Rental of the Day: 468 Carlton Avenue

This is Leo, the owner. Interesting comments above. I’ll try to address them. I bought the place in early April and did the following renovations: ripped up carpetting, replaced with hardwood floor, demolished the half-open kitchen wall to create an open plan, re-painted, added a third room out of the living room space.

@11233: yes, removing the divider made the living room much more usable.
@dirty hipster and bxgrl: updating the kitchen would have meant charging much more, and remember re: the divider: you can always put in an island-on-wheels, like IKEA sells.

As for the pricing, I think it’s a decent deal. It’s location is not super-prime-FG, as some have commented, but then again the price is a lot less than super-prime-FG. And yes, the 3rd bedroom is pretty small, but again, it’s well priced given the size. If the room-mates split the rent proportionally to the area of their rooms, the small room will pay about 700/mo or less (note that we took care to size it so that a queen bed can be placed parallel to the short axis of the street, so the room is largely usable…if you’re curious full floor plans are on the Craigslist Ad). pretty good deal for FG if you ask me. But the best indicator is the market — I’ve had huge demand (over 400 hits on Craigslist today) and everyone who has visited seems to like it, so much so that I think I may have mis-priced it by $100.

thanks for listing it as rental of the day! love the brownstoner community, and happy to answer any other questions posted here.

“Would it have killed them to put up a half wall with a counter to divid the kitchen from the living room? I don’t mind open layouts but not like this.”

yeah – or if you’re gonna leave it open, switch out the appliances and cabinet fronts.

I used to live on the second floor of this building from 1997 through 2002. I paid $1,200/month for it in 2002.

More info:

Leo is not the first owner of this building. The former owner was a woman and she lived on the first floor. So, 11201, Leo must have paid a pretty penny to buy this, which explains the high rent.

Floor plan make for two real bedrooms. That third room is too small for anything but a twin bed and maybe a dresser. Since the doors to that rooom and the closet open into the room, you have even less space. Could make a good home office.

Not much direct sunlight as the buildings around it block the sun for much of the day

Your living space must also accomodate a dining area. That doesn’t leave much room for a living area.

That kitchen is not new. Leo refinished the cabinets. The appliances are the same as when the house was built 14 years ago.

To get from the parking in the back to your apt means walking around several other building in the complex and back around to get to the front door. Not the most convenient.

Carlton Avenue is closed bewteen Pacific and Atlantic now so access to Prospect Heights and Park Slope means walking over to 6th Avenue or Vanderbilt. Not as direct as it used to be.

You can hear the noise from the traffic on Atlantic.

You will live directly across from several large buildings. Noise can be a bit of an issue. Parking on the street can be a pain. Once AY is built, I think this will only get worse.

The laundromats are several blocks away so buy a cart or be prepared to lug your dirty laundry a few.

This is ok. Not particularly nice space and this is part of a group of new buildings that fit with the neighborhood. Right. If you need three bedrooms, itsy bitsy bedrooms, you got them.

The owner must need the mortgage payments paid by tenants with extra to invest in IRA. These buildings were built by the city for middle income families back in the 90’s.