House of the Day: 491 1st Street
While the listing is woefully lacking in interior photos, we’d be willing to bet that there are some pretty nice old bones inside 491 1st Street. (The listing cites “pocket doors, shutters, stained glass, front & back bay windows, parquet floors and woodwork.”) The four-story brownstone is lovely from the outside and happens to sit…
While the listing is woefully lacking in interior photos, we’d be willing to bet that there are some pretty nice old bones inside 491 1st Street. (The listing cites “pocket doors, shutters, stained glass, front & back bay windows, parquet floors and woodwork.”) The four-story brownstone is lovely from the outside and happens to sit in the middle of a row of equally charming houses. The house is a slightly smaller scale (18 feet wide, small top floor) than many of the houses that grab headlines in this part of town. Luckily, then, it’s also priced lower at an even $2,000,000. The big question, then, is what the renovation will run? If you can do it for $300,000 or $400,000, then this is probably a decent deal. If you’re talking $700,000 or $800,000, then this is a tougher sell.
491 1st Street [Townsley & Gay] GMAP P*Shark
Photo by Kate Leonova for PropertyShark
Union Street has buses and trucks and more cars. More house on Union St. does not make a better purchase than 1st street. Lived on Union once – never again.
I heard from someone I know who owns one of these houses with the little windows on the top floor that they were done this way originally to save on taxes – something about them being treated not as a floor when originally built for tax purposes – don’t know if this is correct, or not.
They can be made into a decent space, though if I owned one, that floor would be for the tenants, not for me (or my kids if I had any), nor any servants (which I wouldn’t have.)
This has to sell to someone who wants a one-family house. Nobody would spend $2 million plus $800K renovations (that is what it would take) to live on only 2 or 2.5 floors of a 18-foot house.
It’s just something sellers in Park Slope will have to confront, as houses get up into a certain price per square foot. That they’re not going to sell to somebody who needs the rental income to pay the mortgage, anymore. Those buyers in that price range (under $2 million including renovations) will have to look at other options. And ironically though that is a lot of money, that kind of buyer is soon to be priced out of Park Slope.
True. Bay Ridge has a very large Middle Eastern community that is growing and spreading. But in terms of politics and the old timer power base it is still very white Republican.
Hey 3:54, I don’t care to hear about your Home Depot counter tops and recessed lighting. thx
7:01, Property Shark and other databases based on DOB records usually do not count the garden level as a floor even if it is only slightly below grade. It’s referred to as a “basement” and not counted, even though it is perfectly usable space.
bag ridge doesnt have many black people but has plenty of other ethnic groups
kinda dumb to say its filled with whities.
More like a mockumentary, given the farfetched subject matter
The whole of Bed Stuy has been off-limits to white buyers for generations. New York City, segregated as precisely as Johanesburg, had its white nabes and its black nabes, period.
The amazing thing is that people under forty, certainly those under thirty, are completely race-blind. Voluntary apartheid crumbles!!
Someone should do a documentary, although of course there are never entirely happy stories, many will be displaced, new Park Slopes will spring up in areas formerly thought of as entirely Caucasian-free. It is an intersting story. The next twenty years will transform the old segregated neighborhoods north of 64th Street -nothing will change Bay Ridge for a hundred more years.
Looks like Bed-Stuy to me.
How long do you suppose people shopping around for a Brownstone will pass over 700k 2800 sq ft brownstone properties in Bed-Stuy, when there are no other neighborhoods left in New York with brownstones at a cheaper price?
Gentrification pressure from the west
(clinton hill) and south(Crown Heights), hassidic pressures from the north(Williamsburg) and hipsters from the east(Bushwick).
someone should do a documentary on this socio-economic struggle.