House of the Day: 129 Prospect Place
The curse of the crappy kitchen! This otherwise-charming brownstone at 129 Prospect Place in Prospect Heights (which was an Open House Pick last September) really hurt its chances of achieving anywhere near its asking price (originally $2,650,000 and now $2,500,000) by cutting corners on its kitchens. The house does have the fact that it’s five…
The curse of the crappy kitchen! This otherwise-charming brownstone at 129 Prospect Place in Prospect Heights (which was an Open House Pick last September) really hurt its chances of achieving anywhere near its asking price (originally $2,650,000 and now $2,500,000) by cutting corners on its kitchens. The house does have the fact that it’s five stories large going for it, but it’s also a five-family which typically carries its own set of challenges for the average family buyer. Seems to us the price still has got a ways to go.
129 Prospect Place [Brooklyn Properties] GMAP P*Shark
Hey! There’s no place on the scale for me to put my appraisal!
***Bid half off peak comps***
Yeah, $2600 x 5 per month just to make the mortgage payment… seems a bit tough.
what you would be buying here is a tenement with NYC renters, who, depending on their age and general crankiness, can match Tiffany diamonds in being “forever”.
It may be five floors, but it’s the same square footage as the 8th Avenue house yesterday that was generally deemed overpriced. And that one didn’t have the headache of reconfiguration and/or C of O converting that this will. (Right? Either you buy as an investment–see posts above–or you convert it, and as a five-family you’re facing much higher taxes if I’m not mistaken.) I estimated $1.85M and am already regretting that as too generous.
Looks to have nice bones, though, I’ll give it that.
I was just going to ask the question slopefarm raised. Why not co-op this and sell each of the floors? Floor through units in the area (including some identical ones in the buildings adjacent to this one) have been selling for $500-$650 k recently. Even if the prices have backed off this a little bit it would still fetch more than a single sale, no?
Flipper must have known no one would want this to use as a 5, so did cheapo kitchens and little wall-moving. Flipper didn’t want to lose time/money changing the c/o or undertaking a real reno. Made the floors look nice and showed off the detail. Lord knows what’s behind the walls. Assumption is anyone who wants this will take at least a duplex and, since they would reno anyway, would redo the kitchen where and how they want. Daunting. It is not priced to account for the work anyone would put into it, or as a rental. Flipper should have taken it co-op; would actually get something like asking if you combined the five sales. Beautiful house, but just the kind of job that gives me the willies.
The price is completely delusional. Say I’m an investor and intend to rent all 5 apartments. The ad says the rental income is $9.000 per month. Why am I sinking $500,000 for a downpayment, only to have mortgage and expenses that would run $15,000 a month?
That doesn’t work, so say I’m a foolish rich person with a savior complex and very deep pockets. Why would I buy this house, when I have the pick of any grand wreck I want in Cobble Hill or Park Slope for the same price or cheaper? If I wanted an expensive project, why would I pick this location and this house?
“really hurt its chances of achieving anywhere near its asking price”
$2.5 million is a stretch even if the house wasn’t all chopped up…but I don’t know, places like this are black holes for people with money. Someone will try to “save” it.
this is a tough one. the house is huge and the price/sf ($500) is actually pretty good for such a nice block in this area. but i agree that a 5-family is a big challenge.
it doesn’t help that the ugliest kitchen is right on the parlor floor.