72 Hicks Street Sells
The series of price drops on the wood-frame house at 72 Hicks finally had their intended effect: The house, which is one of the oldest in the Heights, sold for $2,900,000, according to public records. The 25-footer was first listed for $4,995,000 and was asking $3,750,000 when it was a House of the Day last…
The series of price drops on the wood-frame house at 72 Hicks finally had their intended effect: The house, which is one of the oldest in the Heights, sold for $2,900,000, according to public records. The 25-footer was first listed for $4,995,000 and was asking $3,750,000 when it was a House of the Day last November. NY Mag had a video walk-through of the property in March. GMAP
That is a good price. Those big, old wide houses are great and the north heights is a good place to live. I lived in BH for 17 years and I miss it sometimes. There is no need for a car and has it’s own little village thing going on near the Clark Street subway station complete with supermarkets, wine store, movie theater, greek diner, a few restaurants and dry cleaners. It is close to the A train too. Where I live now, on the Fulton Street border of Clinton Hill and Fort Greene, there are still no services. After 5 years, I still go to BH to my old drycleaner and drive to Fairway for a week’s refrigerator full of food. This is the land of supermarkets where the meat is old, the dairy products expired and the produce wilted. Very wilted. The dry cleaner on Fulton changes hands every 9 months — the last one put a nice (cigarette) burn hole on my favorite pants (do people really operate those presses with a cigarette hanging from their mouths? Yes.) Good thing for Olivino and her wine bar. Sometimes you need to drink around here.
two years ago this would have been a four-million dollar house. That is a drop of 25%. That seems steeper than the drop of more moderately priced houses. But I agree that because so few extra-expensive houses are sellng at all that the trend is hard to quantify. None of the super expensive mansions in Park Slope are selling either. Only places where there are religious reasons to be close to a house of worship are you seeing the absurdly high prices of two or three years ago.
By the way, almost all houses in Brooklyn Heights are 25 feet wide. Membership has its privileges.
Hard to say YET that expensive houses have suffered the worst declines, because so few of them are being sold. There have been I think 4 in the Heights in the last six months. Three at prices consistent with the past couple of years, and this one that’s priced lower. I think it’s fair to say that if you NEED to sell right now, you will take a hit.
I think this is a fair price for this beautiful house in some need of updating. However it is way off the highs in the area. Expensive houses have suffered the worst decline in prices it seems to me.
There’s about 40 frame houses left in the Heights. Probably 10 or so of those have been stuccoed, asphalt shingled or otherwise unrestored. Of the remaining 30, many have stayed (or been restored to) 1- or 2-family – they’re usually too small to be chopped up (although that didn’t stop people from doing it in the time of BH’s decline about 100 years ago).
I wonder just how many 1 family frame houses are left in BH. 25? fewer? I think this is well bought, esp. since it’s 25′ wide. I do agree that at the height this might have fetched $4 million — but the original ask was way out of line, and I think the sellers paid for it dearly.
Closing price is fair.
Without seeing interiors, quality of the structure, etc., bias to the upside in a better market (8-15 years out).
It probably has termites… that’s why it got the $2 million haircut.