Condo of the Day: Half a Brownstone in the Slope
Today’s condo of the day–a half brownstone–is a good jumping off point for a more general discussion of owning a unit in a very small building. This place looks nice (but don’t look to hard–the gloss on those floors might blind you!) and the price for the North Slope doesn’t sound outlandish. We’d be very…
Today’s condo of the day–a half brownstone–is a good jumping off point for a more general discussion of owning a unit in a very small building. This place looks nice (but don’t look to hard–the gloss on those floors might blind you!) and the price for the North Slope doesn’t sound outlandish. We’d be very cautious about being one of only two owners in a condo building though. What if you have different opinions or abilities in terms of money to spend on common areas? What if one person stops paying his common charge? What’s the recourse if one of the owners creates other quality-of-life problems? We’d guess some of these things could be addressed in the legal documents but in the end it’s a bit like having a roommate. And even if you like the other person now, you never know who he could turn around and sell his place to. Thoughts?
Rare Half Brownstone [Aguayo & Huebener]
I owned what was basically a coop unit (one of two)in a small Victorian house in London for about 5 years. This was very common there, to have one house divided into two not so large apartments. In fact, neither of the unit owners owned the land – we paid a very nominal rent of about $150 a year to the absentee landowner (if he didn’t collect for I forget how many years, we would be able to buy the land). It was what they called a leasehold. Anyway, there were quite restrictive and specific guidelines in our leases as to who had to do what. We literally each had to repoint half the brick (when we each deemed it fit), and the upper owners had the right to maintain (or not) the common areas, while the front and back gardens and sidewalks were ours (ground floor). The upper owners were stuck with the roof, we had to deal with the foundation (and subsidence). We each did what we were supposed to, but I can imagine it would be pretty nasty if one party didn’t.
Love that “less the hate speech.” You could extort your neighbor’s property out of them by harassing them, dumping water on them and threatening deadly violence. Just so you don’t use hate speech! That would cross a line!
(PS — I realize it was a joke, just seems funny to have to insert a PC caveat even into an obvious joke.)
seems way overpriced to me!
My devious mind says this might not be bad way for a patient and unscrupulous person to get the whole brownstone relatively cheaply.
Once ensconced, you could do what the cop did (less the hate speech) to your unfortunate downstairs neighbor. You could drive them to sell to you cheap with the threat of demonstrating your craziness to potential buyers.
I’d only share a brownstone with a trusted friend. Otherwise, you’re rolling the dice big time. Previous post is a perfect nightmare example — I’ll be stuff like that happens a lot!
Don’t know about a situation with just two owners — that could get weird and it might be best if you knew each other beforehand. I was once in a situation in which my then-husband and I were the fourth (and last) buyers of a brownstone co-op in Cobble Hill. It was the largest and most expensive unit and right away the vibe from the other owners was not good. There was no board interview or approval process, since technically it was a sponsor unit, but if there had been we might have noticed that these people were seriously disturbed. Apart from the racist, homophobic (female) police officer and her husband who lived above us and specialized in phone messages about how she was going to come down with a gun if we didn’t stop allowing homosexuals (one, my best friend) to lie in our back yard while she was trying to entertain on her deck and in dumping water on our outdoor luncheons below said deck, there was the co-op’s treasurer, who it turns out, was stealing everyone’s maintenance payments. How did we find out? From the Con Ed disconnect notice for the electricity in the common areas, placed erroneously in my mailbox. I’d definitiely want to check these other ownersout thoroughly before going into such a situation, although you might be better off here, as a 50% owner, than in my situation. Also check out the condo association house rules, etc., for any weirdnesses.
ad also says ‘views TO New York City’…when did Park Slope lose its NYC residency?
bcs A&H doesn’t provide floorplans — why would they want to actually provide service to potential buyers — I can’t tell for sure, but it looks like this is the top 2 floors and then there is a separate garden apt. So not “half” a house, it’s 2/3rds of a house and so I think you’d have the votes on your side.
I live in a small bldg however and you’d be surprised at how rarely this problem comes up. We have a schedule about 20 yrs out that has major cap ex improvements scheduled, paint schedule, etc and a monthly charge that covers all that nicely plus a reserve. When it’s self-managed you are so grateful when someone else takes on researching water heaters, you don’t really argue. And as far as what color the hall gets painted, I am usually supporting another residents desire to go bold (against my spouse) and we always go neutral.
So, is it 2 bedrooms or 3? The ad mentions both. These kinds of deals are common in the SF Bay Area – I think it’s totally important to get to know the other owner as best as possible (is it possible to get his/her financials)? In SF you can.