House of the Day: 588 5th Street
Schwing! This new listing at 588 5th Street isn’t hard to get excited about. Located on a park block in the Central Slope, the single-family house has amazing original details, including parquet floors, wood moldings, mirrors, and plaster moldings. The unusual facade, a mix of brick and brownstone, is also part of the package. The…
Schwing! This new listing at 588 5th Street isn’t hard to get excited about. Located on a park block in the Central Slope, the single-family house has amazing original details, including parquet floors, wood moldings, mirrors, and plaster moldings. The unusual facade, a mix of brick and brownstone, is also part of the package. The kitchen definitely needs some renovating, but it’s huge and has some nice old built-ins that we’d want to try to keep. The asking price is $2,500,000 and we think they’ll get pretty darn close to it.
588 5th Street [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark
Oh no, Ditto, we were very careful to buy a place with only 80 percent of those problems.
Mopar – your renovation description is hilarious. I hope that sprang from your creative font and was not from an unfortunate experience.
“So I’m living with the prior owner’s finishes, wallpaper and all, until I save up enough to do the house justice.” (LowerUWSider)
Wait…you’re “saving up?” That makes no sense. The super-rich do not have to save up for anything! What kind of super-rich are you?
It bugs the crap out of me when people on here call someone like you super-rich. Or, in my book, even “rich.” Where does that leave, as you asked too, people who DO NOT HAVE TO EARN A LIVING because they have so much money?
This is ridiculous.
And income of $200K a year is not “rich” anywhere; it’s certainly not rich in New York.
It’s upper middle class, as measured purely by income. That’s what it is if you need to put a label on it.
“I have a fan!”
You have more than one fan.
Ah . . . that’s right. I think I recall from prior posts that you’ve been there, done that.
“You’d be surprised how quickly all the little stuff adds up.”
Oh no I wouldn’t.
Now that we’re back to talking about the house — I have been inspired by listing photos on many occasions only to be disappointed upon seeing the house in person. And that was when the photos looked perfect. With this house, look at the photo of the front parlor — there’s peeling paint on the bottom of the right hand wall. In the bedroom, the ceiling has crumbling plaster. Also, the floors look pretty beat up (look at the dents near the opening between the parlor and the entry hall), and someone polyurethaned around the rugs, but not under them. So there’s definitely some plaster and floor work to be done. I didn’t see any bathroom photos. That could mean pristine original tiles or unfortunate mid-century renovation. Central air would be nice, too. I see the house still has the registers from the original gravity heat system, so maybe they can be retrofitted for AC.
That being said, I still love this house. I hope someone with a preservationist inclinations buys it.
You’d be surprised how quickly all the little stuff adds up. I, too, thought my house just needed a little stripping, sanding and painting, but if you want it done right and want to do it all at once, it ain’t cheap. So I’m living with the prior owner’s finishes, wallpaper and all, until I save up enough to do the house justice.
Or, to put it another way, the average house or apartment for sale or rent in NYC looks worse than if it were on the front lines of WWII — roofs caving in, water penetrating two stories down, basements that reek of cat pee, staircases falling off the wall, air conditioners that vent into hallways, bathrooms that appeared to have been constructed by a blind, drunk handyman in 1962 and subsequently destroyed with a hammer by the same guy — and you’re saying that this house, because it has some original cupboards, which actually many people value, needs $500,000 of work.
The discrepancy between reality in NYC and what people will post on a blog is very puzzling to me.
Wait just a minute.
How is it that this house supposedly needs a $500 m renovation? Really!?
Let’s break it down:
Electrical upgrade, including plastering up the holes, will cost somewhere around $25,000.
The bathrooms and kitchen don’t appear to need anything at all. Any upgrade will be purely cosmetic and at the buyer’s discretion.
The walls are in perfect condition, it doesn’t even necessarily need paint or floor refinishing.
I don’t see a cornice problem or basement or roof or repointing or any of that.
I was just in a house in Bed Stuy last weekend that needed, truly needed, absolutely everything, and that would have come to $300,000.
So, if by “needs a $500,000 renovation” you mean “must have solid marble and gold bathrooms,” then I am sure you are right.