Open House Picks

3:44…to add to that…the neighborhoods that have seen the most recent and rapid price appreciation with almost ZERO addition to the neighborhood in terms of services and cleanliness, the price declines will be even more severe.

You assume that people are paying these insane prices for simply the bricks and mortar. Granted here in brownstone brooklyn we have some quite lovely bricks and mortar, but New York City is the kinda place where you are paying a significant portion of your home price purchase on the neighborhoods those bricks and mortar lie in.

So while there are gorgeous homes in Clinton Hill, Bed Stuy and Crown Heights, I do not believe people are clamoring to live in those particular neighborhoods for much else than brick and mortar.

And THAT is where people are going to run into trouble.

If the market were to take a turn, crime up even a little, I’d rather live in a shoebox in one of the more established areas of the city rather than a large home in a fringe area where I have to spend my hard earned money on a car service to pick up groceries.

Holy crap…this is shaping up to be the best brownstoner thread in history!!!!

“People continuously want to live in a brownstone/rowhouse.”

Actually almost no one wanted to live in them 30 years ago.

Why are you so sure?

Montrose:

I’m not the earlier idiot guest, honest. But I gotta challenge this:

“I must emphatically say that I think a buy in either neighborhood is an excellent investment. People continuously want to live in a brownstone/rowhouse. They are going to go where the houses are, and deal with whatever is or isn’t in the neighborhood in whatever way works for them. In the long run, or even the near future, there will be no regrets.”

Either you’re arguing that

(1) Even _in the near future_, all brownstone neighborhoods will be good investments. Or

(2) If the real estate market does decline, Bed Stuy and CH will be fine, whereas only other, more expensive neighborhoods will lose value.

Either way, I don’t buy it. (And I own a house.) Unless you mean “investment” in some spiritual, metaphorical sense. Markets go both down and up, and when they go down, the neighborhoods that have appreciated the most and the most recently go down the most.

The broker says “$98,000 Income” for 99 St. Marks, which would mean $8,166.67 monthly, or something like 2k/mo. x 2 + $4k for the duplex. Probably “projected” or “potential” rents knowing how brokers work.

But the place will be worthless after AY is built.