House of the Day: 202 Clermont Avenue
While this four-story brick townhouse at 202 Clermont Avenue still has many of its original details, they are overwhelmed, in our opinion, by the charmless, albeit thorough, renovation that was performed back in 2005. If there was any doubt that the person doing the renovation did not understand the aesthetics of most potential buyers, just…
While this four-story brick townhouse at 202 Clermont Avenue still has many of its original details, they are overwhelmed, in our opinion, by the charmless, albeit thorough, renovation that was performed back in 2005. If there was any doubt that the person doing the renovation did not understand the aesthetics of most potential buyers, just check out that garden or the bathrooms. It’s too bad because the raw materials were there. It looks like the current owner paid $1,625,000 for the house in 2006, probably just as the previous owner was completing the renovation. It went on the market in March asking $1,725,000 and was cut to $1,675,000 in May, where it remains today.
202 Clermont Avenue [Brooklyn Properties] GMAP P*Shark
Ha. I think we’re close to the bottom in the “Eastern” parts of Brooklyn, the areas with so many subprime loans and foreclosures.
Not sure what that means for areas like Park Slope, but I do recall that in the crash of 1987/89, “prime” areas like that with good pubic schools at the time remained competitive (off maybe 20 percent).
He actually said “no one”.
No one’s going to come back and read this a day later, but I couldn;t be more happy we moved from talking about floor finishings to talking about the value of property.
While Itsy says it’s not the place for it on “brownstoner”, there is a pretty honkin pricing widget that encourages everyone to be a junior economist and try and apprasie property on the fly.
So I think it’s not that off base.
Anonymous posters on a blog do not have the power to “egg” on the market – it is much bigger than them. And, for better or for worse. capitalism is based largely on individual’s acting out of what are ultimately pretty selfish motives. But I agree it can get ugly and many people have been on both sides of the ugliness.
Oh, I don’t forget the days when the runup was crazy-I paid out the nose for that in a few different ways. And I think that those who led the warpath then were greedy, greedy, greedy. No less unsavory.
And I’m not against a realistic negative prediction.
I just mean that when buyers/sellers egg the prices on– up or down–obviously *wanting* it to go that way for their own selfish purposes, and they don’t take a moment’s pause to think how all of this affects other people, it is ugly.
Denton, If you read Rosenblatt’s stuff (its archived) instead of casually dismissing him out of hand with the epithet “asshole” you’d realize he’s been pretty accurate all along with his predictions. Its not soundbites, its also not intemperate, and for a finance guy like you he explains the basis of his thesis. Its not always right, but he’s been doing pretty well.
Isty – what you seem to forget is that plenty of people suffered on the way up, getting priced out, or having to fork over way too much of their hard-earned income on housing. And yet, plenty of people were cheerleading then – how was that not unsavory? A return to 2002-03 prices is not so extreme – certainly there are those who see things as more dire. I don’t claim to know the future, just that that are always 2 sides to any situation.
I couldn’t agree more with MoneyForNothing about this: “Find the place you like, at a price in line with economic fundamentals, and buy it.” That’s what we’re all trying to do, right?
But the thing is, few of us can be so blase (accent please) or so sure about about prices that we can just plunge in at the time that seems right for us– and how do we know what’s in line with economic fundamentals? So we dither over details.
And I completely agree with you, too, that the dithering gets boring, and I’m sick to death of talk about sinks and whatnot, too, although I do occasionally need to engage in that for practical purposes. But if you want macro-economics and not a discussion of brownstones, you’re in the wrong place, really. This site is called “brownstoner”.
But what gets me more is the blast of negativity– and I can be a pretty negative person myself sometimes– about the “economic fundamentals”, not because it’s wrong, but because it seems so ideologically driven.
I mean, Miss Muffett wants prices to fall. But surely she must realize that a lot of people will suffer– and I’m not talking about asshats here– when that happens. So cheerleading for it just seems a little.. unsavory.
1.5 let’s go baby!
This thread reminded me of that NY Lotto commercial when money was falling out of the sky and the husband was telling the wife they should wait. Classic.