House of the Day: 52 Montgomery Place Revisited
If you’re the owner of the gorgeous house at 52 Montgomery Place, it hasn’t felt like Brownstone Brooklyn’s been immune to the weakening national market. This 5,238-square-foot nine-bedroom first hit the market with Corcoran last April (when it was a HOTD) for $3,675,000. After four months without a deal, the owner jumped ship to Douglas…
If you’re the owner of the gorgeous house at 52 Montgomery Place, it hasn’t felt like Brownstone Brooklyn’s been immune to the weakening national market. This 5,238-square-foot nine-bedroom first hit the market with Corcoran last April (when it was a HOTD) for $3,675,000. After four months without a deal, the owner jumped ship to Douglas Elliman, clinging to the original asking price. A month ago, however, the asking price was trimmed to $3,300,000. We’d think this would be in the right ballpark (despite the fact that 60 Montgomery Place remains unspoken for at $3.450,000) but still no signed contract. What do you make of that?
52 Montgomery Place [Douglas Elliman] GMAP P*Shark
52 Montgomery Place [Brownstoner]
yeah, flea bites do not add value.
Well, I guess 7:15’s comment explains why this isn’t moving.
7:40, uhmm, That’s so funny I forgot to laugh.
wait, this house in nowhere near Clinton Hill or Bedford Stuyvesant. Where do the sellers get off asking for this much dough?
And their wallpaper is tacky. And there aren’t even two or three income-producing apartments upstairs. Forget it. They nuts?
And to top it off: no roll down gate at the front.
The sellers must be stubborn and/or are misinformed by their brokers, who are the same agents that were at Corcoran and are now with Elliman (suspicious – does anyone know why?). Why anyone shops with these huge corporate “headless” agencies is beyond me. I cannot say they are ever helpful. The attitude was sort of “How dare you question me about the price or anything?” We live in the area and thought of upgrading. We have children and saw the place earlier this year. It is in need of a major renovation and — yes, we got FLEA BITES INSIDE THE HOUSE! My husband and I had bites on our ankles. The kitchen is so old it’s possibly 1950’s, and not in the good way. I was embarassed for the family that lives there. The agents never should be showing this way. They did a disservice to the sellers. The basement appeared it was totally falling apart around us. Rear deck was rotted. I wouldn’t even go on it with more than 2 people, you seriously could fall through. That may be the only way someone will get the house – ha! Nonetheless, I think it’s worth something around $2.8M and will retain it’s value in years to come. It could be really beautiful some day, but who has the resources to fix it and continue to live somewhere else while you wait a year or more for all that to be done? Some friendly advice to the agents and seller: the asking price can not be justified without a major renovation, don’t keep comparing it to the prices your neighbors got in the past – those glory days are over and will be for years to come. Take it off the market now and fix the issues before someone gets hurt.
By the time you pay the architect, you pay the expeditor, you pay the contractor’s original fee, you pay for his change orders, you pay for the engineer, and you pay for the cost of carry while you are waiting 12-18 months for this house to be redone with new mechanicals, plumbing etc, you will EASILY be out over $1.2ml bucks if not $1.5ml. I know, You are crazy, blah, blah, BUT it is true if yo want it done right and you work forr a living.
Interesting that the PPW house linked to under the previous HOTD post for this Montgomery Place house (follow links in post above) seems to have been taken off the market. Apparently it did not sell–they were asking $3.975 in April.
Fotunate bonus to this house buyer. If you move in today comes with caged dogs in every floor. Impress your friends or just to scare your wife with caged dogs in this magnificant dream-palace of all time. All this for only $3.4 million of worthless currency. Arabs, Chinese and Russians: your looking is coming to an end result. Call me!
The market is slower than last Fall. The reason this is not selling is that the house requires considerable work and probably a year to deal with the extensive renovations. Also, initially, the owners had a number of dogs in cages throughout the house which was an unwelcomed distraction. House has great light/South exposure and feels wider than it really is but being totally realistic, you can’t live in the place for close to a year and the cost to do it properly, could be in excess of $1 mil., just stripping the wallpaper will be a chore. AC will run you over $75,000. Most people don’t wish to be saddled with this amount of work and if they do, they tend to have deeper pockets and prefer to be in Brooklyn Heights.