace with his decision to sell low in Brooklyn Heights nearly 17 years ago. According to Araton, he wrote the article as a form of therapy, since he’s often kicked himself for selling his family’s co-op in the busted early ’90s market: “It has been 16 1/2 years since we sold a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn Heights, en route to the suburbs and the birth of a second child. Actually, I should say that we gave it away: We lost about $80,000 on a $240,000 purchase made in 1988.” The current value of the co-op is around $900,000. Araton gets in touch with other people who sold in the building—which Brooklyn Heights blog identifies as 157 Hicks Street—at around the same time. “After reconnecting with our old neighbors, the other thought I am left with—and hope to hang onto—is that as much money as we lost, judging a period of life by the bottom line is the road to existential ruin…I suppose, then, that the closure I have been looking for might be in the realization that the apartment was never just an investment. It was a place to live,” he writes.
A Brooklyn Apartment Sold Too Soon? [NY Times]
Photo from Property Shark.
Glad the guy is a sportswriter….if he wrote this article in 95 maybe it would make some sense but its been SIXTEEN plus years, if you exclude all the holding costs (which were likely very significant -taxes maintenance assesments repairs interest etc) we are talking about an approximately 11 percent return, which is nice but hardly earth shattering. And if you include costs, what could it be 7-8 percent at best….
Besides presumably he bought a suburban house which likely appreciated at least enough to offset mist of the lost return AND he got to live in a bigger house.
This is why real estate always goes through bubbles, people mistake the simple effect of time and some natural inflation for some economic miracle, when compound interest generally offers the same or better, without all the risk.
Joe-Maybe your income has remained flat, but many of us including me have tripled our income in the past 8 years and can afford to pay those prices.
Gowanus is HOT! lol. Though, like the rest of the city, not hot enough to support prices that have more than doubled over the past 8 years while incomes have remained flat.
Tough noogies Harvey.
Only in gowanus, joe.
if sell/buy in a low or high market doesn’t really matter much.
It is those that buy high then sell low and then rent that end up remorseful
this story was posted too late. didnt everyone already discuss it in the OT yesterday?
*rob*
Current buyers will experience the opposite thing in about 10 years.
Current sellers will experience the same thing in about 10 years.