Houses of the Day: Head-to-Head on Clinton Street
Two owners within two blocks of each other on Clinton Street in Cobble Hill have decided to put their houses on the market at the same time for almost exactly the same price. Number 274 (left), which is listed with Brown Harris Stevens for $2,900,000, is a 3,600-square-foot three-family that has been in the same…
Two owners within two blocks of each other on Clinton Street in Cobble Hill have decided to put their houses on the market at the same time for almost exactly the same price. Number 274 (left), which is listed with Brown Harris Stevens for $2,900,000, is a 3,600-square-foot three-family that has been in the same family for six decades. Number 299 (right), listed with Halstead for $2,895,000, is smaller at about 3,000 square feet but has a corner location with a parking garage taking up most of the rear yard. Both houses are brownstone and both houses have only 68-feet-deep lots. The corner property has been recently renovated and most likely has higher taxes. Tough call. Which would you buy if you had this kind of dough to drop?
274 Clinton Street [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark
299 Clinton Street [Halstead] GMAP P*Shark
The area there Cobble hill or carroll gardens is unreal i would take either one. I do like Henry street a little better than Clinton, i think it has a nicer feel to it below atlantic, but Clinton street is a great block. The area is really booming in Boccoca.
Cobble Hill was a middle class community before it was named Cobble Hill. The name is just as made up as BoCoCa.
re: 299 Clinton.. Another broker selling close to a $3m property and doesn’t know that just because NYC recs indicate year 1901 – doesn’t mean house was built then…and if he knew anything about the neighborhood and these houses…he’d know he was wrong.
And also doesn’t check himself… the listing says 28 x 68…. it is 20 x 68.
I’m Anonymous 1:07. I meant to suggest, as some others have posted, that “same family for 50 years” is a cause for concern IMHO, not a selling point. It may signal original details, but even those may be in bad shape. I also don’t think realtors mean it that way. I think they are selling a faux quaintness/historical factor, the house equivalent of a used car only driven “by a little old lady on Sundays.” In the house case, it’s a problem if that little old lady never drove it (metaphorically, of course) down to the repair shop during the week. If the house has good original details, the realtors know how to say that directly and with photos, and the “50 years” selling point is both superfluous and much less effective on that point.
garage!
$3mm and a 23 foot yard? Wow.
Me at 2:29 again, I have to add a big BUT. BUT, old houses that have been in the same family for decades also tend to keep the original details! Multiple owners over the various eras means multiple renovations that are “dated” to those eras. Yuck.
I remember Cobble Hill when it was a middle class community. Those days seem so distant.
Houses that have been in the same family for decades are almost always in bad shape. I say that from experience, as I’ve bought two such houses before. Longtime family homeowners will just tolerate and live with the flaws, doing just enough tiny fixes to keep things running in the house. But they almost never fully renovate or replace the mechanicals, etc.