House of the Day: 147 St. James Place
Holy Moly! This house on St. James Place between Greene and Gates looks like a screaming buy to us at the low, low price of $800,000. This is one of those listings with a minor-league broker where you have to wonder how well they know the market. Even if this place is a complete dump,…
Holy Moly! This house on St. James Place between Greene and Gates looks like a screaming buy to us at the low, low price of $800,000. This is one of those listings with a minor-league broker where you have to wonder how well they know the market. Even if this place is a complete dump, it’s still selling at a 2003 price. The three-family has been owned by the same person since 1988, so we suspect they’ll do pretty well on the sale regardless, but still, $800,000? What gives?
147 St. James Place [Flateau Realty] GMAP P*Shark
I have a question:
We have a building which is an SRO and contains one tenant. After receiving the Certificate of Non- Harassment we would like to remove the tenant to undergo the renovation. What are our chances? Or do we have to live with him?
I went to open house here. It STUNK, literally. Couldn’t wait to get out. One or two of the occupied units were unavailable for viewing. Big risk, even for $800K. The market is turning.
I have a four story brownstone townhouse on Lefferts place for 900K. It is also a SRO but the block is quite lovely. It’s vacant and has been for over four years. It has most of the orginal details, fireplace mantels, hardwood flrs, moldings over the doors and walls and it’s a 16×138 lot. Serious buyers e-mail @ corbettkin@msn.com. Good luck And let’s all play nice.
That’s interesting that cb mentioned the Landlord. I was thinking of that when reading this thread. It is very funny and very apropos to the discussion about displacing people. Jeff Bridges is great. So’s the movie.
Yes, SROs can be difficult. Years ago, I looked at a gorgeous, super-affordable SRO in Harlem. Original woodwork and hardware, enormous space, in good condition – really lovely. Delivered all vacant save one room, and the sale was for the house still occupied by that unevictable tenant. The owner couldn’t get access to show the room, or enter into any discussion with the tenant. Whenever anyone knocked on her door, said tenant screamed, “Get out of here or I’ll burn the place down!” Every now and then, the screaming was punctuated the sound of something heavy hitting a wall. I passed…
Idiotic rent regulation laws led to this irational sytuation when you have to harass people or buy them out to get them out of your property, This is not fair just plain crazy.
Sounds interesting! I will look it up.
Anyone ever see The Landlord – the 1970 Hal Ashby movie? Beau Bridges buys a Park Slope brownstone and tries to turn it into his swinging bachelor pad but gets more than he bargained for from the tenants already living there. I’m surprised it hasn’t been discussed on Brownstoner before. Could’ve been made yesterday – but it would take place in Bed Stuy instead of Park Slope.
So, meryckawick, you are trying to buy the house. If you consider being forced to move out harassment, then why would you buy a house knowing that is exactly what is going to happen to its tenants? Granted anyone who buys the property is doing the same, but if you claim not to like harrassment, why would you opt to be part of it?
Both landlords and tenants have rights and at times one or the other’s rights infringe on the other. so while theyre is a process in place to allow for getting tenants out, it’s lengthy, expensive and unpleasant. That’s to protect the tenant- but it’s not harassment. Harassment is doing things to force a tenant to move that are not acceptable- ie, cutting the power off, or the heat, calling at all hours, not fixing the plumbing or locks.
But anyway you look at it, you really bear as much responsibility for what happens to the residents as the current owner. How compassionate you are can make all the difference