Open House Picks: Houses
Carroll Gardens 98 3rd Place Brown Harris Stevens Sunday 2:30-4:30 $2,450,000 GMAP P*Shark Park Slope 360A 5th Street Warren Lewis Sunday 2:30-4:30 $1,875,000 GMAP P*Shark Bedford Stuyvesant 111 Clifton Place Corcoran Sunday 12-1 $1,395,000 GMAP P*Shark Kensington 301 Caton Avenue Brooklyn Properties Sunday 1-3 $889,000 GMAP P*Shark Tune in tomorrow morning for Open House Picks:…
Carroll Gardens
98 3rd Place
Brown Harris Stevens
Sunday 2:30-4:30
$2,450,000
GMAP P*Shark
Park Slope
360A 5th Street
Warren Lewis
Sunday 2:30-4:30
$1,875,000
GMAP P*Shark
Bedford Stuyvesant
111 Clifton Place
Corcoran
Sunday 12-1
$1,395,000
GMAP P*Shark
Kensington
301 Caton Avenue
Brooklyn Properties
Sunday 1-3
$889,000
GMAP P*Shark
Tune in tomorrow morning for Open House Picks: Apartments
12:05 — Wow, that’s us almost exactly, except in our case the numbers are each somewhat smaller. (We bought a Park Slope 2 BR in 1997, sold it to fix up a brownstone just slightly bigger than the one on 5th Street). Smaller DP, smaller mortgage, smaller equity–but otherwise dead on.
People buying houses like ours now appear to have at least twice are income and probably more, but there appears to be no lack of them.
Average PS Brownstone owner:
40 years old. Married. One or two kids. Combined income roughly 200-250K.
Bought 2 Bedroom in Manhattan for 150K in 1996. (Or each had a 1 bed to sell)
Sold in 2003 for 650K.
Used 400K for a downpayment on a 1.5 million dollar home. 100K left over for savings.
Mortgage of 1.1 million.
Not taking into account rental income, if any.
Home worth 2-3 million now.
what the hell does it take to buy a house in a good brownstone neighborhood these days? I’m really curious. We’ve been looking for years (and in the meantime bought an apt that is now too small for our growing family), during which time our salaries have increased about 5-10% per year, and we are now at about 150K combined. We are lucky enough to have inherited some family cash for a down payment – in the neighborhood of 500K, plus we have our own savings to add to that. In the last few years, we poo-pooed brownstones in PS at the 1.4-1.6 mark, thinking they were overpriced, only to find now that this is considered a modest sum. So are the buyers of these homes all making 300-500K per year or more, or is it just manhattanites selling their large apartments? I’m hopeful about the future, since I’m seeing price declines, pickier buyers and more negotiable sellers, and sheer over-reaching that is starting to back-fire – but can someone please tell me what is the typical profile (in $ terms – salaries/down payment) of a brownstone/townhouse buyer in a prime neighborhood? It’s weird – I feel like we actually have to *lose* wealth to buy a house now, since we’d be buying it at twice what our cohort bought at 5-7 years ago (and sinking in our last dime, instead of having some savings left over), and yet, no one’s salaries have doubled! (at least, not among the folks I know)…. It is so strange to know how privileged we are relative to so much of the world, and yet still feel that to own a home in a decent NYC neighborhood, with great public schools and a manageable work commute, we are made to feel weirdly “poor” by the brokers (who almost pity us when they hear our budget).
look, i’m better than all of you.
Oh because you seem to have a lot to add to the property discussion, 8:36.
You are nothing but more of the same repetitive nonsense, as you call it.
Can everyone stop this repetitive nonsense and comment on the properties?
i commented before, but it’s worth repeating
Any hating on other nabes is really self-hate as I find the people in CG, PS, FG, Clint Hill, Cobble Hill and Ditmas remarkably similar. But I guess it’s human nature to differentiate yourselves in order to feel better.
6:46 here. I admittedly cannot comment on any studios, 1brs, etc. and am referring exclusively to the townhouse/brownstone market. But I have yet to see but a handful (maybe 2-4) out of the 15 or so houses that I’ve been watching for over a month move. And several of them have dropped their prices. I have brokers emailing me constantly with enticements to “make an offer at a price i feel comfortable with”, etc. I have been looking for about 6 months (casually) in PS and there IS a difference in the past 4-6 weeks. The very fact that prices have come down on specific properties and that properties are not moving very quickly is what I am referring to. I do believe strongly (and even have a friend who is a broker in Brooklyn who admits as much) that prices are going to come down in PS- the inventory by and large is overpriced.
The buyer who is interested in a $1.8-$3.x million dollar home (the rough band of prices for brownstones in PS) is heavily driven by wall street, and wall street bonuses are going to be massively affected this year. So most buyers in that price band are just not buying- in hopes of prices softening and better deals in the next few months. The combo of bad bonues, the winter coming, etc. is going to affect PS.
I do agree that the amount of inventory is low. But I think the amount of willing buyers at that price point is even lower, so prices are already and will continue to come down. Supply and demand 101.
(Can’t really comment on the co-op and condo market as I don’t follow that).
Actually, 7:15…I think if you actually new anything about Park Slope or it’s residents you’d know that they are pretty happy about their neighborgood. Everyone I’ve met that lives there, really and truly loves it there.
Maybe some people are trying to project things to cover their investments as you seem to be saying, but my experience is that a lot of them just truly love their neighborhood.
Nothing wrong with that. I do see something wrong with your pretty pessimistic comment suggesting that someone would only say nice things about their neighborhood because they own property there.
Doesn’t say much for where you live. Or your personality for that matter.
Park Slope is constanly beraded…most of the time for pretty asinine things. I see nothing wrong with defending it. I see something wrong with not having pride in one’s neighborhood.
Sure, they could sit back and let people make fun all they want and just shut up. But you know what…this world has become such that people shut up and don’t voice their concerns enough if you ask me.
So I’m happy for the defensive comments. It’s nice to hear that someone cares about something enough to stand up for it. Maybe it spreads to other facets of life as well…more important things.