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
There a fantastic places in Manhattan and it is also safe for the kids.
Babs, thanks for thinking of those who will be displaced. They are not merely some form of vermin to be gotten rid of, as you said so well.
What a lot of people don’t seem to realize, in our neighborhoods, an SRO is not just a flophouse for addicts and other undesirables. I’ve seen so many of these rooming houses, which have been around for years and years, and many of the people are just single poor people, many of them quite elderly, who have lived in their kitchenettes for a long time. When my Mom and I were seriously house hunting twenty years ago, we saw so many of these houses that we stopped looking for a while, it was just too depressing. We passed on a couple because we just couldn’t bear to think of kicking some of these people out. That’s not to say they are all the same, and I know nothing about this house in particular. I also know that many of these rooming houses have a mixture of good and bad tenants, and owning one is not easy in any way. Nor do I think that buying one with plans of renovating necessarily makes the buyer a bad guy, so I hope no one accuses me of that. If it were me, I would have to relocate those who have no options or any resources, so that’s one reason why I’m not a real estate mogul.
BTW, Flateau Reality is not a small, or ignorant, second rate player. They are a rather large firm, and operate mostly in Bed Stuy, Crown Heights and the surrounding area. As I mentioned in another thread last week, there are a lot of brokers who have been working in the African American communities of Bklyn for years and years, and have done quite well, thank you very much. Mr. Flateau, I believe, is, or was, the head of an association of Black Brooklyn realtors, and is himself in a familiar demographic for most of the readers here – an Ivy League educated, forty something, successful businessman. The agent in charge of this listing is also a long time real estate veteran who has been quite active in Harlem’s apartment renaissance, as well as currently being the manager of this firm. She’s also a great person, and one of the few real estate people I think quite highly of. Believe it or not, not everyone wants to be, or work for, Corcoran. There is so much in our communities that people just don’t know about, and we have always had quite a lot before we were “discovered.”
I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to offend anyone. I just have kids and I can’t justify paying that much to be a hop, skip and a jump from Bed Stuy. I’ve heard the G train is a little dodgy as well.
In 2002 I was able to buy a Park Slope fixer-upper because it was listed with a small broker from outside the neighborhood that did not know how to (or did not bother to) properly advertise the house.
I am so glad Brownstoner did not exist back then.
very, I fear for my life. lol. Seriously, if you don’t want to look in Clinton Hill because it does not feel fully gentrified, that’s your perogative. I love the neighborhood.
It’s practically Bed-Stuy.
But isn’t it a little dangerous?
I’d call that an “ok” area. Not great or good.
He said it was a good area, not a great area. What is a great area in your opinion anon 1:03? Scarsdale?