House of the Day: 73 Willoughby Avenue
This new brownstone listing at 73 Willoughby Avenue isn’t perfect but it’s still pretty nice, nice enough that we suspect its $1,499,000 asking price will attract some interest. Two negatives: The house is only 40 feet deep and it’s been cut up into three units. Two positives: Nice bones and good location. Now for the…
This new brownstone listing at 73 Willoughby Avenue isn’t perfect but it’s still pretty nice, nice enough that we suspect its $1,499,000 asking price will attract some interest. Two negatives: The house is only 40 feet deep and it’s been cut up into three units. Two positives: Nice bones and good location. Now for the market to decide.
73 Willoughby Avenue [Douglas Elliman] GMAP P*Shark
and BTW I’ve lived in brooklyn a long time (13+ yrs) so I think I get it…I don’t get comments that wall street bonuses will drive prices one minute, but then when you pick at that claim, they are only driven indirectly…it seems to me RE is always a trickle up type market, one guy trades up when he sells to another guy lower down the ladder. There are a few exceptions, the cash buyer, the trade down retiree, or the quirky superstar, but they are nowhere near numerous enough to support a market.
and one more thing…I fully believe that the ordinary employee probably got the shaft this year in wall street…those bonuses went to well established wall street employees who went to their bosses and showed an offer letter from another bank if they weren’t paid….In 2005, 6 and 7, everyone got the love, today, not so much.
I agree that Brooklyn wasn’t driven by a sudden need on Jamie Dimon’s part to slum it here with the rest of the worker ants, but it was driven at least in part by his banks willingness to lend US$millions on houses to people that had no hope of paying the money back. At least not in the “normal” manner (i.e. pay it off over time). There are some here who seem to be experts on property shark and ACRIS…they should take some time to look up the mortgages on some of these properties….. they are huge and they are exploding on people…..I am BHO’s twin in that respect, when banks aren’t lending there’s very little support to prices…who knows if it stops at 10x or 5x! I certtainly don’t. I do “know” two things a) today and for the last 5 years renting is way cheaper than buying. In fact its cheaper even than the interest only on a mortgage even before principal payments(for me at least) and b) banks are tightening credit standards but prices have only started to react to this new credit environment.
again im with you part of the way. cycles will be cycles. rich will get poor. some poor will get rich.
but you are indeed a newbie if you think the wall st *masters of the universe* are driving brooklyn real estate. other than the heights or perhaps the odd park-side mansion in the slope, i’d think they are largely absent.
on the other hand, the wages paid out to employees, ie the bankers and trader, are in full display across brownstone bkln.
jamie dimon can screw himself or whoever he wants in whatever park avenue address he likes. bk doesn’t care.
welcome to brooklyn.
and I used “urban Pionerr” because to most of wall street heavy hitters, anywhere across the bridge is pioneering!! Things from their point of view have changed less than you think.
I didn’t mean to knock Fort Green, I actually like the neighborhood, but its not a masters of the universe type area even after it has experienced massive improvements in the last 10 years. My point was that these Brooklyn neighborhoods, while very nice and a place I would be happy to live in for a very long time, are not likely to attract Jamie Dimon. I know, I know, there are many many levels of well paid people who are not Jamie dimon, but most established people on wall street have real estate, in fact most have too much real estate and after the 2008 scare, they are more aware now than they have ever been that this is an illiquid asset class with a huge cost of carry and high transaction costs. I would imagine that real estate is NOT the first place that these masters of the universe are putting their money in today.
I don’t understand this blog sometimes, if anyone expresses a bearish view, its either personalized (DIBS), or escalated (you’re dissing the country/city). Sorry guys its just money…Americans have been through cycles of rich and poor many times and it didn’t change the essential nature of this country. In fact, I’d bet that most of the people that built those brownstones in Clinton Hill, Fort Green, Bed stuy and even the heights lost money when they sold. They bailed when the subway came through or they lost a shedload of money in one of the many market “panics” that hit in the 19th and early 20th century. America’s health has NOTHING to do with any one individuals losses/gains on an RE investment. So please get over it, its just an opinion and there’s nothing magic about any particular number.
you almost had me. until i read, “pioneer in Fort Green” [sic], that is. until that point i thought it was bho’s twin. after that point minard comes to mind.
man you’re 10-15 years late on the ft greene game.
best of luck getting your townhouse at 10x, 8x. heck there’s no fundamental physical property that prevents prices to falling to 1x.
but i agree with you about the changed psychology. hope it helps the city, state, country and world.
iwannabrownstone too, but I may not get one, but then again I might and at a reasonable price, who knows. There’s nothing magic about 10x either for or against as far as I know. They could just as easily fall to 8x for the following reasons:
1. There is a massive oversupply of housing across the US and NYC is no exception.
2. Bank lending is falling, not rising.
3. People borrowed huge amounts of money to buy houses with stupid terms that explode in their faces in the next year or two and when they go back to the bank they are never (In my opinion) getting those deals again.
4. Renters, of which I am one, are paying a lot less to live in the same place than they would if they paid the current asking prices and put 20% down, even if they could get a mortgage to buy a brownstone in what was called a ghetto 10 years ago.
All that means that the pressure is one the seller to adjust the price expectations more than it is on the buyer. So I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a 10x number in many neighborhoods.
On Wall Street bonuses, I don’t think we should forget psychology. I know they got good bonuses ths year but the sense of confidence around the sustainability of these is lower than than at any time in the last 20 years and I would be that most of these wall streeters are buying houses in the Hamptons before they decide to urban pioneer in Fort Green.
10x rent is incredibly naive. When I was in Wharton undergrad we learned about 10% cap rates as an ideal, but lets not get ridiculous. The one thing many of the bears here are forgetting is that at the end of the day real estate is about supply and demand. In case you havent read the newspapers, wall street bonuses are back, and that is the single most important driver of demand in NYC real estate.
Regarding lot sizes, standard ranges quite a bit based on neighborhood. In many of the federal nabes, 30-35 is normal, in Clinton Hill and FG 40-45 is normal for italianate brownstones, and in Prospect Heights you often see 50+ because the lot sizes are extra long (120-135 feet). Property Shark measures the full length of the lot from sidewalk to backline, thus including the stoop. The house dimensions are outside dimensions, not inner. Thus you generally lose about 1-1.5 feet of usable space on width, and 5 feet on length due to the depth of the sidewalls (6-10 inches each) and the front & back retaining walls (~2.5 feet each). I will always remember the time we called out a selling agent for listing at 45 feet after we tape-measured the interior length at 40, and then realized that retaining walls were quite thick.