House of the Day: 436 Classon Avenue Revisited
436 Classon Avenue is a perfect lesson in why over-pricing a house is a waste of time and, in a declining market, can result in a lower selling price than if the owner had just started with a reasonable price tag up front. Here’s what we wrote when this was a House of the Day…
436 Classon Avenue is a perfect lesson in why over-pricing a house is a waste of time and, in a declining market, can result in a lower selling price than if the owner had just started with a reasonable price tag up front. Here’s what we wrote when this was a House of the Day in March 2008:
This three-family Greek Revival at 436 Classon Avenue has a wonderful parlor floor and a front porch to boot, but we’ve got no idea what the owners are thinking asking $2,165,000 million on this street. We can’t think of a house within three blocks of this place that has fetched even $1,500,000. Keep on dreamin’.
So now the question is whether the current asking price of $1,495,000 is low enough to get a deal done. It might have been possible a year ago but seems doubtful today.
436 Classon Avenue [Brooklyn Properties] GMAP P*Shark
House of the Day: 436 Classon Avenue [Brownstoner]
I used to live, and still own a house, on Classon Ave and, while it’s not the prettiest street in the area, the majority of it is far from sketchy. It’s basically a solid family area — like much of it around the border of Bed-Stuy and Clinton Hill that gets dismissed as scary because it doesn’t look like Park Slope.
I bid on this house in 2004, and lost the sale to the woman who ultimately purchased and renovated it. We don’t know each other well, but I did meet her subsequently and got a tour of the house post renovation and have to say she’s experienced, knowledgeable and did a fantastic job. Compared to what it was, that house is a palace now. Some of the layout decisions are unusual but none of them are bad. The basement kitchen is incredibly cozy with radiant heat, etc. There were servants quarters with a second interior stair in the back, which is, I believe, what guided this layout decision. Besides, it works for her, the homeowner, and could conceivably work for some one else. It would, for example, for me. I love what she did with it.
2.1 million seemed high to me when I saw it listed last year, but I also have an idea of how much money she must have poured into the house to make it a high quality reno. The current price is definitely more in keeping with the market right now and I think she’ll find a buyer soon enough because it’s such a beautiful and unusual old house with much of the original detail intact and well preserved.
When the bogus bank bailout Ponzi scheme orchestrated first by Bush and now by Obama starts to crumble, $500,000 for this house will seem like wishful thinking.
As Chicken Little said, “The sky is falling. It’s falling, the sky.”
My Mom would always go on and on about how my one-bedroom apartment cost more than their big rambling colonial in Pennsylvania. But that’s the way it is.
A nice elegant apartment in a genteel building on a safe block can certainly be worth 50% of a big inelegantly chopped up house on an iffy block with more than its share of urban grit (read squalor). Yup!
dt – look at the LOCATION of the apt of the day. It’s dramatically superior to the location of this house.
That said, the apartment of the day isn’t worth $550k either. 😛
That block is pretty sketchy in my book.
if this was similar location as that apt, this would be 1.4M so ~3.5x
Okay people. Are you really saying that this house is only worth slightly double the price of a one bedroom apartment? Look at the apt. of the day.
location is so so. always thought that area would develop a little faster / better. Below a million will get it some action. Priced at 950 or so, house is not bad relative to other comparable ppties priced higher. @ 1.5M, keep on dreaming
“over-pricing a house is a waste of time and, in a declining market, can result in a lower selling price than if the owner had just started with a reasonable price tag up front”
…and just accepted the highest bank-approved bid regardless of the ‘reasonable’ asking price.
***Bid half off peak comps***