HOTD: Suckers Wanted on the South Side
The recent news that more properties are selling below asking price is rendered meaningless by price tags like this one. As far as we know, there hasn’t been a brownstone on Williamsburg’s South Side to break the million dollar barrier yet, so it boggles the mind how the seller thinks he’s going to get $1.75…
The recent news that more properties are selling below asking price is rendered meaningless by price tags like this one. As far as we know, there hasn’t been a brownstone on Williamsburg’s South Side to break the million dollar barrier yet, so it boggles the mind how the seller thinks he’s going to get $1.75 million for this perfectly nice 4-story brick on South 1st at Wythe. Sure this area will only get more valuable as the Domino Sugar factory becomes luxury condos at some point and the bike paths are built along the river, but in the meantime, the desolate area will be one giant construction site. Before we get accused of waging an anti-Williamsburg campaign (which given the tone of many comments today wouldn’t surprise us!), let us just say that we have nothing against this house or the nabe. Just the price. We live a couple blocks away for the time being and we’ll certainly miss Diner, Bonita and the Grand Street playground when we’re gone. But not even the extra 800 square feet of buildable FAR Property Shark says remains with this property can convince us that this place is worth $1.7 million. Unless, that is, the new waterfront rezoning could enable a developer to tear this house down and put up a sliver tower in its place.
49 South 1st [Pepe RE via NY Times]
invents?cheat:subnetworks.amain conceivable Lemke nineteen
Doesn’t that theory on the market setting the “right” price depend on both sides having perfect pricing information? It works better when shopping for a DVD player on the internet then a brownstone in brooklyn. Imperfect markets, though, cut both ways and can cause places to be “underpriced” too… those places tend not be as well advertised.
This is NOT “just blocks from the Bedford Ave L Stop.” PUHLEEASE PEOPLE – look on a map!!!
Forget the price. I’m more aghast at the fire escape on the front of the building, not to mention the satellite dish. Great way to ruin a facade.
Agreed that buyers set sales prices, but the discussion and the contentious issue seems to center around listing prices, as you mentioned. I tend to agree with Brownstoner about listing prices getting a little ridiculous in some of the nabes under discussion, particularly in several of Brooklyn’s “underdeveloped” areas. By ridiculous, I mean that they are priced out of line with what potential sellers (at least those I have run across) think the place should be priced at and the property sits for a long time unsold.
With an escalating market like this, it makes sense that seller expectations tend to skyrocket, but only to a point. And if we are in a seller’s market, the tendency to hold on for the “right price” from the seller’s point only exacerbates that tendency long after it stops making practical sense. From a market perspective, this adds no value to the process as buyers refuse to put money down and the seller doesn’t get to cash in on their investment. True, maybe a seller will think they’re better off holding out, but I have to think that a significant portion of sellers want to sell quickly for one reason or another.
Allow me to clarify: buyers set SALES prices, brokers set LISTING prices. Fortunately, sales prices are the ones that matter. When I run numbers on a property, I don’t even consider the asking price. It’s irrelevant.
I’m missing a critical “not” in the second sentence of my previous post. Sellers do NOT set prices.
I am continually perplexed by articles and posts on this site that come down hard on brokers and owners for listing their properties at astronomical prices. Any real estate economist will tell you that sellers do set prices and landlords do not set rents. In fact, it’s the other way around: buyers set prices and renters set rents. This is an ancient and established economic theory that dates back to the English economist David Ricardo (b. 1772). Look it up. Sellers can ask all they want for their properties, the market sets the sales price.
a past comment about the red hook property really struck me and makes sense here: something about people selling a property
for its future worth now vs. its current value.
i am all for an owner thinking ahead but they should then wait and sell in a few years when it might actually be worth it- i bet it will sell though to someone who missed out on the west side highway
boom when that stretch of waterfront exploded…
the olsen twins in Williamsburg maybe one day-
who knows…