House of the Day: Center Slope Brick
Despite having some confusing photos with snow in them (strange for something that’s touted as “Just Listed”), this offering from Betancourt for a house in the Center Slope may hold some promise. The 2-family, 3-story brick has a triple parlor, a one-story extension and five bedrooms to boot. It’s a little hard to evaluate without…
Despite having some confusing photos with snow in them (strange for something that’s touted as “Just Listed”), this offering from Betancourt for a house in the Center Slope may hold some promise. The 2-family, 3-story brick has a triple parlor, a one-story extension and five bedrooms to boot. It’s a little hard to evaluate without knowing the exact address (what are the boundaries of “Center Slope” anyway?), but we’d think that there’d be some takers near the asking price of $1.45 million.
3-Story Center Slope Brick [Betancourt]
The streets I mentioned might just be confusing, because I don’t remember the name of the street, it was a street North of Sackett though for sure, between 3rd and 3th Avenues and we knew for certain that it wasn’t in the PS 321 zone.
House has been on the market for about a year.
CORRECTION: The bounds of PS 321 include don’t go to 6th street they in fact are divided on 5th street half the block is PS 321 the other half is zoned for PS 39. Its on the BED school zone map.
The bounds of 321 do, in fact extend to between 3rd and 4th avenues between President and 6th Streets. So if the condo was on one of those blocks, the agent was quite correct.
http://insideschools.org/fs/school_profile.php?id=450#zone
I see now – yes our lowest floor in the house we just bought is not a basement. It has windows and doors. I would agree then that anything lower than that shouldn’t be counted with the square footage, with the limitations that are imposed on a true basement.
About the realtor who insulted that one school and was inaccurate – I’ve found that before, realtors at open houses who were clueless about school districts. I really think most of them know nothing about any school outside of PS 321. Though there are other really good schools, and it’s QUITE easy to do the research. You’d think they’d do their homework. There was one realtor, from some dinky independent Brooklyn realty firm, the kind that only gets listings because of how low their commissions are, who was showing a condo between 3rd and 4th avenue, on Lincoln or Sackett or something, definitely NOT located in the boundaries of the holy grail of PS 321. But when we walked in the door she started saying the condo was in PS 321. And we’re like, “umm, no it’s not.” Yet she insists it is, assuming we don’t know the neighborhood. I even thought that could be grounds for a buyer suing a sellers agent, if that agent misrepresents something like that, something that affects property value like certain school districts can do. Or not? Is it entirely “buyer beware” and do-your-own-research on school and neighborhood info like that?
I think that accroding to the Dept. of Buildings a cellar is partially above grade and a basement is below grade. This is an important distinction because you can build a bathroom or kitchen in a cellar that is a certain % above grade (50% I think). You can’t do that in a basement.
Re: PS39 – I apologize if anyone took my comment as being nasty. I had no idea about PS39, it was the realtor herself who told me the school was no good! What a way to sell a house!
To 5:36,
I actually was not referring to garden apartments, as I (personally) would just call that a garden level. However, it becomes harder to differentiate at times. I have seen some finished basements that have windows at the top of the walls. They are over half underground and (to me) this means it is a basement.
Also, just to clarify, I was not suggesting these floors have no use… Rather, I was curious about how other people viewed them with respect to valuation.
From my perspective, a finished basement is nice, but not as valuable as a “regular” floor, so I would apply a discount to the sq footage. Still, it was interesting to hear other perspectives. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
For my house the basement is called an english cellar. It’s about 1/3rd above grade and 2/3rds below. Celing height = 8-9 feet. Comparable to a garden level apartment floor but the mechanicals are there (1/2 floor in the front). Because of a dug out in the rear, you get a full size window. A traditional basement is below grade and wold not have windows. It would be below the garden floor apartment.