Open House Picks: Six Months Later
Comment: Seriously reduced selling prices on Berkeley and Warren! Open House Picks 9/12/08 [Brownstoner] Previous Six Months Later Posts [Brownstoner]

Comment: Seriously reduced selling prices on Berkeley and Warren!
Open House Picks 9/12/08 [Brownstoner]
Previous Six Months Later Posts [Brownstoner]
Woops, meant to say **above** 2mil, not about…
Lenny – you can also see pictures of the Berkeley house on the Townsley and Gaye website – it’s still up and as you can see from the photos, the house is in good condition with lots of old charm. Again, not saying it doesn’t need some work but certainly not substantially more than most brownstones unless they were recently gut-reno’ed. I really would like to try to find the original ask (which I think was about $2mil) but Street Easy doesn’t seem to have – anyone know where it could be found?
Hoboken,
I looked at a cuople of gut reno buildings in Cobble Hill back in 2003 that were about $750K. $1.1 mm Warren St. is about 50% higher than that.
Lenny, yes 16.7 is definitely on the S end of brownstones (I would say S = 16′, M = 18′, L = 20′ and XL is 20+’ but believe me there are plenty of 16-footers out there (and that extra half foot on this one is better than that) and I’ve also even see XS sizes (15′) and have worked with an architect that has worked on Brooklyn houses as narrow as 12′ (OK, that’s extreme but still). So I would not say that 16.7 is “as narrow as they come”. The other point that’s been made many times on this blog is that sometimes 16 footers can feel as wide if not wider than the 20 footers since it’s easier to knock out the walls to have one big open space the full width of the house, instead of having the more typical hallway and then a relatively narrow parlor (even in 20 footers). And evidently, $500 psf (or possibly less in the future?) is becoming the new market price for houses – comps do reset in rising and also falling markets.
MM, sounds like some others would disagree with your husband’s analysis, but I haven’t seen the place either. I bought mine in 2005 and gut reno’d 2 floors. I’m still ahead but values are obviously declining fast. Still, $500 psf is not the current market price for a PS brownstone in decent shape. And this one is as narrow as they come.
PShark has my square footage right (excluding the basement, which is below garden level), though apparently it doesn’t count the garden floor as a story. Weird.
FatLenny – as I said, my husband went to look at the Berekeley home and said it was quite nice, full of charming detail. I’m sure there might have been work to do (after all, most people say that’s true of most brownstones unless they’ve had gut renovations) but relative to other brownstones, it was actually in very good shape. You sound a bit nervous that these declining values will affect your own home and you are probably right but how long ago did you buy?
Well so much for brownstones having some sort of immunity to declining values.
Top two places sold @ 25 to 35% off ask and that was asking price after initial price cut. That Marlborough place will sell for around 40% off initial ask sadly.
Guess like 11217 states the decline here in our “special” NYC is fast and furious.
Afraid BHO may turn out to be correct or close to being so 🙁
Was the Warren st place that bad? Seems like the buyers got a good price on the surface but then again maybe it was a GUT and the economy is in turmoil.
Looks like the Berkeley place was an Estate Sale if that makes a difference. I think Property Shark takes SF from the current Certificate of Occupancy. My house has an English basement and is thus considered 3-storey but Prop Shark has the correct square footage (though it doesn’t reflect an illegal extension built in the 70’s.)
I’m hoping that Berkeley needed a lot of work.