House of the Day: 465 13th Street
The three-story brownstone just hit the market on March 11 but it’s already received an insta-price cut from $1,775,000 to $1,650,000. The house appears to have its details in place but it comes off as a far more modest pad than, say, last Thursday’s House of the Day at 601 6th Street. And while it’s…
The three-story brownstone just hit the market on March 11 but it’s already received an insta-price cut from $1,775,000 to $1,650,000. The house appears to have its details in place but it comes off as a far more modest pad than, say, last Thursday’s House of the Day at 601 6th Street. And while it’s a million bucks cheaper than the 6th Street House, the asking price is only about $50 per square foot cheaper. Given the difference in location, condition and grandeur, we’d argue that 6th Street is a more attractive deal. That said, on an absolute level, this is a decent way for some family to get an attractive brownstone in the Slope for not crazy money.
465 13th Street [Susan Breen] GMAP P*Shark
Well, well, we’re up to 72 comments. If only they had more than three photos of the house, I would comment on that.
I just did a casual check of real estate prices. One bedroom apartments in Oakland are high $300s, same as Jackson Heights. Houses start at $600,000. You can get a house for $500,000 in El Cerrito, which is a two-hour commute from SF.
There is one area of SF that is inexpensive (whole houses for $200,000, I believe). It’s called Hunters Point. I don’t know too much about it, except that it’s foggy and cold, of recent vintage, and near the dump and what used to be called Candlestick Park.
By the time I left, Berkeley was far out of my price range, but I probably could have bought a small apartment in downtown Oakland. I was a freelancer so the commute wouldn’t have been a problem.
Squaredrive – I agree that NY should be judged against other urban areas but the fact it is still expensive vs. many other urban areas. People in the boom years were fond of saying how NYC was actually not expensive compared to a few other major cities worldwide, but in this global crisis, many of those other cities are going bust too and along with them, their real estate markets.
And yes, the market does set prices, but the market is not some arbitrary force. It depends on things like salaries, job security, confidence, cash reserves, etc. All of those things are in dwindling supply now (whereas as they were overly abundant during the boom). There is a reason there are boom and bust cycles and we have all the ingredients now for a classic bust. It’s one thing for RE prices (or anything in life) to be unfair, it’s another for them to be totally irrational, and the kind of pricing that some sellers are still clinging too is totally disconnected from the new market forces, which demand a sharp correction.
My household income is high by US standards (not NY standards) and we can’t afford this house or pretty much any house in Pslope. But i’m not going to whine about how it’s unfair. We’ll either save up or leave.
The market sets prices — prices will fall when people aren’t willing to pay as much, but as long as there are willing buyers, prices will stay high, whether or not anyone thinks it’s fair, reasonable, or affordable. And comparing NYC it to any other US city is a complete waste of time. “Affordability” should be measured against Tokyo, London, Paris, etc, etc. Not Syracuse.
MM, I think it’s quite difficult to compare NYC and the Bay Area because of the finer grain, so to speak, of the neighborhoods there. Within SF itself there are plenty of lower priced areas, but they get the same rap as, say BedStuy used to 10-15 years. And they’re changing too (ie gentrified).
Oakland has vast areas where you’d have to be a serious urban pioneer to want to live in, (E New York? I’m not that familiar with boroughs outside my narrow purview.) The public transit is much worse than here unless you’re very near the BART line. BART is more like LIRR with many fewer stations than the typical subway system but much higher frequency. And it *is* clean and fast. But to reach my two friends in Oakland from SF via BART is difficult though (or maybe because) they live in very expensive areas. Buses practically stop after 7pm in Oakland. Car use is much higher in the Bay area.
Wait, isn’t the BART used in both San Fran and Berkeley/Oakland? Of course, it’s always hard to compare cities since the NYC borough system is quite different than the surrounding areas of other cities – but my point is that if Manhattan is the business core of NYC, and San Fran the core of Bay area, I do think it’s fair to consider Oakland/Berkeley as analogous to NYC boroughs. It is very quick to get to San Fran from these surrounding areas. And the prices are just coming down a lot in Berkeley, that’s for sure. Brooklyn is still more expensive but that is likely going to change!
P.S. They’re more comparable to New Jersey than Brooklyn — not the same subway system.
Oh I wasn’t using “affordable” in any technical sense. I just meant “affordable” for a two-earner couple both working government jobs, which seems to be a common pattern in Bed Stuy.
Miss Muffet, what’s the latest on Berkeley and Oakland?
Sorry Mopar, have to disagree again. I have family in the Bay Area and I know for a fact that housing is much more reasonably priced in decent parts of Berkeley (which I think is fair to compare to Brooklyn) than in the more popular areas of Brooklyn (and I’m not even talking “prime” but more at the fringes i.e. south slope). And Oakland has great deals too. And prices have softened a lot more out there than here so far. For reasons I don’t quite get, you seem to have a bee in your bonnet to insist that NYC is much more affordable than others say, but you are really a chorus of one, and frankly, I think you’re just wrong.