House of the Day: 41 St. Marks Place Revisited
Are we surprised that 41 St. Marks Place just underwent its second price cut? No. Do we think there will be more to come? For sure. The listing has been a disaster from the beginning. After hitting the market in mid-January for an insane $3 million, the three-family house was cut almost immediately to $2,650,000….
Are we surprised that 41 St. Marks Place just underwent its second price cut? No. Do we think there will be more to come? For sure. The listing has been a disaster from the beginning. After hitting the market in mid-January for an insane $3 million, the three-family house was cut almost immediately to $2,650,000. The 3,600-square-foot has now been cut again to $2,450,000. In addition to the mispricing, the presentation is abominable—Elliman should be embarrassed about this one. The crappy, overexposed photos only work against it. We took about five seconds to press the “enhance” button in iPhoto and improved them to what you see above. But who took the photos to begin with? That kid in the back hallway? This price has a ways to go, in our opinion.
41 St. Marks Place [Douglas Elliman] GMAP P*Shark
HOTD: 41 St. Marks Place [Brownstoner]
Right you are, 6:17.
One nit: actually, if you bought a two-bedroom coop in park slope in ’87 you had to wait until ’97 to be back to even (sell for exactly what you paid) even NOT taking anything else into account. In ’96, you would have sold it for 20-25% less than you paid.
The people saying they bought their apartment in 1995 and sold it in 2007 for a 12X gain are no different from the people who bought AOL in 1995 and sold it in 2000 for a 1000X gain. They’re assuming that the future is going to look like the past, and they’re assuming they made a great decision instead of realizing that they just got incredibly lucky.
In any case, what they’re saying has nothing to do with reality. We’re not being asked today to pay 1995 prices. We’re being asked to pay 2007 prices, which are absurdly high. And there is no way that we are going to see the same appreciation over the next ten years that we’ve seen over the last ten (or over the last five). Just because it made sense to buy in 1995 doesn’t mean it makes sense to buy today.
If you bought property in New York in 1987, you had to wait at least a decade until you were back to even, if you take into account inflation and maintenance. Prices today are much higher — in relation to rent, underlying incomes, etc. — than they were in 1987. There is no way that it makes sense, from an investment perspective, to own. Renting is and will be for the foreseeable future, cheaper and more economically sensible.
Ah yes, the old “can’t happen here” delusion.
From MarketWatch: Citing the Case-Shiller index, Seiders noted that home prices nationally have fallen nearly 10% from their peak in early 2006 and that prices were declining at a 19% annual rate in the fourth quarter. “The downward momentum was building at the end of the year,” he said.
PPW=3rd Ave
Read the report again. That’s not what it says.
@5:44 — sarcasm, yeah. But people making 390 thou are a dime a dozen. That’s just 2 associates or one Elliman broker. You don’t know how much money there is in this city and how many people like looking at hookers.
5:44 = person who thinks if he waits another year, he’ll be able to get that brownstone on PPW for 250K.
new report today says that 15.9% of homes in America will be worth less a year from now than today.
You think those will be in Brownstone Brooklyn??
Nope. They’ll be in Riverside California, Bumfuck Florida, Mesa Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Not Park Slope.
cream pies anyone?
Perhaps if out schools taught better math and finance skills, then not everybody in this country would so easily belive this crap that it is ALWAYS better to own. It clearly isn’t when you do the math (or just read the news.)
We have a long way to go in improving education here. SIGH. But it is badly needed, as those who work in the finance industry, who did know exactly what they were doing, end up running roughshod over the people who don’t get the math, but who fall for believing the propaganda “you should always own your home.”
And it isn’t just the poor suckers in forelosure who are affected by people believing this highly touted myth – we are all paying for it, and it is far from over it.
I saw this industry up close, and this credit mess we are in now is no surprise to anyone in the finance world. It was clear everyone in the finance industry was just taking their profits while they could, the inevitable future meltdown and credit and banking crisis be damned.