House of the Day: The Anti-Brownstone
We won’t waste too much breath bemoaning all the things that are depressing about this new construction in Bedford Stuyvesant. Just one question though: Even if you are building a new building of the Fedders school, do you really need to stick the utility meters front and center on the facade? The funny thing about…
We won’t waste too much breath bemoaning all the things that are depressing about this new construction in Bedford Stuyvesant. Just one question though: Even if you are building a new building of the Fedders school, do you really need to stick the utility meters front and center on the facade? The funny thing about this place, too, is that for $739,000 you could find a decent original brownstone in Bed Stuy. Is anyone really buying this crap, especially at these prices?
Bed Stuy New Construction [Craigslist]
Why, why, why would someone buy such an ugly building for such a high price? Maybe if it were 50% cheaper than a handsome if humble turn of the 20th century building, but at these BUBBLE prices? No way.
Preston makes an excellent point. Too often, the posts on Brownstoner talk about how the free market arrives at a far superior outcome compared with gov’t zoning. I’m sure without zoning, we’d have high rise towers on the side streets of Park Slope, and Fedders buildings in place of brownstones.
Hal- it’s the ‘tragedy of the commons’. The benefit to the block of the improved building design would have to be borne soley by that developer. He’d rather mooch off the increased investments in design made by his neighbors than reciprocate the favor.
Assuming, of course, that this house can last for 200 years…
I wonder what people will think of this house 200 years from now. Maybe the Fedders school will have some cache by then…
I contend that, even with the interior what it is, by making the facade even just a little more tasteful, interesting, detailed etc., the property value and the desireability of the block would improve disproportionately to the relatively small expense of designing an attractive facade.
I wonder what the inflation adjusted cost of a brand new 18.5 foot, four story brownstone would come to today. Ads in the Brookyn Daily Eagle from the turn of the century show that houses like mine were selling for $10 to $12,000 brand spanking new. That includes the beatiful mantels, stained glass windows, marble sinks, raised panel wainscoting, parquet floors, plaster crown molding, etc. etc.
Of course, that was a lot of money then, but was it a good value?
Yeah but how good of an investment is this anyway – if optimistically you got $2000 for the 3br and $1750 for the 2br this would be alot higher rent than what is currently listed on craigslist) your total RR would be:$69,000
– Youd be paying 11x RR for this – well above market value
I’m just taking a break from stripping about 50 coats of paint off of marble mantels in my brownstone and right now I’m WISHING I had the bad taste to go for one of these!
I agree that some people strongly dislike old houses.Crazy as it seems, new construction can actually be a selling point. I believe that some of these homes come complete with financing, those great 5%- down-don’t-read-the-fine-print loans.
These shoddy developers/scammers are seriously misreading the neighborhood however. They are trying to appeal to the hard-working new arrival buying a piece of the American dream, yet they’re charging gentrifier-level prices. Maybe one day they’ll get a clue…
I really wish we could attract a better class of developer instead of these bottom-feeders.