Brokers Weigh in on PLG
In light of yesterday’s post about a Prospect Lefferts Gardens house selling over ask, reader and neighborhood guru Bob Marvin points out that the latest issue of the Lefferts Manor Echo—download via this link—has a roundtable interview with real estate brokers who live in PLG. There’s a bit of disagreement between them about whether townhouse…
In light of yesterday’s post about a Prospect Lefferts Gardens house selling over ask, reader and neighborhood guru Bob Marvin points out that the latest issue of the Lefferts Manor Echo—download via this link—has a roundtable interview with real estate brokers who live in PLG. There’s a bit of disagreement between them about whether townhouse prices have gone down slightly or just flatlined, though general agreement that the average house is selling for $900,000. Some of the quotes:
Barbara Rogers, associate broker at William B. May: “[H]ouses in good shape may be hard to find. I don’t live in the historic district of the Manor. I’m on Lefferts 3, and there are a number of houses for sale on my block and on Sterling Street that are being listed by small, independent brokers. But a lot of those houses are in pretty bad repair.”
Bill Sheppard, associate broker and senior vice president with Brown Harris Stevens: “I’ve been selling here for 20 years, and 20 years ago I’d get a listing for $200,000, and there were those who’d say, ‘Who’s going to pay $200,000 for that? My response was to say, ‘Find a better house somewhere else for $200,000.’ And my response is still the same, only now it’s ‘Find a better house for $1 million.'”
Audrey Edwards, associate broker and vice president at Brown Harris Stevens: “I think you are going to see commercial growth in the neighborhood in five years or less, but you’re probably going to see it first on Rogers.”
Keith Mack, associate broker with the Corcoran Group: “Ten years ago no one thought their homes would ever sell for a million dollars, but they do. You may well see houses here break the $2 million range.”
Lefferts Manor Echo 2011 [Lefferts Manor Association]
Photo by bobmarvin11225.
“even if [the photo] it had been staged it would represent our own experience every single day living in LM/PLG”
Exactly; BUT it’s not staged. LOL; I’m much too lazy to stage a photograph 🙂
The Lefferts Manor Echo is a fantastic newsletter. Congratulations and thanks to all who work on creating it. About the diversity in the photo – even if it had been staged it would represent our own experience every single day living in LM/PLG. In nice weather we always see neighbors coming and going or on stoops and speak to them, neighbors both black and white and of all ages.
Great article. But one thing bugs me and always does when I hear it. Certain people keep talking about Rogers being the next commercial area to boom and maybe that could happen later down the line but right now it’s not the best strategy. That street gets no foot traffic (we see it from our house so we know). There is a bus on Rogers but no subway. The B/Q and the park/zoo/botanic gardens are too far from Rogers for visitors to go there. The focus on commercial development for PLG needs to be more realistic and business-savvy. The intersection of Lincoln & Flatbush is where any of the new businesses interested in PLG have looked. Other good, cute, more reasonable commercial spots exist on the side Manor streets just off Flatbush, like where 65 Fen (wine shop) and Boutique Flea (resale shop) have opened. New businesses are needed, welcome and are very well supported in PLG by the residents, but we do want them to succeed so let’s encourage them to locate where they’ll get many times more people walking by going to and from work or to other restaurants and shops here.
Also MTA bus routes, B12, B16 and B43, all have termminal points in “Prospect Lefferts Gardens”
PLG above the south side of Parkside Ave is zip code 11225, which is shared with Crown Heights. 11226, the traditional “Flatbush” zip code (and PO on Church Ave) only begins at the southernmost streets.
Also, our police precinct is the 71st, also shared with Crown Heights.
Huh? As far as I know, most PLGers use the James Davis branch on Empire Boulevard at Nostrand Avenue.
Where exactly in PLG do you live, Easy?
Okay. So what post office do those living in PLG use? The Flatbush branch, no?
Blayze,
I vaguely recall reading that in colonial times there was a Cobble Hill (an ACTUAL hill) in what is now called Cobble Hill. It was leveled by the 1776–1783 occupying forces, so that the Americans, if they attempted to re-take Brooklyn, would never be able to place cannons there to use against them. I also recall reading that there was NEVER a hill in Boerum Hill, but that residents thought it would be a cool name for their neighborhood (which it is).
Cobble Hill (as well as Boerum Hill I believe) did the same thing in the 70’s. The community groups sprucing up the place merely came up with new names for their hoods, based on some historic tidbit such as having cobblestone (though most streets in NY never had cobbled streets, rather inlaid brick streets)
“No one who lives in these neighborhoods identify them as such. . . .I won’t deny that these name have not existed in the past, but they have not been common knowledge to anyone living there until recently.”
Sorry, EFF. But you are just plain wrong in making that blanket statement.
Our family moved from West Harlem to PLG in 1988. (Apparently, that was six years after you were born.) Been here ever since. (That would make it 23 years of continuous residence in PLG). Since our move occurred two decades after PLGNA had already adopted the name of Prospect Lefferts Gardens for this community, that’s exactly where we knew ourselves to be moving. We also knew that PLG was part of the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Most of our neighbors who were here before we arrived would often describe the area interchangeably – sometimes as Flatbush and sometimes as PLG. And, yes, over the near next quarter century since we’ve been living here, more and more residents have adopted the PLGNA-designated name of Prospect Lefferts Gardens as well. So do many other civic organizations and government agencies of the City of New York and the Borough of Brooklyn. Things do tend to change with time, after all.
Just being real. 🙂