Houses of the Day: The Ugly Stepchild Problem
It’s a rich man’s problem, but when a broker has a lot of listings, the risk is that one can make another look pretty bad by comparison. Such is the case with two townhouse listings of Elliman power broker Kathryn Lilly. She recently got the listing for a house at 211 Carlton Avenue which is…
It’s a rich man’s problem, but when a broker has a lot of listings, the risk is that one can make another look pretty bad by comparison. Such is the case with two townhouse listings of Elliman power broker Kathryn Lilly. She recently got the listing for a house at 211 Carlton Avenue which is a classic brownstone (except for the stoop alteration) in a good Fort Greene location. The house traded for $1,580,000 in October 2006 so the current asking price of $2,650,000 may be a bit aggressive even though it appears that the owner’s doing a pretty extensive reno. Aggressive maybe, but not completely insane, like Lilly’s other listing at 171 Greene Avenue. We’ve written several posts over the last year about the owner’s fruitless efforts to sell off this place as three condos at exorbitant prices, so when we heard that he had changed tactics and put the whole house on the market we thought that maybe he’d come to his senses. Apparently not. The asking price, at a whopping $2.5 million, is just as high as he was asking for the three units collectively. This place is overpriced by a good $1 million in our opinion. So now Lilly has the awkward problem of having two houses priced about the same, one an original brownstone a block from Fort Greene Park, the other a recently constructed house on a heavily trafficed portion of Greene Avenue in Clinton Hill. We’re not sure how she’s supposed to sell the latter with a straight face. Brokers, how do you handle a situation like this?
211 Carlton Avenue [Elliman] GMAP P*Shark
171 Greene Avenue [Elliman] GMAP P*Shark
The broker can advise on price but it’s the owner’s call. Presumably Kathryn Lilly knows 171 Greene is–and has been–overpriced but she’s got a stubborn (and delusional) client. If a buyer approaches her looking for a brownstone in the $2.5 million range, it’s hard to imagine her being able to recommend 171 Greene with a straight face when she’s got something else of much greater quality in the same range. That’s all.
and there you have it!
From the NyTimes
LANDSCAPE connoisseurs sometimes make the glib observation that Central Park is just a rough draft for Olmsted & Vaux’s even more masterful Prospect Park, created in 1866-1874 in Brooklyn. There is some truth in that, for a walk through Prospect Park is like a tour of an impeccably chosen private art collection.
A key distinction between the two parks is siting. The rectangle that encloses Central Park is an uncomfortable container for what is, essentially, a work of bumpy green sculpture.
But for Prospect Park, Calvert Vaux convinced the Brooklyn Park Commissioners to adopt an irregular polygon in which there are very few dead spaces. The park’s components nestle together nicely, like an expertly packed group of odd-sized objects.
Another characteristic of Prospect Park is its topography: The southern part is a low, flat plain with bright, open views. Most of Central Park is rugged and hilly, where the opportunities for sweeping vistas are limited.
Both Olmsted & Vaux considered Prospect Park to be their masterpiece.
It’s ridiculous to argue about the virtues and shortcomings of Fort Greene now. Yes, it is a great nabe, but after AY is built Ft. Greene will irrelevant. So stop the bickering already.
i didn’t know power brokers dealt with rentals.
Dear 4:53 and anyone else who really thinks it’s the broker who sets the price…it’s really the seller who wants what they want. brokers either have to adjust because they are told to add to that # to compensate for their commission or lose the listing. sorry AND the market dictates the price. brokers can be called greedy blood sucking slugs but it is what it is and the seller is the one who accepts or declines the offers…and they don’t get their commissions unless they move the place…
“Prospect park is depressing. That whole entrance to it reminds me of the garishness of columbus circle. And it’s basically a poor man’s Central park. No identity. Sorry. At least Ft G park isn’t trying to be anything but what it is: Gorgeous.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 30, 2007 3:30 PM”
YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR MIND…YOU CAN’T BE ANY FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH. IT IS NOT GORGEOUS, GORGEOUS IS PROSPECT PARK.. AND LOTS MORE OF IT.
umm, any broker who can answer this – or is it a trade secret? But why do we really care? Back to Forum for me to read about things that reallyinterest me – how to renovate house, not how to drive up prices so people like me can’t afford them.
Forgive me, but in response to your question, Mr. B., who prices these things? The broker, right? So what’s the problem? I don’t understand the question maybe. How could she be in the awkward position of having two houses priced the same which shouldn’t be the same? She priced them wrong. And how do you handle this? You price them right or go to a therapist and find out why you can’t deal with empirical reality or assert yourself with insane seller clients. In the end, overpricing something wildly is also a tremendous disservice to the seller, who will not sell the overpriced property and ultimately must face the increasingly public fact that it is a distressed or very stale property.