House of the Day: 1234 Dean Street
The exterior of this house at 1234 Dean Street in Crown Heights is interesting, and the interior is probably in bad shape but full of old details. Unfortunately, however, the house is still classified as an SRO, even though it’s being used as a one-family residence. Why does that suck? It’ll be hard to finance…
The exterior of this house at 1234 Dean Street in Crown Heights is interesting, and the interior is probably in bad shape but full of old details. Unfortunately, however, the house is still classified as an SRO, even though it’s being used as a one-family residence. Why does that suck? It’ll be hard to finance and a pain in the ass to change the certificate of occupancy. It’s doable, for sure, but we suspect the asking price of $849,000 will need a big old haircut to compensate for the extra hassle and risk in the deal. In its defense, though, this is a really nice block with lots of beautiful houses on it. Still, that’s a lot of dough. What do you think?
1234 Dean Street [Douglas Elliman] GMAP P*Shark
I think you would need to know a lot more about the neighborhood and the interior before you lowball the house at 400-500,000. It may not be worth 850,000 but that depends on the interior and how much needs to be done. The block is landmarked and considered prime.
A Million dollar apartment- ugh.
I was admiring the floor plan and thinking it actually seems to be more reasonable than several of the houses we’ve seen here lately. Price seems high to me for that location, but the house seems really livable. I wish there were interior shots.
Also, I think there’s at least one elementary school around there that looks okay. The Crown or something?
Curiously, if the floor plan is accurate, it reflects the *original* configuration of the house, with only one kitchen, one third-story bath, and one toilet on the back porch. The kitchen setup is the original one, too, with the sink to the right of the fireplace. The plan shows no mantles on the parlor floor. If the plan is accurate, there is no need for renovations to change the function of the house back to a single family.
With all the hassles involved in changing the c of o, the easiest route would be just to torch it for the insurance money.
Tyburg,
To be fair, the co-op of the day today is in a Rosario Candela full service building (only one of 2 in Brooklyn).
The same person who brought us 740 Park Avenue and a lot of other really special apartment houses on the Upper East and Upper West sides.
Different strokes for different folks.
correct–the process we described was the process of getting the Certificate of Non Harassment. After that the actual C of O change at DOB isn’t that big a deal.
11217 — I agree with your comments above. This isn’t a real gem. I guess my reaction was more the severity of the contrast. 50% chop on a single-family home (ignoring the C o’ O issue) seemed pretty severe compared to saying a million dollar apartment was “priced right.”
I’d like to reiterate, that I find BOTH price tags only appealing to folks that are a bit squishy in the head. 🙂
on the flip side, the exterior of this place looks to be in fairly good condition. SROs rarely do, as they have succcumbed to a good deal of wear-and-tear with no loving owner to make repairs. this case might be different with only 1 family residing on the premises.
as far as financing goes, yes, it’s true, it’s much harder to get a mortgage. banks used to require that you take out a renovation loan at the same time to insure that you were going to convert the place asap.
rather than going to big banks, potential buyers might want to look to family owned or smaller loaning institutions. the mortgage company on the corner of 7th avenue and 9th street in PS comes to mind. they “work” with the appraiser and assuming you have excellent credit, something might be worked out.
and brownstoner, i thought HPD was only involved in the beginning of the process, when the owner applied for a cert of no-harassment, not in the actual change of C of O. the cert of no-harassment is such a huge hassle, the price should be less on that basis alone.
Ah, thanks. I’m dealing with a C of O now and it has been pretty formulaic.