House of the Day: 168 Midwood Street
This three-story limestone house at 168 Midwood Street in Prospect Lefferts Gardens is chock full of old-school details and has been recently renovated to bring the kitchen and baths up to date. It’s got a nice feel to it, which is good because the owner (who’s selling it herself) is trying to sell it for…
This three-story limestone house at 168 Midwood Street in Prospect Lefferts Gardens is chock full of old-school details and has been recently renovated to bring the kitchen and baths up to date. It’s got a nice feel to it, which is good because the owner (who’s selling it herself) is trying to sell it for almost double what she paid in 2004. The asking price now is $1,350,000, versus $730,000 four years ago. Of course, prices in the nabe have gone up dramatically in that time and she put some dough into the reno. There was an open house yesterday. Did anyone stop by?
168 Midwood Street [FSBO] GMAP P*Shark
I know the block and love the houses on it. (love the ones west of Bedford even more, but that’s not the point – those have asking prices of $1.5MM usually).
Having said that, the house feels rather austere in terms of color, surfaces, details and definitely – d e f i n i t e l y – the mismatched chairs around the parlor floor dining table are not a pretty picture. I mean – not a picture that would sell.
The windows should match the cornice, all dowagers need to have their accessories match. Otherwise they are not well-dressed.
If the owner painted the windows all black and put some red flowers on the window sills the place would look awesome. It just needs some jewelry. I’ve seen other houses in the area that have done what I describe, and they look amazing.
She really needs to get a friend with some basic understanding of photography.
The real estate market has boomed big time since 2004 and it shows no sign of retreat in brownstone Brooklyn, so why shouldn’t the owner sell for twice what she bought it for?
It looks nice and is cheaper than a three bedroom walk-up in Park Slope.
Plus it has the added advantage of not being in Park Slope.
The problem with NYC real estate is that someone can put “up and coming” and $1.35 million in the same advertisement. In no other city in the US does someone pay that much for “up and coming”, I don’t care how nice the house is.
People used to buy in up and coming areas because it was affordable. Houses like this are not affordable to middle class families who “only” have an income of $125,000 – $150,000. They might as well buy in Maplewood or Montclair, NJ where you can still get a house for well under a million, and a decent public school system, all the way up to high school. We were fortunate to buy a brownstone in a great neighborhood in Brooklyn before the crazy run-up in prices. But if I were a young family now, I’d spend $500,000 to buy in an “up and coming” area of Queens instead of 3 times that for a neighborhood in Brooklyn that seemingly has already priced out middle class families.
The place is about 3000 square feet. I remember when she bought it. It needed a complete renovation I’m sure she spent over 300,000 on the renovation, if not 400,000. It has new everything.
Place is small and doesn’t look like it’s worth over $1MM. These fringe areas are going to be hit hardest in pull-back.
Maybe she could hire a photographer for her $1.35M.
Or take pictures in the right season so the listing doesn’t look as bad as it does.