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
ft. greene park isn’t a park. it’s a patch of semi-seeded grass and a tennis court.
i love ft. greene, but come on…it’s a pretty poor excuse for a park.
prospect park is a park. and a diverse one at that. I realize we all can’t be lucky enough to live near it, but praising ft. greene park as the epitome of a perfect urban oasis does seem a tad strange.
Wow. It’s OK to call me names, and to disagree with me on my assessment of the park as a selling point, but it’s odd to imply that I’m bashing FG just because I prefer one block over another. Anyone who lives on either block would presumably be able to use the park. I would just prefer to live on Greene than on Carlton because I don’t need to live one block away from the park, and I like living closer to the train and on a busier street. I think the larger neighborhood FG/CH needs people who want to live on Greene too. People on this site spend far too much time bashing those new construction houses on Greene.
Re: 2:22 What a fool. The park rocks, as do the amenities nearby. While I am admittedly biased as I live on the block, IMHO Ft. Greene is the coolest nabe left in the city and that strip of Carlton is a great block… beautiful, quiet and central. Plus the block association is fantastic (the reason why every tree has matching guard rails, the houses are lit, etc). And even though I don’t have time to participate in the meetings etc., I now know just about everyone who lives on the block…
Admittedly, the dustbowl in the park is a drag, but as I play in the pick-up games I can hardly complain. The Parks Department reseeds it every year, but it just gets thrashed from use… And that is the greater point: that Ft. Greene Park is used by everyone… families, dog walkers, Tech kids, bohos, euros, brownstoners and project kids… with far less ethnic/class tension, in my experience, than elsewhere in the city. The park represents the best of Ft. Greene, and if in the process in encourages self-selection and keeps people such as yourself away, all the better… Ever consider that the reason houses in the area are so expensive is that others agree it’s a great place to live?
2:36-
Change ‘surrounded by’ to ‘adjacent to’. Carlton house is in fact closer to the PJs and the BQE and Myrtle than Greene, and the point was that Greene was a better spot, and that the proximity to the park of Carlton was an overrated feature of the Carlton property.
A preference for one location over another in the same neigborhood does not make someone a borderline or casual racist.
Please, minorities and everyone else, ignore commenters like 1:44!
As one of those minorities in a “shitty neighborhood filled with minorities”, although not this particular “shitty neighborhood” in question (please!), I can only say, please take your hate and go as far away as you possibly can, 1:44. Those of us who enjoy and thrive in said “shitty neighborhoods”, majority and minority alike, will be living large in our homes, the value and desireability of which will only rise. So sorry you missed the boat, but glad your sorry ass is not here with your bigoted nonsense. Taa taa.
Some comments here are outright racist. Neighborhoods filled with minorities? Minorities don’t have money? And secondly if you haven’t looked around the city lately white people are the minority, except on the upper east side maybe
Oh, 2:22. If only you understood what the term “surrounded” means.
Yeah, Myrtle can be a little rough, though it’s mostly just kids hanging out and being loud; and the hospital does abut the park, though it’s hardly busy at all hours; but don’t forget that everything from Ft. Greene Place through Cumberland are filled with nice brownstones and nicer people. Also, the projects are across the street from the park, and Carlton is to the east, so they aren’t closer to the PJs or the BQE, depending on what block you’re referencing.
The Greene Ave. spot is also nice, but not at that price. Scary is all relative, frankly. I’ve had more trouble living on Carlton and DeKalb than I ever had living on Myrtle and Adelphi.
The park is great on weekends and, depending on your thoughts about dogs, the mornings/evenings when owners are out chatting and watching dogs play. There are more cultural events going on throughout the summer than ever before. The greenmarket is lovely.
Anyway, I’m just a resident and not trying to tout the ‘hood too much, but uninformed opinion and borderline/casual racism ticks me off.
Fort Greene park stinks. It’s an oversized dustbowl surrounded by a busy hospital and depressing and violent housing projects. Carlton is a block away from the park, but also a block away from Myrtle, and many blocks closer to the projects and the BQE.
The house on Greene Ave is a better buy. It’s modern, airy, doesn’t require constant brownstone upkeep, and it’s probably a less scary block to walk at night. It’s also got better trainage.