Open House Picks: Townhouses
Clinton Hill 48 Clifton Place Brown Harris Stevens Sunday 12-2 $1,485,000 GMAP P*Shark Clinton Hill 239 St. James Place Brooklyn Properties Sunday 2:30-4 $1,350,000 GMAP P*Shark South Slope 212 16th Street Douglas Elliman Sunday 12-2 $1,100,000 GMAP P*Shark Bedford Stuyvesant 282A Gates Avenue Corcoran Sunday 12-2 $799,000 GMAP P*Shark
Clinton Hill
48 Clifton Place
Brown Harris Stevens
Sunday 12-2
$1,485,000
GMAP P*Shark
Clinton Hill
239 St. James Place
Brooklyn Properties
Sunday 2:30-4
$1,350,000
GMAP P*Shark
South Slope
212 16th Street
Douglas Elliman
Sunday 12-2
$1,100,000
GMAP P*Shark
Bedford Stuyvesant
282A Gates Avenue
Corcoran
Sunday 12-2
$799,000
GMAP P*Shark
I’ve met the people (young family with a young boy — there are lots of families on this street black and white) who are/were renting the lower duplex on Clifton Place.
They told me they were actually friends with all the drug dealers . . . I mean what kind of “problem” could it be?
…speaking up frequently at your monthly police precinct’s community council meetings, contacting Tish James’ office, contacting the Clinton Hill Association and your block association and asking them to lobby Tish James’ office for you, e-mailing the mayor via nyc.gov, and the police comissioner. Also I would hire a good landlord-tenant attorney, and possibly also a private investigator to do some surveillance if need be. If you focus on this problem you will solve it. I have lived on mulitiple blocks in Brooklyn that have drug trade. It’s annoying but never been threatening to me, but it would totally bug me if I was their landlord. Eventually they screw up somehow and get hauled off to jail, or worse.
The most innovative solution I’ve heard for getting rid of problem tenants was volunteered by an upstate plumber who owns a number of small apartment buildings. Whenever he buys a building, he rigs up a multi-valve contraption in the basement that can shut off the wasteline from each toilet separately. So whenever a tenant quits paying rent, that tenant’s bathroom suddenly develops nasty plumbing problems. The plumber claims it works like a charm every time; when the tenants call and yell that he has to fix the plumbing, he replies that he can’t afford to until he gets the rent. None of the problem tenants have stuck around more than a couple of days. And when they’re gone, he just opens the valve, airs and repaints the apartment, and hangs out the For Rent sign. Saves a lot of litigation and hassle. (This is not a recommendation.)
I own a building on that block, and some of my tenants are part of that drug trade. If you have any suggestions for getting rid of them and their illicit business, please let me know.
Oh, please. Anyone who thinks that most blocks in Brooklyn have the entrenched drug issues of Clifton between Grand and St. James either doesn’t live in Brooklyn or at the very least doesn’t know their way around Clinton Hill. Minor it’s not, nor is it “part of any urban living reality.” Would Anon 4:52 by any chance be either the owner or the broker representing the property?
I know this corner very well. This street has a really great vibe (great little shops — bodega is supposed to become a bagel shop soon) and whatever drug dealing people are talking about is very minor (and can be found on most blocks in Brooklyn — weed) and is part of any urban living reality.
I also know the developer (who bought the lot when the current owner bought the hosue separately). He told me that he won’t be building for a while and that the current owner has the rights to a private garge when he does acutally build. Only the front two windows of the lvingroom part would go away. The exising owner also has access to the entire empty lot for use . . . giant yard for kids to play in and grow a garden.
It is the biggest house on the street (due to the addition in the back. The kitchen looks like something right out of Dwell magazine . . . I guess everything is a matter of taste . . . but it looks amazing to me.
Who is that Corcoran agent that had that listing before? I’d love a psychic broker of my very own.
Yes, the bodega is being restored. But the drug traffic at the intersection isn’t limited to the bodega (it’s also linked to several other buildings nearby, and the intersection is its market in warm weather; at the moment, it’s mostly moved indoors for the winter). So though the activity is certainly diminishing, it will take more than the change in the bodega property to clean up the immediate area completely. When Corcoran sold the corner property we’re discussing to its current owner, the agent predicted merrily that the drug traffic at that intersection would be gone in less than a year, courtesy of Corcoran. Check Property Shark: how long ago was that? Hasn’t happened yet, though it will eventually. So the question for a potential buyer is: how long, and does that fit with their plans? If a potential buyer is looking for a house to live in immediately, and has small kids or an intolerance for noise and drug traffic, they might want to make other plans.
Now I think $2.5m would be a steal for a done house parkside in Fort Greene! Are there any on the market in that price range in all of Fort Greene that are truly done I wonder?