House of the Day: 158 St. John's Place
The four-story brownstone at 158 St. John’s Place is a classic North Slope winner that we suspect will generate plenty of interest at the asking price of $2,850,000. The listing says the house needs work, but the living and bedrooms all look pretty sweet to us! Killer mahagony wood work and parquet floors. We suspect…
The four-story brownstone at 158 St. John’s Place is a classic North Slope winner that we suspect will generate plenty of interest at the asking price of $2,850,000. The listing says the house needs work, but the living and bedrooms all look pretty sweet to us! Killer mahagony wood work and parquet floors. We suspect that the kitchen, bathrooms and mechanics of the house are where the reno dollars will have to be focused. Anyone have more details on the condition of that stuff? There’s an open house coming up this Sunday for those in the $3 million bracket.
158 St. John’s Place [Douglas Elliman] GMAP P*Shark
i can see why this building is a tough sell.
once you are talking 3 million dollars, which I believe is what this place really would cost when you include renovations, you have a lot of other options other than park slope – ie: a manhattan apartment for instance.
also, understand that this is why condos are selling in the million dollar range in brooklyn. buyers who want a place to be perfect in a decent/good neighborhood (like myself) may not have the money (or time or lifestyle) to take this on. many can however, get into a condo and spend money on smaller changes or paint or furnishings, etc… and have a really nice place. the 200K per year earner can’t afford a brownstone in a good neighborhood anymore.
10 years ago, you could get into cobble hill/park slope brownstone for under a million easy and both neighborhoods were good even that far back.
now, if you have the same income (which i do, my income has not risen as fast as housing has), and you want a brownstone, you are looking at some not so safe/nice hoods. it’s a much harder decision.
for some, they’d take that same million and buy a cheaper brownstone in less established neighborhood and do just enough work to get by until they had more money. however, you have to be comfortable in that hood because gentrifying a primarily black hood with probably projects is way harder than gentrifying cobble hill was which was mostly italian (for instance).
a handy person who doesn’t mind doing this over time could do it for 300K, easy.
No, no, no you don’t. You open small areas of the plaster, rewire and repipe, and then you replaster over it. No need to gut it. No need to remove plaster work or wood work. I’ve done it. It ain’t rocket science.
yes, yes, yes, you do need to gut renovate if things like electricity and plumbing need to re-done…but, you don’t need to throw it away. many times, people dismantle parts and save in storage and then bring them back in.
I still think to RENOVATE a home like this would cost 500K to do a bang up job.
A million to GUT the place, of course keeping details in tact.
My hunch is that this is a renovation job, NOT a gut job.
“you can renovate from top to bottom with incredible finishes for 500K.”
I am in the middle of a renovation and that is not true. You find what bad things lurk behind those brownstone walls and floors. You learn what windows cost and what it costs to fix plaster and how much paint 4 floors of brownstone can take. And you haven’t even thought about wall paper. Your money flows like water. You make painful decisions and stop looking at top end fixtures because you don’t want to be depressed. You can probably do a very nice job for 500K, but not a knock-out job.
Right. That’s why I said high-end renovation, which to me means restoring all that beautiful mahogany and plaster work that NEEDS total restoration, new mechanicals, new kitchens and baths, roof, windows. And the minimum that will cost you, especially because of all the detail you have to restore, is 600K-800K.
yep, like I said, a millon clams is a real possibility
THANK YOU, 5:19.
a voice of reason.