Last Week's Biggest Sales
A couple interesting sales of large condos in historic brownstones this week. 1. BROOKLYN HEIGHTS $4,500,000 42 Garden Place GMAP (left) Four-story, two-family, 3,420-sf brownstone in the Brooklyn Heights Historic District. StreetEasy shows the pricing history was thus: Listed for $4,950,000 in September; price reduced to $4,600,000 in December; went into contract in February. Deed…
A couple interesting sales of large condos in historic brownstones this week.
1. BROOKLYN HEIGHTS $4,500,000
42 Garden Place GMAP (left)
Four-story, two-family, 3,420-sf brownstone in the Brooklyn Heights Historic District. StreetEasy shows the pricing history was thus: Listed for $4,950,000 in September; price reduced to $4,600,000 in December; went into contract in February. Deed recorded 4/29.
2. DUMBO $2,240,000
100 Jay Street/J Condo GMAP (right)
Another big closing at J Condo, which has made it into the top sales roundup a couple of times in the past few months. Sale was of unit 31A. Deed recorded 5/2.
3. COBBLE HILL $2,050,000
249 Degraw Street GMAP
This 4-bed, 3.5-bath, 2,780-sf condo was marketed as a four-level loft. Per StreetEasy, the property went on the market in October and was listed at $2,450,000; it went into contract in January. Deed recorded 5/2.
4. COBBLE HILL $2,000,000
37 Tompkins Place GMAP
It appears that someone wanted this two-floor, 4-bed, 2-bath, 1850-sf condo pretty badly: StreetEasy shows it being listed at $1,750,000 in late February and going into contract within a few weeks. Deed recorded 5/2.
5. CLINTON HILL $1,725,000
282 DeKalb Avenue GMAP
This Romanesque Revival house was asking $2,200,000 when featured as a House of the Day in November. A commenter on the thread last fall more or less hit the nail on the head: “I would fear that this place is extremely dark inside because there is a building right next to it. I could see $1.75 at max.” Deed recorded 4/29.
Photo of 42 Garden from Property Shark; photo of J Condo by the real janelle.
Just read today that NYC rents are going to go up this year by as much as 9.5% because of increased oil prices and other associated costs to landlords. They are really taking a beating on taxes and oil.
So 12:48, there is the theory that rents will go up to come more in line with housing prices than the other way around.
Rents going up nearly 10% in 2008 alone will certainly help to close your 8-10 times annual rent calculation.
I pay less than $1300 a month for my recently purchased studio in Prime Park Slope.
Tell me where I can rent that same studio for that price in this area?
With my tax deductions, I am paying about 1000 a month to live by myself, in a gorgeous brownstone in my neighborhood of choice.
I’ll trade up when I can afford it. I don’t expect my first home purchase to be a million dollar apt, like so many of the entitled people on this blog.
Owner occupied homes NEVER reflect an economic price based on what a rent roll would be for the building. Investment properties tend to be much closer…2 and 3 family brownstones don’t fall into that latter category. A cap rate of 10% would reflect a market bottom.
The market isn’t close to “normal” yet. Pre-2000, people who were willing/able to put up a downpayment got a building that could be rented as an investment. From the 1950s on, brownstones consistently sold for something resembling their value as rental properties — sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. When rents on small apartments were disproportionately higher than rents on large ones, sometimes houses with large units sold at prices that resembled their value if they were chopped up. When renovation standards increased for owner-occupied houses, sometimes prices got so high that the seller rather than the buyer got the benefit of the owner-occupied mortgage tax subsidy.
But until the last 5 years owners NEVER paid more to own than they would to rent a comparable place — even including a reasonable return on the downpayment. And without factoring in capital appreciation at all.
The mark of a bubble is that people are willing to pay prices that do not reflect costs or alternate uses, because they expect that someone else will pay even more when they want to sell.
By these standards, these prices have a long way to drop before the market is “normal”. In a BAD market, expect prices to be 8-10 times annual rental value.
“one thing I’ve never understood about your ceaseless invocations of the sales of “2-bedroom condos in Manhattan” is: who is going to keep buying those condos? Do you just assume there’s an infinite supply of money flowing into Manhattan real estate…”
Yes. It’s called Europe.
There’s a massive number of reasonably wealthy people buying investment real estate at huge discounts. And (in many of their minds) the inevitable rise in the dollar is a hedge against a downturn in the RE market….
Go to a playground on the Upper East or Upper West Side. Count the accents….It’s shocking…
12:08 you must have missed the discussion the other day about the 7,000 units on the market in Manhattan…lowest number in decades.
Remeber people, the market bottoms in NYC first and the rest of the country follows. That’s been the case for numerous cycles. Must also be why things are so glum in Lodi, NJ
The Cobble Hill church conversion was for sale for far longer and at far higher prices than Mr B reports. If I remember correctly, it started close to $3m over a year ago.
“it’s a clear sign that the market is much weaker than it was two years ago.”
DUH! But it’s two years? Is that as far as your memory goes back??
Before 2000, almost EVERYONE paid less than the asking price. It was a very rare occurrence to ever pay more than asking, unless the property was severely underpriced.
So what you are basically saying is that the market has gone back to normal. I don’t believe it’s bad, I believe it is normal.
Now the economy might be bad, but the housing market in NYC is very normal right now. This could be any non recessionary year in the 80’s or 90’s where homes sold, homes were bought, some sold for over asking and most sold for under asking.
This really is not big news.
Some of you literally seem like you were born yesterday.
What’s totally different is that in 2005-2006, buyers routinely gave sellers a lot more than they were asking. Nowadays, it almost never happens. So in fact it is something to see sales at prices 10-15% below asking — it’s a clear sign that the market is much weaker than it was two years ago.
“@11:36am 475k below asking.
yea this market is really soaring”
Honestly, this has to be one of the most ignorant posts on bstoner ever. And that’s saying A LOT. 12:06 points out correctly that many times, homeowners price their homes too high and that prices are sometimes unrealistic. That has nothing to do with the selling price.
Now to OVERPAY by 250K. THAT is something.
Have you ever gone to Whole Foods and the bill came to $75.00 and you just decided to give them a $100 and told them to keep the change???
That’s what this is like. So yes, a house selling for over asking price is TOTALLY different than a house selling for under an asking price.