Open House Picks
Park Slope 398 Bergen Street FKG Real Estate Sunday 1-3 $1,875,000 GMAP P*Shark Park Slope 99 St. Marks Place Aguayo & Huebener Sunday 1-3 $1,595,000 GMAP P*Shark Bedford Stuyvesant 119 Bainbridge Street Brooklyn Properties Sunday 12-2 $1,300,000 GMAP P*Shark Crown Heights 1190 Dean Street Brown Harris Stevens Sunday 12-1:30 $985,000 GMAP P*Shark
Park Slope
398 Bergen Street
FKG Real Estate
Sunday 1-3
$1,875,000
GMAP P*Shark
Park Slope
99 St. Marks Place
Aguayo & Huebener
Sunday 1-3
$1,595,000
GMAP P*Shark
Bedford Stuyvesant
119 Bainbridge Street
Brooklyn Properties
Sunday 12-2
$1,300,000
GMAP P*Shark
Crown Heights
1190 Dean Street
Brown Harris Stevens
Sunday 12-1:30
$985,000
GMAP P*Shark
11:06pm said this:
“What a way to twist the posts on this thread and get defensive for no reason. OF COURSE these neighborhoods already have a middle class. And that middle class bought their brownstones when they were CHEAP, that’s why they were able to afford them and still remain middle class. DUH.”
I was twisting nothing, neither were others who countered claims there were no middle class in the fringe neighborhoods. This has nothing whatoever to do with how much these people paid for their homes years ago. Their income NOW is what we’re talking about when we say there are longtime middle class people-of-color in Ft. Greene and Bed Stuy and Crown Heights and PLG. These are doctors, lawyers, people working in city management, etc. They’re not middle class only because of the value of their homes. Such an insult. These were the very people who worked to make the neighborhoods better. It wasn’t just white gentrifiers doing that work. If all those who did all this work and made these early investments are now reaping a big financial reward, good for them.
Ba-ba-Fooooeeee! Fla-fla-flooey.
To 10:28 and 1:26: come on! really! What a way to twist the posts on this thread and get defensive for no reason. OF COURSE these neighborhoods already have a middle class. And that middle class bought their brownstones when they were CHEAP, that’s why they were able to afford them and still remain middle class. DUH. And those middle class people who bought cheap, MANY YEARS AGO are now OLDER–middle-aged or seniors, ok? The point of many on this thread is that TODAY’S YOUNG middle class CANNOT afford to buy a brownstone in even the lesser-desirable, less-popular, “fringe”, or whatever the heck you want to call it, neighborhoods of Brooklyn because they are totally out of reach. Even for the “upper” middle class. Got it??
Anyway… about the open house pics:
I saw 398 Bergen Street today. It’s a cute house, and it’s in great shape on all the main floors. The only problem I saw was in the basement: there were some cracks where the walls and floor meet–just something to check out. Also, you need to landscape the backyard since there’s not much more than dirt and a large tree smack in the center of the yard. All the bathrooms were large and had a window, and the top floor bathroom had a nice skylight. I think it’s priced more reasonably than others. The owners were very nice. I hope it works out for them.
Also saw 13 Dean Street, listed by Corcoran at $2.3. What a sweet little house…20X33. It’s really cute, has the original windows, tin ceilings, and stoop ironwork. It still has 1 or 2 mantels on the parlor and first floors. It got great light in the front of the house. However, it’s in pretty bad shape on the inside and needs A LOT of work. The ceilings on the top two floors are kind of sagging, and humidity has attacked one of the rooms causing the walls and ceiling there to peel and crumble. The main staircase in the house is rotting and separating from the wall, and all the banisters were loose. It has a strange little extension/shack on the back to house the bathroom for the garden-level tenant, who has a lease through May 2008. But, it is a really cute house, and if it were about 500K less, maybe I’d consider it.
I live in the city because my job is here. If I struck it rich or retired tomorrow, the first thing I’d do is move upstate. I can’t wait to move upstate!!!!
4:45pm, just witness the absolute venom towards the suburbs here, whenever someone mentions the possibility of moving out of the city and you’ll be convinced #2 is the biggest factor in increasing values in Brownstone Brooklyn. People go crazy on Brownstoner at talk of the suburbs; they won’t live there. I don’t even fully understand why, b/c some towns upstate are really cute. But people want to be in the city, period.
ok, there are 2 factors that have caused prices to rise in Brooklyn:
1. Housing bubble and cheap credit
2. Increasing desirability of people to live in NYC.
Clearly #1 is fading, but #2 is still quite strong. #3 is also still strong. Neighborhoods are getting better, and it is resulting in rise in prices for those neighborhoods.
I’ve been waiting to buy til I could gauge the interplay of #1 and #2.
PS The strength of Wall St is also a factor/subfactor. It’s a plus for now, but looks like it may turn to a minus in the near term.
We all know why this site gets so many comments and so many hits. The reason is very familiar and sometimes goes by the name of
THE BROWNSTONER TROLL
Love him or hate him, but he’s the best thing that ever happened to this site, and he’ll no doubt be putting Mr. B’s kids through college one day. Instead of bitching about him, we ought to be grateful.
Yes, and you had to restrict your comments to BROWNSTONE Brooklyn, didn’t you? I guess the rest of Brooklyn is just out of luck, huh.