219 Washington Finally Sells...For 40 Percent Off Peak Ask
After two and a half years on the market, the charming but clearly overpriced brownstone at 219 Washington Avenue finally sold the week before Christmas for $1,655,000. At one point in February, its asking price went as high as $2,835,000. When we featured it as a House of the Day in July of last year…
After two and a half years on the market, the charming but clearly overpriced brownstone at 219 Washington Avenue finally sold the week before Christmas for $1,655,000. At one point in February, its asking price went as high as $2,835,000. When we featured it as a House of the Day in July of last year 2008 when it was asking $2,495,000, we had this to say: “Seems to us that you gotta have a fifth story to get this price on Washington Avenue in this market, but we could be wrong.” In this case we weren’t.
HOTD: 219 Washington Avenue [Brownstoner] GMAP P*Shark
Do you people really believe that “government intervention” and “tax credits” drive the purchase decision of $1MM plus brownstones??? I highly doubt it. Maybe $400-600,000 condos.
If by broken, Minard actually means “normal”, I would have to agree with him. The volume, inventory, sell to original ask, price to rent, etc. are not yet at long term averages. As previous posters mentioned, we still have big time government intervention which is clouding the picture.
I think I said in a previous post that the government is holding the housing market up right now, the real question is whether or not it will truly stabilize before their arms get tired. I have no idea.
Affordability is still an issue in this town. And it wont be fully addressed until the market is unplugged from the life support that are tax credits and the Fed’s quantitative easing which has kept interest rates low, perhaps artificially so. Once these policies end, which they are scheduled to do this spring, we’ll have a better idea as to the firmness of the market. To point to any one or two metrics as indicative of market direction is, at this point, nothing but premature bloviation.
Not what I’m seeing in the area of Brooklyn I look at most closely, the Chicken. Well-priced properties are moving in 1-3 months and many which sat on the market for over a year (The Vermeil as an example) are all moving now. I think there’s only like 2 or 3 units left there for sale, in fact.
And the former Brothel (153 Lincoln Place) has sold all but 2 units.
I’m following a relatively small part of Brooklyn very closely and nothing appears to be moving there at all – the same properties week in, week out on all of the major searches. No price changes, no new stock coming online, most of these places have been for sale for a year or more.
I don’t see how you can draw any well-considered conclusion about the market from a single sale, good or bad. To say the market is not functioning because one owner was holding out for ridiculous money doesn’t hold water.
Minard, the actual data shows that far more homes sell than “every once in a while a house or two sells after being in on the market a year or two”
The Pru Douglas Elliman report will be out shortly. In 3Q, there were 944 sales of 1-3 family properties, up from 716 in 2Q.
You’re being ridiculous.
The market could be broken due to delusional owners egged on by equally delusional or inept realtors, in any case, a properly functioning market it ain’t.
Also, Brooklyn is huge, there are tens of thousands of houses here. The fact that every once in a while a house or two sells after being in on the market a year or two, does not mean, to me, that things are fine.
Agreed, JPD…those windows are really nice and above & beyond what most renovations would do.