Open House Picks

Wow, they must really need to close. I know the house has been through several brokerages, and has been on the market for around 2 years. If I could offer $999K, and close on it, I’d do it, too.

CGFan, I actually agree with you. I think super expensive homes like this skew the market in my neighborhood way too high. That said, with the cat out of the bag, so to speak, in terms of most houses in CH, the lowest I’ve seen is still around $600K, for a small 3 story on an ok block, on up to this one, and similar one of a kind mansions, of which there are several for sale now. Who knows what’s going to happen I would love for the market to go where true middle class people could afford to buy.

The Park Place place looks like the “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” mansion. Wouldn’t it be funny to do a remake of the Doris Day-David Niven movie with a house in a Black neighborhood in Brooklyn? It would sort of update the whole plot.

W/ respect to 1094 park place, someone asked about the significance of Feb 28. I dont know, but it was in the craigslist ad for the open house.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/reb/963143551.html

Here’s the broker’s pitch for the Park Place house:

“…a fabulous investment. Come discover the next “IT” neighborhood, now what everyone will be flocking to in the next couple of years.”

I actually don’t disagree with that — I could definitely imagine Crown Heights becoming a neighborhood people flock to in the next few years.

But, in the real world, the reason to look in a neighborhood that has yet to be “discovered” is to purchase a bargain. It’s completely irrelevant that this was once a mansion for rich people — there are plenty of former mansions all over the country in so-so neighborhoods that no one wants to live in. In fact, there were plenty of former mansions in Park Slope and Fort Green that middle class buyers willing to buy in an “undiscovered” neighborhood bought for a song many years ago.

Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Fort Green all became neighborhoods with homes only rich people could afford only after lots and lots of middle income people bought houses there. But now fringe neighborhoods, propped up by the bubble, expect these kinds of prices. The only house here most people I know could afford is the $499,000 one. Believe it or not, half a million dollars is alot of money to spend on housing if you aren’t rich and for most people, even professional working ones, even that is a stretch.

If the housing market does crash, communities like Crown Heights will greatly benefit if there are a slew of $300,000 “starter homes” that all the people who have regular paying but very stable jobs — non-profit professionals, teachers, postmen, city workers, accountants — can buy. They are priced out of this market, and not silly enough to pay half a million dollars or more for a small 2-bedroom apt. in a fringe neighborhood instead of moving outside the city where less money can buy a nice house with a decent public school to send their kids. Cheap housing prices — I mean authentically cheap, not “cheap for Brooklyn” because it’s “only” a million dollars — will keep them here, but not what we see here.

The 3rd st house was a total gut job. Looks like they did a nice job from the outside. Not sure about interior.