House of the Day: Wood for 52 Midwood
This gorgeous house at 52 Midwood Street is a bit of a hot potato. The property changed hands in 2004 for $540,000 and then again in 2005 for $775,000. It looks like the owner took out a second mortgage for $200,000 three months after buying it — perhaps to get the house into the beautiful…
This gorgeous house at 52 Midwood Street is a bit of a hot potato. The property changed hands in 2004 for $540,000 and then again in 2005 for $775,000. It looks like the owner took out a second mortgage for $200,000 three months after buying it — perhaps to get the house into the beautiful shape it’s now in. And beautiful it is. Our first impression is that this isn’t the work of an amateur. Both the interior decoration and even the photographs are totally pro. (Look at those flowers in bathroom window!) We’d love to hear from those of you who hit the open house on Sunday. Did the real thing match the photos? Is $1,525,000 achievable for a brownstone in PLG right now?
52 Midwood Street [FSBO/NYT] GMAP P*Shark
We live in PLG and have not heard gunshots yet. I never know what people are talking about when they say that. L.A., that’s a place you hear gunshots. It’s nuts. Even in my West Hollywood house near Beverly Hills (which just sold again recently for $1.3 million) I would hear gunshots occasionally, and the helicoptors would fly in low with their search beams on looking for someone. This was in the mid to late 90’s. In the early 90’s in east Hollywood up near Beechwood Cyn, forget it. Gunshots and helicoptors nearly every single night.
Phones in bathrooms rock.
Bob’s right. The people we’ve met in LM and PLG love it and plan to stay. Their boosterism is genuine enthusiasm. Also it’s because everyone would like to attract better amenities. That’s something neighborhood groups are working on.
Well put, Prosperpark.
i *adore* the phone in the bathroom.
Dreamin,
32 years, actually.
With apologies to the late Everett McKinley Dirksen, a million here, a million there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money 🙂
It’s probably true that it “is in… [my] best interest to hype …[my]neighborhood”, but my boosterism is as much a matter of wanting to share a good thing–I don’t care about driving prices up because I’m NEVER selling my house! FWIW, I much preferred the days of Everett Ortner’s “school teacher’s coup” when ordinary middle class people could buy a brownstone and live “like millionaires” for very little money. Being an ACTUAL millionaire (in terms of property value) only increases my real estate taxes.
No hard feelings.
* It’s about four minutes from the park (unlike Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn Heights).
* It’s about ten minutes from the Brooklyn Museum (unlike every brownstone neighborhood save for Prospect Park).
* It’s on the Q, which means you have relatively easy access to pretty much anyplace in Manhattan (unlike Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, much of Park Slope, Fort Greene, and Clinton Hill) via Atlantic/Pacific. What’s more, the Q is an express train. Unlike the F.
* The historic LM district is the only brownstone neighborhood that’s been zoned exclusively for one-family homes, which means you have more stability, you have more integration, and you have more houses that haven’t lost the interior architectural detail that helped make them so unique in the first place. That’s why you see things like the Maple Street School and active community efforts to bring a wider range of cultural offerings, which is precisely the kind of thing you don’t see in many other neighborhoods.
* It’s underpriced relative to every other brownstone neighborhood in the borough, and is way underpriced compared to every other neighborhood that borders the park.
* Because it’s (relatively) underpriced, there’s been more interest in the area among the kind of artistic/intellectual people that fueled the transformation of many other Brooklyn neighborhoods.
But all of this has been discussed ad nauseum. I’m not sure many — or any — of these points are really arguable, just as I’m not sure how it’s arguable that there’s a wide range of restaurant options, an organic supermarket, hip bar, a B&N, a Gap, or top-notch public schools nearby. There’s a tradeoff in most things. Real estate is never any different. Some people will find the points above worthwhile; some people would prefer to spend their $900,000 (or $1.5 mil) on a 2-BR condo (or two floors of a brownstone) in the Heights.
There’s also no real argument to made that you’re going to hear gunshots there. Based on statistical evidence, you’re much, much more likely to hear gunshots in, say, 10012…you know, that crazy dangerous Soho neighborhood where four people were gunned down last week. Or be killed in 10014, where there’ve been, in the last two years, a hate stabbing and a dead body found draped over a fence. (And no, I’m not arguing either of these neighborhoods aren’t perfectly safe places to live. Unless, of course, you find Sex and the City tours dangerous.)
Hey Brownstone Dreamin – your facts are WAY off. For starters, the owner of PlanetPLG is leaving New York City altogether for reasons that have nothing to do with PLG. In fact, you should ask him how he feels about the neighborhood. If he were staying in NYC, he would be happy to stay in PLG.
I saw both the Midwood and Ocean Ave houses. The Ocean Ave house has great potential but unrenovated, and on the verge of falling apart. It will be a gem one day. This one is pristine and new. Issues of location aside, the houses themselves are like comparing an old fixer-upper and a brand new house.
Prosper, please be SPECIFIC about the unique advantages of PLG over any other Brownstone Brooklyn neighborhood – I don’t care about the disadvantages.