House of the Day: 358 Washington Avenue
We wish we had the money and the time to take on a renovation project because this brownstone at 358 Washington Avenue, at the corner of Lafayette, is just calling out to be restored. The 3,500-square-foot house has tons of beautiful architectural details to work with. In addition, because it’s a corner house, it has…
We wish we had the money and the time to take on a renovation project because this brownstone at 358 Washington Avenue, at the corner of Lafayette, is just calling out to be restored. The 3,500-square-foot house has tons of beautiful architectural details to work with. In addition, because it’s a corner house, it has windows along the entire eastern exposure. Wow. And given the location, the asking price of $1,150,000 doesn’t sound crazy, though it’s obviously completely dependent on how much dough you think you’ll have to sink into bringing this place back to life. UPDATE: This just in from a broker in the know…”This guy showed it first on Friday and is taking best and final today at 5pm. Totally bonkers…Will go for over ask.”
358 Washington Avenue [Corcoran] GMAP P*Shark
Minard, your bias to the neighborhood is showing through and is not true to the reality of today. It will not automatically become 4 floor throughs. There are many homes in this neighborhood being kept as one and two families that were purchased recently.
dibs, so that’s 60k for baths, 60k for kitchen, 10k wood refinishing. that’s 130k.
windows (if replaced) 30k (ie 1k for each window)? plumbing 60k, electrical 60k. central air 40k. new heating 40k. roof 8k. patchwork on facade and brick repointing 12k. that’s another 250k.
carrying cost over a year for renov 60k.
130 + 250 + 60 = 440k. that’s not huge.
but considering what folks with renov experience say on this blog, that feels small – ie massing 150-200k
By the way the arched opening in the parlor next to the fireplace was probably originally floor-length and opened to a projecting bay or “oriel” window. Those are beautiful.
The LPC will not make anyone put a stoop back. Dave is correct. However if you do want to put it back you will need to recreate a historic stoop which is very expensive (the ironwork alone is ridiculously expensive) then remember you will also need a new front door. So you will need to recreate a special period door and don’t forget the new areaway paving and the ironwork gate beneath the stoop. It is a project but a well done stoop is a thing of beauty forever.
This building will probably be floor-through rentals so I foresee no stoop.
The extent of the renovation costs on this one are going to be determined by how much time is necessary to make all the cornices, walls and casings acceptable to new paint or to be stripped and stained. otherwise floors are goint to run $6-10,000 to refinish as long as they are in decent shape…A few bathrooms at $20k, one large one at $40k and a new kitchen at $60k. Unkowns at this stage are the wiring, heating, roof and plumbing.
Frankly, I don’t see what’s required on the exterior except new paint. If it needs new windows then so be it but the LPC is NOT going to make them put the stoop back.
11217, a new stoop is NOT going to cost $250,000. I’d say somewhere between $40 and 100,000 depending on how original and ornate you go with on the ironwork. The masonry and the brownstoning would run about $25-30,000.
think a renovated house around here is around 1.5M. this house is a little bigger than usual (ie 3500 vs 2800 to 3200 sq ft). from the pics, it also looks nicer than usual. the trade-offs are it has no yard, G train runs underground on front sidewalk, relative busy corner (thru traffic on lafayette & washington Ave). the plus is location is decent and it is 1 of the better looking conditions fixers we’ve seen on this blog.
Given no pics, one can assume new kitchen, new bathrms and likely new electrical and plumbing. I still am amazed so many folks who have done similar renovations say renovating something like this could be over 500k and another 100k or so worth of carrying cost during the lengthy renovation period. it would be nice to have that kind of dough to even ponder this.
do banks give out renovation loans now? does that come at cost of arm & leg?
You could not get a nicely renovated brownstone of this size at this location for 1.5 million. There have been several examples of smaller, less spectacular houses going for 1.1, 1.2 in much less prime locations in Clinton Hill of late so this house nicely renovated would certainly be listed around 1.7 or 1.8. Its as nice a location as you can get for Clinton Hill unless you want to be on a side street for noise purposes. Depending on how efficiently the reno could be achieved this sounds like a good deal for somebody with the wherewithall to pull it off.