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It’s fair to say that the current owners of 557 7th Street got a good deal when they purchased this limestone house at 557 7th Street in Park Slope for $1,460,000 in 2006. According to the new listing, they’ve done some “updating” work in the meantime and are trying to fetch $2,200,000. Before they try to do that, they should try to get up some more photos; it’s hard to tell from the one photo provided what the 16-foot-wide house is really like. Do you think they have a shot at getting this asking price?
557 7th Street [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark


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  1. Also NorthsHeights, the whole supply-demand argument, while I agree has helped prices not totally collapse, is one of many old saws used throughout the run-up to justify the skyrocketing – you know, trends towards urbanization, NYC is so desirable, etc. etc. But there are very real shifts happening in the city right now, between people losing jobs, taxation changing, etc. and these are factors too, not to mention more sellers who may not have the luxury of “staying by the sidelines”…

  2. Also NorthsHeights, the whole supply-demand argument, while I agree has helped prices not totally collapse, is one of many old saws used throughout the run-up to justify the skyrocketing – you know, trends towards urbanization, NYC is so desirable, etc. etc. But there are very real shifts happening in the city right now, between people losing jobs, taxation changing, etc. and these are factors too, not to mention more sellers who may not have the luxury of “staying by the sidelines”…

  3. Sorry, meant to say imagining a house like 8th ave selling for 1.5 next winter (unless of course, that specific house itself needs more price drops). For crissakes, today’s HOTD was only 1.4 in 2006 – the escalation in prices since then is exactly the kind of madness that will now evaporate! Sure, maybe prices won’t go back to 2000 but they could easily roll back 4-5 years, if not more. Even 3 years ago, you could indeed buy decent PS houses for under 1.5! (and I am not one of those primadonnas that needs 20’…)

  4. “This is why even nice houses in prime areas are not immune from the market collapse that is just beginning.”

    Not to restate the obvious, but it all comes down to supply and demand. Sure, there will be short-term price drops as those sellers who need to sell (relocation, divorce, job loss, etc.) encounter weak-to-non-existent demand because of economic uncertainty. But all of the other potential sellers are sitting on the sidelines. In certain prime areas, all it’s got to take is a little lifting of the uncertainty and there will be much more demand meeting not a lot of inventory. I’m thinking for example of the Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill markets. In BH, even in the recent bubble years, only 15-20 houses traded hands a year. But now, it’s dead. Except for a couple of trophy houses that were on the market for a while and closed in December, there hasn’t been a single sale in the last 5 months. If you’re a seller now (like yesterday’s HOTD), you might have to chop a lot to get a deal done. But if you’re a buyer, you have nothing to choose from. Once people feel comfortable again pulling the trigger they’re going to have to support a certain level of pricing to get other sellers to come into the market.

  5. Sorry, Mopar, I can’t resist. If 617 8th Ave, which started basically at $2.6mil, and winds up selling for $1.7-$1.8 mil (not implausible since that would represent a mere 10-15% off ask, which everyone says is the minimum buyers expect these days), then that’s a discount of 700-800K. Yes, the initial ask was nutty, but in retrospect, they all were at the peak of the bubble, when these houses were selling in the 2-3mil. Given that everyone agrees that things are going to go down further before they stabilize, then projecting, as an example, that particular house selling for 1.5 come next winter – really, that is extremely plausible.

  6. While I certainly understand the inflation component of Bobjohn’s comment re adding 86 percent to 2000 prices, I think adding the full value of the reduction in interest rates to come up with an apples-to-apples comparison is ridiculous. Frankly, it is this focus on monthly payments that got folks into so many problems already.

    It is wonderful that today’s buyers can enjoy such low interest rates, but they also should FEAR these low rates and it will put great pressure on pricing in the future when rates climb back up (as they surely will). If you are going to live in your house for 30 yrs and pay off the mortgage, it isn’t a concern, but for everyone else you are taking the same economic risk as you would be if you took a long position on treasuries. In contrast, buyers who buy during high interest rate times get killed in the initial interest rates, but then reap the rewards as interest rates decline.

    If it were true that house prices factor in the full value of lower interest rates because of their effect on monthly payments, I would much, much prefer to buy in a high interest rate environment…

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