Co-op of the Day: 40 Clarkson Avenue, #4F
If you’re looking for a large prewar apartment for under $350 a foot, this co-op at 40 Clarkson Avenue in Prospect Lefferts Gardens could be worth a look. The three-bedroom pad has over 1,200 square feet of space and a new kitchen to boot. The monthly maintenance is $1,000, pretty reasonable given the space, but…
If you’re looking for a large prewar apartment for under $350 a foot, this co-op at 40 Clarkson Avenue in Prospect Lefferts Gardens could be worth a look. The three-bedroom pad has over 1,200 square feet of space and a new kitchen to boot. The monthly maintenance is $1,000, pretty reasonable given the space, but you don’t get a doorman with that. The location is good in terms of proximity to the park and the Q train. What’s this particular block like?
40 Clarkson Avenue, #4F [Douglas Elliman] GMAP P*Shark
aj – you’re an ignorant ass.
‘no gentrified person’ WTF is that supposed to mean? I’m white, I’m college educated, SWF,I come from a middle class background and I live in this building.
Some of us haven’t spent our life chasing the all-mighty dollar.
I’ve lived in this area for a few years now and have never once felt uncomfortable, even walking home from the trains in the early morning.
Back to the apartment – I think it’s a little overpriced, but this is a decent building. Nice neighbors, clean, close to the trains, park and great food shopping.
The kitchens and bathrooms are all re-done with new appliances – and while not fancy stuff they look good and are do what they need to do.
Chances are it’s larger than the stated SQ as my unit is larger than what was stated in the floorplan.
As long as you don’t have to walk out of your door to a choice of dozens of upscale restaurants and bars it’s a great area.
We have to raise our maintenance over 40% in the past 3 years BECAUSE for the last 10 years the sponsor of the building who was also running the controlling vote for the shares since he had a lot of apartments just kept taking out a bigger mortgage each year to pay for expenses instead of increasing maintenance each year but say 3-5% or so. So long story short, from 93-2003 we had NO maintenance increases but the mortgage went from 600K to 2.2mil. Maybe similar situation with this building. You have to pick up financials to look at the expenses and judge for yourself if you are interested in the building.
The kitchen is way too small, the bedroom next to it should have been a part of the kitchen.
the foyer is all dead space.
ty, you are missing some other expenses that a building has. Super and porter can be union with is well over 100K a year with all of the union dues, benefits, etc. Heating the building is uber expensive and other smaller expenses, electrical here, pipe bursting there, add up. We have a very similar monthly intake in my building and trust me we use up ALL of it. We have 90 apartments and taxes were 177K a year. we have about 1,200 foot 3 bedroom that pay close to 1,000 a month maintenance at this point.
The point is not to argue if the maintenance “compares to what you’ve seen” — it’s to question whether or not the maintenance fees are “reasonable.” Jaysus.
Why would I want to spend money on something if I think the money is not being used properly? Squaredrive, so you base all of your decisions on “what you’ve seen” — I shop at Union Market and d’Agostino’s so a $5 apple seems reasonable.
Obviously one has to look at the building’s financials. I did just that. It says there was a 66% increase in monthly maintenance fees since 1-1/2 years ago!! That sounds downright frightening.
What if they “vote” — the co-op board who may be long-term residents with no personal mortgages — to increase the fees another 50% next year?! That’s the point. It was bad enough when the monthly maintenance alone didn’t seem justifiable given the building’s expenses… but to see that there has been an ENORMOUS increase over the last year or so. That’s bad.
Today this apartment costs $3000 per month (minus some tax deductions), next year it could be $3500 per month!!? That’s why it’s a major issue.
what can justify an increase in maintenance fees? New roof needed, facade re-pointing, boiler issues, maybe they voted to raise money to build a spa on the roof or renovate the common areas. Who knows, so what’s the point? The maintenance is in line the vast majority of coop buildings that I’ve seen, which tells me that it’s not really an issue.
How much would this place rent for? $1,700?
So with a thousand dollar maintenance, even factoring in a tax break, the value of this apartment is at the very most $240,000.
Actually… I didn’t even notice that Property Shark included these other bits of information. No need to guess.
* 97,332 sq ft of residential space
In the 2007 calendar year, they report the co-op income (monthly fees) as $591,650. This worked out to be $0.50 per sq ft. And they still reported a $247,000 pre-tax surplus.
What could possibly justify a 66% increase in maintenance fees? (i.e., 50c –> 83c)
t6 – probably a big a@$ mortgage.