Open House Picks
Fort Greene 31 South Oxford Street Corcoran Sunday 3-4 $1,969,000 GMAP P*Shark Clinton Hill 147 St. James Place Two Trees Sunday 12-1:30 $1,950,000 GMAP P*Shark Bedford Stuyvesant 243 Stuyvesant Avenue Brooklyn Properties Sunday 2-3 $950,000 GMAP P*Shark Crown Heights 1244 Union Street Prospective Properties Sunday 12-1 $550,000 GMAP P*Shark
Fort Greene
31 South Oxford Street
Corcoran
Sunday 3-4
$1,969,000
GMAP P*Shark
Clinton Hill
147 St. James Place
Two Trees
Sunday 12-1:30
$1,950,000
GMAP P*Shark
Bedford Stuyvesant
243 Stuyvesant Avenue
Brooklyn Properties
Sunday 2-3
$950,000
GMAP P*Shark
Crown Heights
1244 Union Street
Prospective Properties
Sunday 12-1
$550,000
GMAP P*Shark
I don’t understand this need for 2 bathrooms in a small 2 bedroom apartment.
I’d prefer the rentals at 147 St. James Pl have a larger second bedroom and do away with that shower bathroom.
sdrubbins…i find it hard to believ that you had no price appreciation from 2004 – 2008. I know a lot of things in Bed Stuy as well as elsewhere, including Manhattan, continued to rise from 2004 and peaked about the end of 2006.
I of course bought in Bed Stuy at peak prices in June 2007. I did not pay asking price though. I think I got peak for my Manhattan condo though.
Don’t really care if I could sell it for what I paid for it now…kinda along the same lines as your thinking. I’m there for 5-10 years unless I get ansy and need a new project!!
So I think you’re right. The plateau started to form somewhere during the Fall 0f 2006.
DIBS: in the long term that’s correct. As a property owner I love inflation – it makes my mortgage go away! But in the short term, I think that 1) a strong dollar means fewer European buyers of NYC properties; and 2) inflation means somewhat less disposable income for Americans who are shopping for real estate. Both of which reduce upward price pressure.
I’m not in The What’s camp, claiming the apocalypse is coming. But I think prices went up more than they should have – the rent/own ratio got a little out of whack, and (this is really my pet peeve) people have assumed price appreciation based on misreading reports of average or median sales data. In other words, as more high-priced condos etc. came on the market, the average sale price went up, reflecting an increase in the average *quality* of homes on the market. However, brokers and sellers like to look at these figures in a vaccuum and assume that *individual* prices are increasing even when the quality of those individual homes remains the same. The upward pressure this puts on prices is artificial, and cannot continue forever.
I like to use my own building as a case in point. It’s in one of the popular gentrifying neighborhoods that Brownstoner likes to focus on. It has lots of small, generally identical units and has seen lots of turnover in the past ten years, so it is very easy to find comps. Here’s what I’ve seen (dislcaimer: it’s anecdotal evidence from a particular building in a particular neiughborhood at a particular time, blah blah blah): from 1998 to 2004, prices skyrocketed. The value of my apartment more than quadrupled over that period. From 2004-2008, there’s basically been no change whatsoever.
Not only have we hit a plateau, but we actually hit it a long time ago. And yet people have spent that time talking about how great the market is doing, how prices are still rising. I find that misperception to be somewhat worrying, and I suspect it will be corrected by the market.
(Then again I also understand that it’s perilous to predict efficient outcomes in such a horrendously inefficient market.)
1.55 would be low for St. James I think. We’ll see.
Actually daveinbedstuy, many commenters to this blog have been saying strong dollar will have adverse effect on NYC market, making property less attractive to the foreigners who have helped prop things up. Don’t see how a strong dollar can help this market, which indeed seems to be stagnating at best, or slowly sinking (with some acceleration in the future?)
Regarding South Oxford, it’s had open houses since it went on the market in the beginning of July. I haven’t seen it, but I’m suspicious since there is only 1 interior photo. I can’t imagine what the “loving restoration” refers to if they can only produce one picture.
FWIW, Union St sold previously for $730K (per propshark).
With all the discussion on Crown Hts today thought we’d get more info on this prop. My guess is that this isn’t nicest block and has quite a few apt buildings. But Union going east of here gets quite beautiful.
sdrubbins…a strong dollar and higher inflation are two things that typically propel real estate prices higher. Many banks are bankrupt but even more banks are lending. If you’ve got the down payment and the credit score (millions of Americans do) then there are buyers.
yes, the “et cetera” part is worrisome! These houses will sell for below ask but I bet they are sold in 3-6 months at the most.
How can 147 St. James possibly ask that much? Especially when mentioned here right next the superior-in-every-way 31 So. Oxford? Crazy.
Strong dollar + rapid inflation + bankrupt banks (shouldn’t that be an oxymoron?) + et cetera = this market is going nowhere. But, the people buying houses still have cash to burn.
So. Oxford will go for $1.8M
St. James for $1.55M