Co-op of the Day: 62 Montague Street
A sponsor unit at 62 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights has just hit the market. The 1,350-square-foot apartment has three bedrooms, two baths, a dining room and an eat-in kitchen. The sponsor has clearly just redone the kitchen and bathrooms—not particularly well, but not offensively either. While the listing wins big points for architecture and…
A sponsor unit at 62 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights has just hit the market. The 1,350-square-foot apartment has three bedrooms, two baths, a dining room and an eat-in kitchen. The sponsor has clearly just redone the kitchen and bathrooms—not particularly well, but not offensively either. While the listing wins big points for architecture and location (steps to the promenade), some folks won’t be thrilled with the fact that it’s on the ground-floor on the street side. For $1,425,000, think that’ll be a sticking point?
62 Montague Street [Squarespace] GMAP
62 Montague Street [NY Times]
To the geniuses who thought this place would go “in a New York minute” – recently relisted with a broker at a slightly lower price. Five months later, so much for the advantages of FSBO.
One needs to see this apt to appreciate it. Square footage means relatively little here as the rooms and configuration are, at best, complicated. One must also not have any clothing or need for closets, as there are none. The renovation is nice and clean, but this is hardly a well thought out 3 bedroom apt. Perhaps combining one bath and 2 bedrooms would make for more comfortable living. But then listing a 3 bedroom as opposed to a 2 bedroom, no matter the config or size of rooms, gets the listing in a higher bracket.
If you measure this apartment by hand and throw in the width of walls you come up with about 1,050 square feet.
Not 1450 or whatever they claim. This is about the normal footage inflation I have found in New York (all boros). It is a nice apartment most people would go in and say: Yea, about 1500 sq ft.
But most people have no idea what a hundred square feet looks like.
Why to you think the quoted square footage on this particular apartment is any more accurate than Corcoran’s then? I’ve been in apartments in this building and they all seem pretty small to me. My point again – the only thing a buyer can do is assume all listings are EQUALLY inaccurate when making your INITIAL evaluation of whether an apartment is over or under priced…. Why is this so hard to understand?
but this place hasn’t posted a floor plan, so we don’t know actual sq ft. and people are comparing it to other places and listing the corcoran sq ft which is always super inflated. so sure, a corcoran 1400 place that sells for 1mm isn’t $1000 per sq ft until you realize it was really 1000 sq ft and then, et voilia, it is $1000 per sq ft.
Price per square foot is only “insane” if you have no way to approximate square footage. Unless you are buiying sight unseen without a floor plan, you can figure out the square footage of an apartment relatively accurately. And then you can (I might say should) use that number to compare the cost of similar apartments in the same neighborhood. This seems so basic (from a buyer’s perspective) that I think those railing against price per square foot as a measure MUST be either a) sellers with overpriced apartments on the market, b) apartment owners who want to see the value of their homes keep increasing, or c) brokers trying to stoke the market.
Admittedly, price per square foot is an imperfect measure, but it is the fairest and most useful way I know for a buyer to compare relative value between two different apartments. Obviously some apartments can justify a higher per square foot price than others. But all other things being relatively equal (neighborhood, layout and # of bedrooms, quality of renovation, building asthetics, etc), an apartment for which the sellers are asking $800 per square foot (my rule of thumb standard for well-renovated BH coops) is a significantly better value than one for which the seller is asking over $1000.
it’s insane to price apts per sq ft. brownstones, with footprints, are a different story.
about transfer tax, that is buyer’s problem. but I’ve bought sponsor apts 2x and both times negotiated that as part of purchase price. owner CAN pay if both sides agree (or you just lower your offer that amount).
About square feet…I have been looking at some new condos and the floorplans given to me which look like they came from the architect even go so far as to include two measures of square feet “net” and “sellable.” For some rooms, one number is double the other (even going so far as to include “open to below” and half-height spaces in the sellable number). The end result is an apartment that is marketed as 1140 sqaure feet, yet the total indicated net square feet of the kitchen, living room, (only) bedroom, and bathroom is only 384. Shows the insanity of trying to price using a price per square foot, when different measures give a factor of 3 difference for the same unit.