House of the Day: 231 Bergen Street
Hope springs eternal. Granted the developer who bought this place in February ’06 has done a masterful job of squeezing every last square inch of usable space out of this four-story brick house on Bergen between Bond and Nevins, but we’d like some of what he was smoking when he set the asking price of…
Hope springs eternal. Granted the developer who bought this place in February ’06 has done a masterful job of squeezing every last square inch of usable space out of this four-story brick house on Bergen between Bond and Nevins, but we’d like some of what he was smoking when he set the asking price of $3,900,000 (or $3,600,000, depending on whether you believe the NYT listing or the listing on the Cobble Heights site). This doesn’t seem even remotely likely for this location, especially when every ounce of character has been wrung out of this place, starting with the institutional-feeling garden. If modern’s what you want, why not take the most expensive State Street Town for a million bucks less?
231 Bergen Street [Cobble Heights] GMAP P*Shark
Did anyone see that house in Fort Greene – the one on Carlton by Willoughby?
Re: “inflated” prices —
I think what is so disconcerting for those of us who have lived in New York for many years is to experience directly that whole income inequality thing. A very small percentage of the population has seen its income go up quite dramatically in recent years, while most of the rest of us have seen either much more modest gains or none at all. It seems that as a result of the largesse our economy is lavishing on the top whatever-fraction-of-a-percent, real estate prices in NYC are through the roof.
Ever since I moved to NYC, Manhattan was pretty much for rich people, but Brooklyn was affordable. If I were a young person moving to NYC now, I would probably be looking for a place in Queens or the Bronx.
It’s not that areas becoming more desirable and therefore more expensive is a new phenomenon, but I think that over the last 10 years in NYC, “gentrification” (if that’s even still the right term, I don’t know) has been more rapid and dramatic than it’s ever before.
“It’s like some wacky villain contaminated our water supplies back in 2003-2004, and the whole city lost its friggin’ mind!”
can you please explain? i’m being serious.
while i think prices might be slightly inflated, i don’t think there are at all out of line what other large, great cultural cities have in terms of a real estate market.
while i agree that this place is severely overpriced, i don’t think say…3 million for a gorgeous brownstone a block from prospect park is. i don’t think you can apply this bergen example to everything and everyone.
Wasn’t there an ad for a townhouse in Fort Greene last week-for around 1.6 million?? Did anyone go to that open house? Seems like it would be crazy to pay 1.9 for part of a house when you can get 4-5 stories for less and get rental income–or am i missing something?
I would love to agree that this place won’t fetch the asking price (and only AA representative in the 2nd post above truly captured my feelings on this), but there are a lot of idiots with money in this city. How do you think we ended up where we are now? It’s like some wacky villain contaminated our water supplies back in 2003-2004, and the whole city lost its friggin’ mind!
Oh, I agree.
But that must be the thinking here, or else I don’t see how they could reach that number.
1.9 million for a duplex in THIS location? no way.
go over to the vermeil on 7th ave and sterling and buy yourself a 3 bedroom for the same price.
Ah, but Anon 1:51, if they sell the units as condos rather than rent out two of the units and live in the third, then they can sell the duplexes for $1.9 mil each and the floor through for $800K and make $700,000 on the deal. Or at least that’s the thinking here.
The listing is even advertising it as a condo opportunity, not a live in and rent out one.
IMO, this won’t sell at the price.
I really don’t get these multi-unit townhouses over 3million.
Sure, this place is big, two duplexes and a floor through (not sure how that works in an apparently 4-story house, but whatever) and new, but what kind of rent can they really expect from the other units?
I pay $4k to rent a pretty nice three bedroom duplex. Giving them the benefit of the doubt lets say they can get $4.5k for the duplex and $2.5 for the floor through (not sure if it is one or two bedrooms). That $7,000 in monthly income buys you $1.2mil in mortgage. Thus, by my rough calculation the owner of this place is paying around $2.4mil for their duplex. You can buy and renovate whole buildings for that much. Am I missing something?