Open House Picks

I apologize, etson. My “rant” was over the top, and wrongfully over-generalized (is that an adjective?)
those who post here. All of your opinions are valid even if I strongly disagree with them. I never post here and this one came after a long day. It is just that we brokers are working so friggin hard to make a buck — LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE THESE DAYS — and one of the broker dissed in this long string of comments SO doesn’t deserve to be trashed the way he was. Even though we don’t work in the same office, we have co-brokered a couple of properties together. This guy is among the nicest, most honest brokers I know. He has more integrity than the hundreds of people I know and have worked with in every capacity and in every profession. He just doesn’t deserve it.

He doesn’t regularly read Brownstoner and when I emailed him and then called him to bring his attention to how people were mocking him and his assertion that you could actually own this particular brownstone (121 Lefferts) and “live for free,” he laughed, and wondered why people didn’t just contact him directly for the calculations he had relied upon by a well-regarded mortgage broker. My assertion was, and is, that some of the people who post here would rather criticise than investigate. They are unable to buy, so they criticise everything and everyone – especially brokers.

So again, I should have waited, or at least gotten his permission to post before doing so, and I apologize to him for not doing so. But for the record, I feel strongly about what I posted — not about all posters here by any means, but about way way too many. And who the f*ck is this What clown? Was he/she exposed under one of the rocks excavated at the Atlantic Yards project? Will he/she slither back now to its home now that the project thankfully appears to be doomed, at least in its present incarnation?

Forgot, there was one other negative:

The bathroom in the owner’s duplex is on the kitchen level. There are a lot of ways you could configure the bedrooms, but most likely you would use two of the rooms on the parlor level. So you’d have to walk into the same shared hall the renter also uses and downstairs to go to the bathroom. Not a big deal for us, but some people might not like it.

All the parlors were very pretty, and the parlor floor has three rooms (one very small) so you could use two as bedrooms and still use the front parlor as a living room and dining room (it’s definitely big enough for both).

I saw 411 Pacific this weekend. I went halfway through the two-hour window, and there were maybe 10 names signed in. Many were neighborhood real estate agents. Is that usual?

The finishes in the triplex were beautiful. Everything looks as nice as the kitchen. I hope the broker took more pictures for the web posting. Lots of glass tile, light brown wood floors (visible in current pix), white and beige sleek, modern fixtures. No detail, but that house was basically a shell two years ago.

So, if anyone is reading this, what is this house worth? A friend is interested. We know $2.5 is WAAAY high. The last similar (slightly bigger, finished but not as fancy) house that sold on this block went for $2.3 at the end of 2007. The current owners bought the shell for $950K. They replaced roof, back wall, and, I suspect, all of the beams. New electric, new plumbing, architect-designed, modern finishes.

What should my friend bid?

sound 11217,
That was one of the funniest posts I have read on Brownstoner – well done. You did mean it as a joke, right?

1) Love the reference to ‘White Stoners’ next to the accusation of ‘thinly veiled racism’ – presumably because you think the overt kind is so much preferable.
2) If you really are a broker, way to insult your potential customers. There is a much wider range of ages, races and financial capacities on here than you think.
3) Why should buyers or sellers care if you have an advanced degree that does not relate to real estate? Both need an honest broker that knows the market and the neighborhood, not a nuclear physicist.
4) I sympathize with your need to feed your kids etc. Many people that overpaid for real estate at the peak have the same concern. But your industry is just coming off a massive boom, so if you weren’t successful in the past couple of years then things are going to look tougher for a while.
5) I so wish I was young enough to be referred to as a ‘kid’, cool enough to be a good graphic designer, or thin enough to look good in skinny jeans. But I am just an average person looking to buy a place in the next year or two. Hopefully through someone more open minded than you appear to be.

For clarification, 1.5 equals the number of bathrooms at the Stratford house. 1 full bathroom makes it a lot less appealing for any family that might want 5 bedrooms.