Co-op of the Day: 123 Henry Street
Three things this one-bedroom co-op at 123 Henry Street has going for it: (1) Good location; (2) Nice casement windows; (3) Decent floorplan. Negatives: (1) Zero architectural detail; (2) Home Depot-esque kitchen. Oh, the kitchen. Why do people persist in pursuing these short-sighted attempts at money-saving renovation? A little imagination and creativity go a long…
Three things this one-bedroom co-op at 123 Henry Street has going for it: (1) Good location; (2) Nice casement windows; (3) Decent floorplan. Negatives: (1) Zero architectural detail; (2) Home Depot-esque kitchen. Oh, the kitchen. Why do people persist in pursuing these short-sighted attempts at money-saving renovation? A little imagination and creativity go a long way. In this case, if the kitchen were compelling, it would help downplay the basic-ness of the rest of the apartment. The way it is now, the kitchen only serves to underscore the lack of charm. Not to be all negative: As we said upfront, this place has some good things going for it, enough probably to fetch pretty close to the asking price of $449,000.
123 Henry Street [Corcoran] GMAP P*Shark
Exterior photo by Scott Bintner for PropertyShark
Geez, how can you not understand that someone buying a starter apartment would not want to sink $20,000 in a new kitchen. I mean, Mr. B, you didn’t either and you own a HOUSE.
Finance guy: How did you come up with your $3,800 rental figure? A mortgage plus maintenance on this place would cost you around $3k a month.
The casement windows are cool but they are a nightmare: they leak and you freeze. Replacements cost a small fortune.
Looks like a perfectly reasonable one bedroom apartment that costs (before the tax subsidy) the equivalent of about $3800 / month. For someone in a high tax bracket, the tax subsidy might cut that by $1000 or so.
Since either price is considerably more than nice one bedroom apartments rent for in the neighborhood, the prospective buyer is paying for the privilege of assuming the risk of price drops in the coming recession, or, alternatively, the progress of the housing bubble to new and even more implausible heights.
How much should someone be willing to pay for taking on that risk?
Does it matter that it would be quite easy for developers to create comparable apartments by new construction or conversion of rentals, so, long term, one would expect prices to approach construction costs and rental values?
I didn’t say it’s a bad block. I said it’s a very nice block but less nice than most other blocks in BH. I don’t see the contradiction.
Dave, my individual street ratings are to follow… 🙂
I used to live on that block, between Clark and Pierrepont, and loved the way it looked. The sidewalks were always extremely clean and there are a very pleasing variety of trees. On spring days, especially, I found it lovely to walk home from the 2 train, so many gorgeous shades of green. There’s a great church on the right and those gorgeous frame houses on the left. Yes, some of the fruit streets are more attractive but don’t knock Henry. Plus my commute to work in lower Manhattan was less than 15 minutes door to door.
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/reb/803573487.html
1 bedroom in Downtown Seattle for 430K.
Just to give you an idea of real estate in other cities, since some people seem out of the loop.
My cousin just bought a 1 bedroom/1 bath for 440K in Boston.
This price is not absurd for what some consider the greatest city in the world.
I did a Street Easy search in Brooklyn Heights and still don’t think that asking for $450k for that apartment is overpriced. A clear majority of the 1BRs going for less have various issues: 500 sq feet or 8×8 bedrooms or 4th floor walk ups or tiny kitchens, etc.
Luckily “heat and hot water are included in the maintenance.” Thank God!
Anyway, I love casement windows and a lot of co-ops in BH have them, maybe more there than anywhere else (they’ve all been replaced on the UES and UWS.). This does strike me as an above-average 1 br, and the 10% down is nice, too.
I do hate that kitchen, but this strikes me as a starter apartment, so no point in doing anything more elaborate.