House of the Day: 531 11th Street
The owners of 531 11th Street appear to have done quite a nice job with the three-story brick house. While not as grand as many of the houses in the North Slope, this 2,800-square-foot three-family definitely has charm, though it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense for a family buyer in this current configuration….
The owners of 531 11th Street appear to have done quite a nice job with the three-story brick house. While not as grand as many of the houses in the North Slope, this 2,800-square-foot three-family definitely has charm, though it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense for a family buyer in this current configuration. It’s also tough to make the numbers pencil out as a rental property: At the asking price of $1,895,000, the monthly mortgage alone will likely be well over $10,000 a month, meaning you’d have to rent out each floor-through unit for at least $3,500 a pop just to keep the bank happy. Then there are real estate taxes, maintenance, utilities, etc. Tough.
531 11th Street [Corcoran] GMAP P*Shark
This property makes no sense as an investment (or any type of purchase anywhere near that price).
Sam, your statement that “One of the beauties of income producing properties is the depreciation write off and the other many write-offs one can take as owner.” does not work for this property. These “write offs” such as depreciation are written off against taxes that you would pay on any profits from renting this building. Unless you could rent each floor through for $4000 a month, you have no profits to write anything off against — after payment of mortgage and other expenses, you would be operating at a loss. Accordingly, the “beauties” of investments don’t work here. No rational investor would get anywhere near this property at this price. Needs to come down by at least 40% before it starts to make sense.
The HOTD at 407 8th Street listed for 1.425 and Streeteasy says it sold. No closing price has been listed yet though.
Betancourt had this listing for months and could not sell it (at same price) so seems as the sellers are trying to see if Corcoran can do any better – but if it did not sell already, they should realize the price is too high. I saw it and found it disappointing – huge amount of work to turn into 1 or 2 family, and definitely does not make financial sense as a 3. I know several people who have snapped up 3 families in the area for far less. I foresee a significant price chop for this to sell.
This is a twin of the same house as a HOTD on 8th Street, right?
http://bstoner.wpengine.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/02/open_house_pick_170.php
what did that go for, if it was ever sold?
Ah, that makes a certain sense. Thanks Sam.
The buildings that have those angled bays from top to bottom are usually “flats buildings” -their historical name-A single family home will usually have architectural variation from one floor to the next to convey the internal hierarchy of rooms. windows will get shorter higher up, a prominent bay will protrude above the doorway or stained glass transoms will grace the parlor floor, etc. Buildings that have exactly the same features from top to bottom like this one, express the fact that they contain repetitive apartments. that’s my take.
In terms of the plans, the placement of the toilets and kitchens are typical of these kinds of early multi-family houses.
We see a lot of chopped-up single family houses on this site (some done worse than others) so it is natural to assume that this is also a chop job. But I would wager this one was originally built as cold- or hot-water flats.
Sam 2:15pm:
If you want an “investment” go buy 4 850sf 1-bed condos at Novo for $500k each, rent them for $3,000 each, make $ right away, same price.
Don’t try to pitch this p.o.s. (531 11th Street) as making sense as an investment.
Sam – I’m just curious – what about the floorplans leads you to the conclusion that this was originally built as an apartment building?
To me this look pretty much like every other cutup townhouse. Worse than many, actually, as one could have easily fit two bedrooms into each floor and made more money in rent.
A couple of thoughts. First of all, this building was never built as a single-family house I don’t believe. It was built as flats from the beginning. it has that look and the floorplans look like they were always apartments. secondly the rent roll is the most iportant thing but there is also depreciation and long-term return. Very few investments make a lot of money right away. One of the beauties of income producing properties is the depreciation write off and the other many write-offs one can take as owner. If the property is not rent regulated it will turn a profit for sure in a few years, in the meantime it helps alleviate tax burden you may have from other holdings. Life is complicated.