House of the Day: 250 Lefferts Avenue
While in some ways it doesn’t really matter, it’s hard not to get hung up on the fact that this house at 250 Lefferts Avenue changed hands 18 months ago for just $495,000 and is now asking $879,000. We’re not sure how much (if any) work was done in the interim, but if it involved…
While in some ways it doesn’t really matter, it’s hard not to get hung up on the fact that this house at 250 Lefferts Avenue changed hands 18 months ago for just $495,000 and is now asking $879,000. We’re not sure how much (if any) work was done in the interim, but if it involved those kitchens, they should have saved their money; the house would show better with old run-down appliances than with these Home Depot specials. When you compare it to last Thursday’s HOTD, 181 Midwood Street, this place looks a bit overpriced, in our opinion, despite being a bit larger. While the Lefferts Avenue house was probably at one point on a par with the Midwood house, it appears to have had a tougher life. Luckily, some redeeming original elements survived and with some renovation CPR this could still be a very nice place. But it deserves a discount to the Midwood house of more than $46,000, we suspect. Agree? It would be helpful to know what the contract price was for 242 Lefferts Avenue just down the block.
250 Lefferts Avenue [Aguayo & Huebener] GMAP P*Shark
Exactly, 3:43pm. And remember unless they got into a rent control apt early in the hipper nabes, most young people don’t get much of a choice where they live in NYC. Rent is too high in Park Slope for the “young hip renters” (YHR’s?). It’s not just the young ones. I know a couple people in their early 30’s who have good jobs making decent money, who found they can’t afford Park Slope, Cobble Hill, or Fort Greene rents. Because they actually want to have income left over for their savings, so they can buy too some day.
Well, the buildings on the corner of Midwood and Flatbush, Maple and Flatbush, Ocean Avenue, Lefferts Avenue and all along Lincoln Road are chock full of artistic types and young professionals.
3:43, point taken. All I can say is that I walk by those buildings everyday twice a day and have yet to see anyone looking like an artist going into them.
“There has been no change in the buildings along Fenimore, Rutland, Beekman, Chester, etc, which are almost 100% section 8 and are far too run-down for a college grad or artist to consider.”
I find it hard to imagine that any space with walls, floors, and a roof that keeps out the rain is “too run-down for a(n)…artist to consider” Look at the E. Village 40 years ago, LES 20 years ago, Bushwick or the South Bronx today.
Developers need to look at that amazing spot at the corner of Empire and Flatbush where Wendy’s is, for a potential highrise condo. A condo on that corner would overlook the park AND the Brooklyn Botanic Garden both. As well as have an express train (Q) literally right across the street. I ain’t Trump, but it’s like hello, so perfect.
Babs, yes, but again I don’t think you’re talking about the buildings on flatbush. Alone, those buildings have thousands of tennants–which means PLG will continue to have thousands of section 8 and other very poor people. Which in turn means that the “lower” levels of stores on Flatbush will continue to have clientele, and there will continue to be drug dealing and loitering on many corners of Flatbush. Again, I agree that many new people are moving in to the area, but my point is that many others are not moving and will continue to be a major presence.
As for 2:55’s question about Bedford: so you’re saying the neighborhood is becoming gentrified, but just don’t walk on the main street? As it happens I live closer to Flatbush and walking on Beford is out of the way.
Right on, 1:52, it’s about those who don’t respect themselves or others. It’s not a bad thing to wish for those kinds of people to be gone from our neighborhoods. NYC should seize all those Section 8 apartment buildings and turn them into affordable apartments for teachers, police, firemen, and other city workers. It would vastly improve entire neighborhoods, and it would support these people who serve us but struggle to find affordable housing and make ends meet on their low pay. As for people who don’t have any real reason for being in NYC, like who don’t have jobs or don’t contribute in any way to our communities, why are we required to provide them with a place to live? They can move to more affordable places in the country. Some people getting priced out of NYC is not a bad thing. I just wish the city had an actual plan as to how to keep the good, hardworking people of low income, in the city.
Right now so many NYPD officers live outside the city. Which is terrible. Cops living inside our NYC neighborhoods is such a good thing for the city. Even the already gentrified nabes would benefit from that. Handing out rent control and Section 8 apartments willy nilly to anybody is absurd. It is not a plan of any kind.
And are troubled by walking by buildings with Section 8 tenants or by living in them? Anyway, I’ve always thought Midwood Street and Rutland Road were overrated in comparison to Lincoln and Maple, but that seems not to be everyone’s consensus.
Landlords must continue to honor existing Section 8 tenants, but they are not required to accept new ones (and most don’t). The problem with many of these buildings is not Section 8 tenants, but many leases that were given over to various City agencies in the bad old days, with the apartments used for “warehousing” participants in various homelessness and/or drug treatment prgorams — now, years later, the occupants in many cases have absolutely nothing to do with the original tenants, or any City program, and rent payments are sproadic at best. Many of thelandlords in the area spend most of their days in Landlord-Tenant Court evicting non-paying tenants.
I have rented apartments to various young professional/artist types in several buildings on these streets, with varying results — some people are very happy and report no problems, some are not — pretty par for the couse, I’d say. Like anywhere else, a creepy neighbor can totally ruin your life, and, as we all know, drug dealing is a fact of life in NYC — it goes on in every neighborhood, and even when you don’t see it, it’s there. On the other hand, where else are you going to get a renovated, rent-stabilized studio apartment in an elevator building this close to Prospect (or any other major) Park for $1000?
And the makeup of this neighborhood is changing — as someone said above — just look at the people getting off the subway at the end of the day – and not just the Q, but even over by me at the 2 and 5. I’m amazed myself at where I see some of these people going.
And space has nothing (or not all that much) to do with it — that house is overpriced because it’s a crappy renovation (and there’s a dumpster parked out front now, and I saw workmen this morning removing garbage and construction debris out the front door – my neighbor says it was all in the back yard — must have been lovely at the last open houses).