A Sale for Victorian Flatbush
Here’s one that won’t make our weekly Top 5 Sales post but should nonetheless be of interest: After originally being listed last April for $1,375,000, the five-bedroom Victorian house at 335 Rugby Road in Beverley Square West closed on December 1 for $1,187,000. Total haircut? 13.6 percent. You can see the former listing here.
Here’s one that won’t make our weekly Top 5 Sales post but should nonetheless be of interest: After originally being listed last April for $1,375,000, the five-bedroom Victorian house at 335 Rugby Road in Beverley Square West closed on December 1 for $1,187,000. Total haircut? 13.6 percent. You can see the former listing here.
Victorian Flatbush will not drop to 98 prices precisely due to gentrification. As long as restaurants remain and services improve, mint homes should sell around the million mark. That’s a more accurate reflection of inflation and gentrification adjustment. Lalaland is off the mark on how much gentrification fundamentally boosts housing prices. And I’m talking about bog-standard Flatbush homes. Not PPS. I predict mint PPS houses will go for 1.25.
The “look over my shoulder” comment is typical of the comments I get from Park Slopers and Brooklyn Heightsers. Because not everyone in Victorian Flatbush is blond, the assumption is that it is dangerous. When I moved here in 1980, it was. It is not now. My neighborhood used to have a paid security patrol. Haven’t had it in years. Read the “Police Blotter” in the Park Slope Paper and tell me how dangerous my neighborhood is…
In 98 you could buy one of these as a fixer up for 500k, and mint for 750. By 2010 we should be back to those prices, maybe a little higher to adjust for inflation and all the new restaurants and such… So 13% so far, another 37 to go. Hope all the recent buyers were buying to live, not as a short term investment, because there are going to be a lot of underwater mortgages in our fine borough pretty soon.
Once something costs more than a million dollars, I stop listening and my eyes just get those cartoon spirals in them. So this sounds fine to me.
I may be unpopular for saying this – but I firmly believe that this house would have gone for $100K more a year ago. It actually sold for less than the neighboring Tudor did, which has significantly less square footage. This house did start to high, I agree, but the ultimate selling price was less than they would have pocketed had they priced a bit lower at the start, and therefore sold it more quickly. Overpricing is always a mistake, unless you know you’re going to take less and are hoping that’s where people actually bid.
This seems to have been fair price for this house. I don’t think it would have gone for much more a year or two ago. Mary Kay Gallagher seems to set prices a little more accurately in this neighborhood than do some of the other brokers. She’s had several closings since October. I went along with friends who are looking in the area and it only took us an additional 5 minutes from the Park Slope stop on B/Q to get to Beverley Road. So I would say that the commute into Manhattan is probably only 5-10 minutes more than a commute from Park Slope. Bay Ridge does have a couple of good places to eat, but very few intact Victorian frame style homes or limestones and the commute into the city on the R train is dreadful. For this and other reasons, living there is just not an option for them.
Commute from Bay Ridge to midtown with a likely express connection is 45 minutes.
I’m not going to tout my neighborhood, I’m starting to see it decline.
No, I’m talking under 45 minutes with a walk on both ends and a wait. I used to live in Brooklyn Heights as well, and I was pleasantly surprised by how quick the commute is on the B and Q. There are more stops in Brooklyn, but they don’t get bogged down in downtown Manhattan like the 2/3/4/5/A/C do. Being above ground to the park and then over the bridge is also refreshing.
The comment about looking over your shoulder doesn’t justify a response, but I do wonder why anytime someone says something positive about Flatbush/Ditmas Park, someone always has to chime in touting Bay Ridge and putting down Ditmas Park with negative, often inaccurate comments. Seems telling to me.
Express bus from there to Wall Street is 15-20 mins in the morning – which would matter if that’s where you work…