Co-op of the Day: 164 Columbia Heights
It’s hard to walk along the Brooklyn Heights promenade without coveting the gardens and views of those townhouses lucky enough to look out over the water. This ground-floor two-bedroom co-op at 164 Columbia Heights may only be one floor but it’s got the garden. And what’s that worth? Hard to say exactly, but there’s probably…
It’s hard to walk along the Brooklyn Heights promenade without coveting the gardens and views of those townhouses lucky enough to look out over the water. This ground-floor two-bedroom co-op at 164 Columbia Heights may only be one floor but it’s got the garden. And what’s that worth? Hard to say exactly, but there’s probably about 1,100 square feet of interior space and the asking price on the apartment is $1,250,000. (The maintenance is $1,300 a month.) We bet they’ll get pretty close to that price.
164 Columbia Heights [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark
10:45 – not to dismiss your B-school pedigree, but my co-op (I am on board) would never approve a guy who makes $200K, with that much debt already and a $1Million mortagage (if he can get one for that much!). Monthly after tax mortgage/maint. payments will exceed $5000, which is more than 50% of monthly net income. Finance pros weve talked to have advised us that someone with that income shouldnt be financing more than $650,000 (essentially an $800,000 apartment) unless he has some major savings to back the debt up..
10:45 here –
12:51, the student loan payment can’t be more than $1500. The mortgage interest deduction cap is relatively insignificant here, since the financed amount will be right about $1MM. Still, we’re talking about a difference between gross income and expenses that we’ve covered (student loan + taxes) of over $10K/month. Tight? Maybe. Do-able? Quite possibly.
1:06, nope, not a financial planner, but a top-5 MBA and an undergraduate degree in mathematics. Yourself? The point is, I’m not trying to do an exhaustive analysis, merely pointing out that it’s possible given what we know for the person in question to purchase this home.
To both – I thought that the “woe is me, I only make $200,000 a year” complaint is a bit – uh – obnoxious, and wanted to point out that $200K can buy plenty.
10:45 – I hope you are not a financial planner; your math is a bit off, and you miss many other considerations. Nobody with $150K of debt and making $200K should be buying a $1M-plus home.
10:45 – the deduction will be capped and s/he’ll have to pay AMT. Throw in the student loan payment and you’ll understand what the problem is.
I think the layout is suboptimal. The kitchen’s a galley and to open it up you’d have to move a bathroom. the “dining room” doesn’t seem to have any windows, and the second bedroom is a hallway/mudroom. but the garden is gorgeous.
Here’s the math for the $200K whiner. The interest payments on the mortgage are deductible. If you finance 80%, you’ll be deducting fully $80,000 in the first year of the mortgage. (More if you put less down.) That leaves a taxable income of $120K – and that’s before any other deductions. Even if you pay tax at 40%, your tax bill is therefor $3972/month. Your gross income is $16,667/month. What’s the problem?
Sorry, but 1000 psf is very prime cost for very prime apt – check out comps and you will see. To ask so much more, garden or no, in this market, is crazy. Brownstoner, please follow up in a few months on this one, since it would be truly shocking if they get anywhere near this price.
I agree with 6.24. Get out of the firm and get a good in house gig after a couple more years, or leave it altogether and make some real coin.
The point is, it’s fun – it’s sport, it’s like sitting around joshing, it is good for some laughs (some good ones today, some folks are funny and entertain us all, even if somewhat sarcastic – “opium poppies!”), it gets out agression that talk of real estate in NYC gets going in us all, and we all like to give advice, some of it factual and quite useful. Get with the program.