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
Dreamin,
While the Ocean Ave. house is a very nice, it doesn’t really compare to the 10 magnificant limestones on that stretch of Ocean, much less the Midwood street house which is far bigger and is part of what many (including me) think is the nicest row of houses in Lefferts Manor and the PLG Historic District.
i just dont see how this house is $600K better than the house on the Park, on Ocean Ave, from a couple weeks ago nor do i see how either B’Stone on Clinton/Kane is only $1M better…sorry
linusvanpelt,
The “Bob Marvin 1/2 ratio rule” (PLG:Park Slope that I’ve mentioned before (w/o expecting to have a”rule” named after me, he modestly said) is something I’ve observed over most of the 32 years I’ve lived here. It looks to me as though this ratio has been broken in the last couple of years with PLG (or at least LM) prices inching up to, perhaps 60 percent of PS. Brownstone Dreamin’s 1/3rd would really be a dream, and a great bargain if you could find it.
Anon. 11:30 (and 12:55) has the wrong house (and, probably wrong nabe). NO parking (although street parking is pretty easy in LM), NO elevator, NO “Moroccan party room” (chic or otherwise–maybe he’s thinking of the Rockefeller house in the Bklyn Museum–LOL)and certainly no two-family use.
BTW, thank you Dan for posting that map–I get so tired of posting the street boundaries of PLG, LM, and the PLG HD.
“Where exactly is PLG? Street Borders and what is it actually like?…. comparatively speaking..”
Here’s a map:
http://www.planetplg.com/images/plg-map.gif
Cautious — are you a mortgage broker? (I’m not being snotty — I’m curious.) Or is there some easy, publicly accessible way to determine where there are subprime mortgages? I don’t know why I’d assume there are more there than anywhere else. And if there are, there’d actually be less risk in the city than elsewhere; even buyers who bought three years ago won’t have any problem getting above what they bought for; it just means they might not make any money back b/c of the interest they were paying.
Regardless, I can’t see how $1.5 for this could be called a “premium” when you look at what places are getting anywhere else in Brooklyn…or anywhere else north of Brooklyn college, anyway. It’s a pristine, four-story brownstone with a backyard, a dry basement, 4-zone AC, new wiring, blah blah blah, and it’s selling for under $400 a square foot. I’m not sure you could get that kind of price/value ratio anywhere else (again, north of Brooklyn college). There are obviously factors that depress the prices in PLG — amenities, schools, crime, etc — but $1.5 for that, in this city, in this market, could never be called a premium.
One last thing: I’d definitely agree people should only buy in the neighborhood (or any neighborhood) if they want to live there now; people who speculate with their own houses can end up getting burned and being miserable. And it’s true that people have been saying for years that PLG is on the cusp of “turning.” People were also been saying for years that Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill were on the cusp of turning (despite the projects); that Fort Greene and Clinton Hill were on the cusp of “turning” (despite the projects and the lack of public transportation); that Windsor Terrace and Sunset Park and Ditmas were on the cusp of “turning.” And in the past 5-10 years, all of them have. It’s what happened in Manhattan: all the neighborhoods that people said would never be desirable — from Tribeca to Hell’s Kitchen to the LES to Alphabet City to the meatpacking district — are now all crazy expensive. NYC is somewhat unique in that there’s no possibility of the kind of urban sprawl you see in Boston or Atlanta or Chicago. The psychological boundaries of the city are the actual boundaries of the city. Add to that the capital improvement stuff going on across the borough, the Prospect Park efforts, the insane Meier condos a mile up the road, etc., and it’s reasonable to conclude that the neighborhood will change over the next five years. And if it doesn’t, someone will still be happy with that $1.5 mil house.
Cautious, you don’t know this neighborhood at all. MANY of the homes in this nabe have been owned by their current owners for more than 30 years. This area (the manor) must have the slowest turnover in NYC! Not only is this area safe from subprime loans, most of these houses paid off their mortgages years ago! Your fear is totally unfounded.
C of O = Certificate of Occupancy. Now here’s a really dumb questions….. Where exactly is PLG? Street Borders and what is it actually like?…. comparatively speaking..
If I find myself in the throws of a converstation with the PLG Troll, I’d like to have a basis. 🙂
This house is a single family. There is no issue with the c of o.