House of the Day: 38 Cambridge Place
No pics of this charming woodframe on the Warburg website yet, but we snapped one on the way home yesterday (realizing, in the process, that we know the tenants in the upper duplex). Anyway, this 2-family, 4-story house is old-school goodness but until we have more info on the condition of the interior, we’re not…
No pics of this charming woodframe on the Warburg website yet, but we snapped one on the way home yesterday (realizing, in the process, that we know the tenants in the upper duplex). Anyway, this 2-family, 4-story house is old-school goodness but until we have more info on the condition of the interior, we’re not quite ready to swallow the $1,685,000 price tag. At that number, it better be pristine. (As an aside, some of you might recognize the neighboring house on the right from the garden tour this Spring.) For those of you unfamiliar with the block, Cambridge is an unusually beautiful and wide block. The buyer of this house will also have the pleasure of living within throwing distance of Shahn Anderson’s haunted house.
UPDATE: Corcoran’s got it all hooked up. Eleven pics and we have to say that the interiors exceeded our expectations. First showing will be at the September 10 open house.
38 Cambridge Place [Corcoran] GMAP P*Shark
38 Cambridge Place [Warburg]
If you want to play housing futures, you can get 40-1 leverage on the case schiller housing index futures, and it s _MUCH_ more liquid than this
I think it’s dangerous even in good times to treat your home as a “leveraged” instrument. It sounds good, certainly, and makes you feel like a Wall Street guy. But houses are shelter. There is, as another poster noted, a substantial price that comes with buying and selling, at least $100,000 on a million dollar property. And that doesn’t include the rather substantial cost of upkeep on a handsome old house.
This is NOT an argument against owning. I’ve rented and owned and I’d rather own for a variety of comfort and pyschological reasons. But at least in ancient days–like the 1990s–you didn’t want to end up with a $5000 a month mortgage nut in a district without strong public schools.
New York is late to the softness in the market and, if the early 1990s are any indication, it current be late to the revival. It seems genuine appreciation of these beautiful homes would be wisely accompanied by genuine caution in plunking down $1.6 million.
My two cents anyway …
One other upside you have as an owner is you participate in the upside of the property–in a highly leveraged way that is not possible in the stock market. No one will lend you 80%, 90%, 95% to buy a bunch of stocks. Obviously if prices are going down the leverage factor makes the situation worse but if you get even like 4% appreciation per year on the underlying assets on a long term basis you can make out much better as an owner than a renter.
My earlier post at 6:01 was misleading: if memory serves, you could actually use this place as a 3 or even 4 bedroom, since there’s an extra windowed side room on the parlor floor (which they use as an office), not to mention that extra room off the master BR.
I’m not going to wade into the debate about the RE market. All I know is, it’s a beautiful place on a dreamy block.
1.685m for a 2 bedroom apt? Ugh. I’m getting a headache.
I’m kind of intrigued by the poster yesterday who mentioned the Barron’s article that we may have already seen the bottom. Here I am, sitting and waiting to buy, and perhaps the Fed is done raising interest rates and they keep falling. Then mortgage rates stay where they are for the forseeable future. Maybe this scenario is not all that far-fetched as even if listing prices have not fallen much, perhaps practically prices have already fallen by ten percent if you look at buyers accepting that much under asking, as I understand is going on. Maybe in fact this is it and while prices will not rise for a few years, perhaps they won’t fall either. Just a thought.
I must say, I read some of the bullish statements on this string and I wonder what year and/or multiverse I’ve wandered into. Take a look around: There is no one, not even the chief economist for the national real estate association, who argues that we’re in anything but a bearish market.
A terrible snarling bear? Or a just one that maims a little and then waddles away?
Who knows? Though even people in the industry are talking more and more about a hard landing. (And anyone who went thru the landing of 1990 to 1995 knows that can happen). But whatever. It’s just not the time to plunk down $1.6 for a wood framer in a dodgy school district in a market that’s growing dodgier. I’m NOT by the way dissing Clinton Hill. I love the neighborhood. But the prices have gone whack in the last two years. As for rents, one of us expects a jump from $2700 to $5000 in five years? Cool and the gang. I’d just like a touch of what you’re smoking.
Again, pretty house, and even in a down market it should fetch a nice price. But $1.6? Oy vey.
I’m a friend of these sellers, so I’ve seen the lower duplex, and it is quite beautiful. Parlor floor is big, open, lots of light. Downstairs – if I remember right – has 2 BR & 2 BA, plus an additional room off the master bedroom. Plus there’s that sauna.
I was in the rent don’t buy camp until we found ourselves with a growing family and landlords who didn’t renew two years in a row. If you want to be in a brownstone, renting puts you at the whim of the owner of the house – it’s not like a big apartment building. We had to move three times in three years and each time rents were rising rapidly. When the owner sells, divorces or wants to expand, you are out. Over the long run, the investment in a home generally pays off no matter when you buy in the cycle v. renting.
Ditto. Can we get back to talking about the HOTD? Brownstoner, can you switch the link to Corcoran?