House of the Day: 47 Willow Place
47 Willow Place (along with its three sister houses at 43, 45 and 49) is one of those houses that makes Brooklyn Heights such a special place. The 21-foot-wide Greek Revival structure is particularly notable for the colonnade that runs continuously along the facade of all four houses. The $3,450,000 asking price is on the…
47 Willow Place (along with its three sister houses at 43, 45 and 49) is one of those houses that makes Brooklyn Heights such a special place. The 21-foot-wide Greek Revival structure is particularly notable for the colonnade that runs continuously along the facade of all four houses. The $3,450,000 asking price is on the low end for a house in this neighborhood, but then again there’s only about 2,100 square feet of living space (not including the basement rec area) in this one. 49 Willow Place traded for $2,300,000 back in 2004, though we have no idea what kind of shape it was in. This house, though, has been recently renovated. So what do you think?
47 Willow Place [Corcoran] GMAP P*Shark
There are two real downsides to this place — the lengthy walk to the subway and the relatively shallow lot on the downward slope of a westward facing hill. This means that morning light arrives later after the sun is already relatively high. On the afternoon (front side), the light is being somewhat filtered by the BQE rising out of the Hicks Street trench, so that may be a little bit of a bummer as well.
OTOH, these light issues are much better than they would be down on Columbia Place.
On the plus side, it’s a nice location in the south side of Brooklyn Heights on a quiet street — very nice for a family with 2 or 3 kids (although PS 8 is pretty far and almost requires a cab ride).
It should be priced more like a 2100 sq ft house in Cobble Hill, so I think this will go for around $2.8 or $2.9M, depending on how dark most of the bedrooms are.
2:52 = BROWN HARRIS STEVENS BROKER
I think its great that people writing diabolical English can nevertheless make a decent living as a broker.
saw this house. it is TINY, and the top floor has bedrooms that slope down dramatically. you can barely stand up in there. front bedroom on top floor has skylights but no windows. tiny little rooms for tiny little people – would not put my children in there.
house in general is small, though nice enough renovation. dealkiller for me though is that from backyard & front porch, the BQE is blaringly loud. as soon as you step onto front porch, you can see a large strip of it – so the “tucked away on a quiet street” concept is totally blown. though I will grant that I could not hear the BQE from inside the house.
as with almost all current corcoran listings, this one is about $1m overpriced – and I am not talking about from what I think it should be…I’m talking about based on comps from 2007 and 2006, when the market was peaking.
corcoran has obviously decided to bump up prices by $1 million & force sellers to hold at those prices (regardless of how much they beg to lower them) because they want to create noise in the system. they want to create a facade that prices are holding, but if you watch carefully & do your research you can see that nothing is selling at the inflated prices. (I can really only speak to the Heights & Cobble Hill where I am looking to buy.) if a place really sits for a long time, it gets taken off the market & placed with a new broker – a la 135 joralemon, which was taken down from corcoran & brown harris stevens will be relisting shortly (we’ll see if it is at a lower price).
but it only takes a quick look on streeteasy to see where even the meaningless asking prices are going – and that is down. every listing I am tracking (brownstones in the aforementioned hoods) is sitting. they are lowering prices or telling me to make an offer b/c the prices are negotiable, but the prices are still so far away from what they even were a year or a year and a half ago that it is crazy.
BUYERS: if they can collude, then so can we. let’s all do our research and pinky swear not to go up from comps of last year. let’s get prices in line with incomes!
Should move quickly. Nice place, prime neighborhood. Agree with some others that it appears “cheap” for the area.
Is it just me, or is this house kind of ugly? I mean, sure, it’s old, but there’s something inelegant about its proportions.
I agree with Montrose. No doubt this will sell for close to asking.
It’s the Heights. This is cheap for BH.
Hey 2:04
As much as I love to take potshots at The What, my favorite white broker from NJ posing as a Black Brooklynian, I do have to inform you that he did NOT make up the term, “asshat”.
Just being a wordsmith…its been around fora while.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ass-hat
Oh yeah and back on topic. For the house and the area, price seems right. WAY overpriced for my lifestyle and wallet but a perfect fit for some sucka’. Seems fair at 3.5 mil.
A house like this in NJ would have taxes of 50K a year.
A nightmare.