Money Pit With a Happy Ending

“I got a hole in my wall the size of a Buick.” Not exactly what you want to hear when you answer a call from your next door neighbor. For David Petersen, who’d recently purchased the 1,100-square-foot house on 18th Street near Greenwood Cemetery for $260,000, these words bck in 2004 were the beginning of an overwhelming process that, among other things, involved him begging and borrowing several hundred thousand dollars more than he initially intended to fix the ailing house. Although his inspector had picked up on a bunch of structural imperfections, he hadn’t pointed out the fact that the house had, literally, no foundation. Two years later, though, Petersen and his girlfriend are ensconced in their 12 1/2-foot-wide house finished in a “comfortable modern” style. Perhaps the best news of all? The house was recently reappraised for $1.25 million, allowing Petersen to pay off all his credit cards and second mortgages and even have a nice chunk of equity left over.
Brooklyn Bargain? First Check the Cellar [NY Times]