Open House Picks: Six Months Later 8/3/07
Comment: The broker for the Crown Heights house says the listing has been temporarily pulled while C of O issues are sorted out. All the rest did pretty well, it seems. Open House Picks, 8/3/07 [Brownstoner]
Comment: The broker for the Crown Heights house says the listing has been temporarily pulled while C of O issues are sorted out. All the rest did pretty well, it seems.
Open House Picks, 8/3/07 [Brownstoner]
I’ve got the boltcutters, 7:12. Give me the toe.
Things change month-to-month. Just a personal anecdote: In September, I let myself get into a bidding war over a house, and I ended up bidding way over asking. Regardless, I didn’t get the house because I refused to go up any further. The house went into contract in October and just closed in December. If the same situation arose today, just 4 months later, there is no way in hell I would have bid over the asking price for that house. And I am willing to bet my right toe that the house would not have entered a bidding war to begin with. Things feel much bleaker now and the psychology has changed. No matter what the HOTD shows.
I love this feature — bah to the naysayers! It’s interesting to see what happens.
BTW, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for the negotiation that produced that last $100 in the price of the 14th St. house. Niggling over hundreths of a percent! That must have been something.
“2:05 – actually, yes. Being able to sell a few books in flyover country proves nothing about one’s level of actual knowledge. Nor does having a successful TV show. See, e.g., Jim Cramer. I don’t want to get into the business of proving my personal qualifications, but rest assured that I do very well managing my personal finances without having to look for ideas on the shelves at Barnes and Noble.”
Your small-minded inability to recognize success outside of your zip code is not sad, it’s rather oh-so-typically-boringly provincial. Like those traders masturbating to dreams of ever-fancier derivative instruments, your lack of imagination about the world is showing clearly through a tired veneer of haughtiness. Bah.
4:00…here is an epecially juicy comment from our friend kuroko about the 20th street house made way back when…there are some other really good ones on that thread! Anyone care to serve him/her up a hat to eat??!!
****
Imagine standing at the corner of 5th avenue and 20th while looking up the street at your $700,000 purchase with a friend and explaining with a straight face that you have spent wisely. Then, walk in the “house”, worried that anyone over 5’10” tall would be prevented from entering certain parts for fear of banging their heads, and defending that position. Charming yes. Cute, maybe. Good buy, not so much. This is less than 1200 square feet of living space on a scrappy, noisy, designated truck route , no-amenity street. The renovation is a do it yourself special which is all fine and dandy if you are going to live with the results. The minute you try and pass it off on someone else at market rate is where you lose most people. They have painted themselves in a corner with their color choices and their country kitchen/shabby chic aesthetic. I’ll eat my hat if this goes for what they are asking.
Where is The tWhat?
If you are curious as to why this post exists and is rather enjoyable…..
It gives some of us the ability to see just how STUPID Some of the loud mouthed nay-sayers that bark about how a the Fort Green property was so overvalued and would never sell.
Well, now we know the naysayers were truly idiots and that was enjoyable!
I feel my place is still undervalued.
I mean a 1 bedroom for 600K?
Come on!
They go for a million in Manhattan!!!
Here’s the deal:
-although financial markets are rocky, we have yet to post a negative GDP quarter since sometime in 2001. You need 2 or more to call a recession.
-most economists including the fed’s are now saying that a recession will most likely be avoided.
-unemployment numbers remain relatively low, that’s a good sign.
-Stimulus packages have been passed through congress and the Fed has lowered interest rates, that a good thing for the lower classes.
-the housing market in NYC has not taken a nose dive (see above examples) as was abundantly predicted by many poorly informed posters here.
-it makes sense that if the economy is stable and spring is about 8 weeks away, people looking to get into a house in new york should start making some deals or risk losing out on whatever leverage you may still have over scared flippers and owners who are rapidly realizing that the rental market is very strong in New York.
No, I’m not a broker, just a keen observer tired of hearing people lament how they “lost out on a buying opportunity” when every economics book tells you to buy on the dips. Hey, but you don’t have to own, this is America after all.