houseDitmas Park West
523 Rugby Road
Mary Kay Gallagher
Sunday 12-2pm
$1,900,000
GMAP P*Shark

houseCarroll Gardens
301 Baltic Street
Corcoran
Sunday 11-1pm
$1,850,000
GMAP P*Shark

houseBedford Stuyvesant
17 Madison Street
Corcoran
Sunday 12-2pm
$850,000
GMAP P*Shark

houseVictorian Flatbush
221 East 21st Street
Brown Harris Stevens
Sunday 11-2pm
$769,000
GMAP P*Shark


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

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  1. I saw the 21st street house out of sheer curiousity yesterday–we’d bid on an incredibly charming house on Ablemarle Terrace in early 1997 ($205k!) but reneged–I wasn’t comfortable in the nabe at the time. I no longer feel that way…the area is definitely safer, and my perceptions have changed over time as well.

    The house itself could be great, and has a wonderful layout, but it needs ALOT of updating…old bathrooms, a worn kitchen, old windows, years of so-so paint jobs, and a rusting iron fence outside. You could sink $200k into it in a heartbeat.

    But it could be a fabulous house, and you’d get to pass the great graveyard to the Dutch Reformed Church every day–very cool!

  2. Gardens Gal: I had no intention of startng a debate on PLG. Just trying to figure out the price difference in two similar houses on the market in similar areas a stones throw from each other. The intimadation factor is obviously totally personal. We all have our own comfort levels. On that note, good night to all.

  3. Anon 8:31

    1. I was referencing all of PLG, not just Lefferts Manor.

    2. I don’t think that the apartment buildings in either PLG or Kenmore-Albemarle are “unstable.” Neither nabe “intimidates” me.

    And, since I’m not interested in turning this thread into a PLG debate, let’s just agree to disagree on which nabe is in the better location.

  4. I don’t really buy the “location” argument. Lefferts Manor is all of 6-8 blocks, not “many, many” and the apartment buildings surrounding Albermarle Terrace seem much more stable and middle-income than those on Flatbush in PLG. Yes, the E 21st house is 3 long blocks from the park, but those blocks are nowhere near as intimidating as Flatbush and Lincoln, which one has to cross to get out of LM. And it is close to decent stores and cafes on Courtelyou. But I will grant you that there isn’t as much of a sense of being in an enclave as there is in LM. However, that doesn’t add up to a 200,000 dollar difference.

  5. Before we bought in PLG, we also looked briefly in Ditmas Park (as well as in BS, PH and CH). IMHO, all of these nabes have wonderful houses (and, indeed, there is wonderful housing to be found in every nabe in Brooklyn). However, we didn’t look at Ditmas vey long because we realized, early on, that the homes we were most interested in were beyond our budget. Surely, if we could have afforded it, we might very well have gone with a Ditmas house. Ditmas rocks!

    As to why the E.21st house is priced lower than Lefferts, ironically, I would venture that the issue is location. The Kenmore-Albemarle Terrace houses are only 2 little cul-de-sac blocks within a much larger area characterized by high density apartment buildings and lots of heavy foot traffic. For all the similar demerits Lefferts gets for its location, at least there are many, many blocks of lovely homes and tree-lined streets and, of course, extremely close proximity to the Park, Zoo and BBG. The same cannot be said for the E.21st house.

  6. Bob Marvin–my question about LM prices versus Abermarle Terrace was actually about the 2 rows of brick houses on Rutland between Flatbush and Bedford, not the Midwood street ones (although you’re right that those are even more similar, and I didn’t realize they had the same architect). The Rutland road ones appear to be of a similar vintage and style–and one just off of Bedford is on the market for 950,000. But I suppose the answer is the same–name recognition. Personally, as a nervous white guy, I find the congestion of lower Flatbush less threatening than the stretch in LM, But that’s me. Thanks for answering!

  7. OH, yes, did I mention a guestroom and an office? And when we bought the price was right, so we don’t need a tenant to swing it and therefore have full owner occupancy of the home. We are lucky, and I know it. I wish everyone could have had the breaks we have. I wish everyone out there could be so lucky. Houses did not cost 1.9 when we were looking, although I would have paid several hundred thousand more for a house that needed less work.

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