Co-op of the Day: 345 Montgomery Street
This listing at 345 Montgomery Street in Crown Heights had us at the lobby! The idea of getting a generously-sized prewar two-bedroom for just $249,000 also has a certain appeal. A couple of downers though: One, this apartment is on the first floor; two, several units in the building have had foreclosure problems in recent…
This listing at 345 Montgomery Street in Crown Heights had us at the lobby! The idea of getting a generously-sized prewar two-bedroom for just $249,000 also has a certain appeal. A couple of downers though: One, this apartment is on the first floor; two, several units in the building have had foreclosure problems in recent years, raising into question how stable the co-op may be. As for comps, it looks like the apartment above this one sold for $195,000 a year ago. In addition, one apartment on the sixth floor sold for $375,000 in early 2007 and another on the third floor went for $370,000 in February of this year. Think this one has a shot?
345 Montgomery Street [Douglas Elliman] GMAP P*Shark
First floor=no deal. . . bad light, loud street noise, security issues.
The maintenance seems reasonable but in this neighborhood I would suspect that the regulated rents do not cover the maintenance of the unsold units. For instance someone could have a rent of $380 on a 2-bedroom unit that has a maintenance of $800 dollars a month. The owner of that unit has to make up the differnce out of his pocket. He cannot raise the rent or evict the tenant. That is not a good situation. And the rent will never catch up with the actual cost of maintainng the building and servicing the debt. If there are two or three such units then there is nothing to worry about however if there are twenty or thirty such units, the corporation will probably go under sooner or later.
Yeah, that’s what the article linked above is about 1:38. Not sure if the link is working or not, but in the early-mid-90’s there were several buildings that got into trouble because of sketchy sponsor ownership and too many rental units… I don’t know that much about co-ops in general, but I sublet in 101 Lincoln that’s mentioned in the article, which is why I know about it at all.
the maintenance is 751…is that fair for an apt this size?
Gorgeous lobby! I remember being a foster care caseworker in the early 90s and making home visits to this block. Never thought I’d see the day when apartments were selling for this price!
“I bet you could actually rent that apartment for the cost of the mortgage too, as long as the co-op allows it.”
Perhaps, but if the co-op does allow it, it is probably not a co-op you want to buy into.
$248,999 overpriced.
when buying a coop the 3 most important things are:
finances, finances, finances.
A large building like this is pretty impervious to shock unless a lot of the units are still owned by the sponsors and a lot of rent-controled and rent-regulated tenants still occupy the apartments. That is the worst situation because there is nothing you can do with them and they will not contribute to the well being of the building. The other thing to look for is the amount of debt the building is in and what the last local law facade inspection turned up.
How is it old news if we’ve never seen it before?