Set Speed Condo Report: 364 Myrtle Avenue
Today’s new condo reports focuses on a development that has been profiled on Brownstoner before. Located on a busy commercial stretch of Myrtle Avenue between Clermont and Adelphi, lies this unique 4 story building. Featuring angled windows to take advantage of light and outdoor spaces, this new construction attempts to set itself apart from the…
Today’s new condo reports focuses on a development that has been profiled on Brownstoner before. Located on a busy commercial stretch of Myrtle Avenue between Clermont and Adelphi, lies this unique 4 story building. Featuring angled windows to take advantage of light and outdoor spaces, this new construction attempts to set itself apart from the others.
The site consists of one commercial condo and three large floor-thru duplex condominium units. The ground floor commercial unit measures in at just under 2000 square feet for $994K, while the other three units are 1533-1688 square feet and cost $877K, $890K and $919K. The residential units have 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Maintenance is about $260 a month.
Units feature 17 foot high ceilings, large gourmet kitchens with stainless steel appliances, en-suite bathrooms, spacious closets and laundry hook-ups. This condo is located close to many amenities, like supermarkets, restaurants, bars and hardware stores. But as last week’s two shootings attest, the area still contains some rough spots. An open house is scheduled March 26 from 12:30 to 3:30pm.
364 Myrtle Avenue [Corcoran] GMAP
New Building on Myrtle [Brownstoner]
Every Thursday, ltjbukem, whose own blog Set Speed scrutinizes the progress and quality of new developments in the area we know as Brownstone Brooklyn, pens a guest post about goings-on in the condo market with an emphasis on new projects.
Anon 8:14 You mean that fab prep school Evander Childs? And my pre- prep, Olinville JHS AND my pre-K, PS 78. Yes they did have fab teachers who taught that content is better than quantity. I guess the implication is that it must be the white people who are expressing themselves? Not so- in fact one of them is Black who went to Yale on a scholarship. But if you don’t want to bother to read a post you’re totally welcome to skip it.
My husband and I went to the open house on these condos today. My thoughts:
PROS:
-Love the layouts on all. Neat to have a duplex with a proper staircase
-Bathrooms are going to be very nice, with marble, separate shower and bath
-Laundry in each unit
-Amazing decks on apt. A and C
-Spacious feeling
CONS:
-Plenty of street noise in front
-Cheesy kitchen cabinetry (i don’t care if it’s imported, it’s cheap looking)
-NO elevator but LOTS of stairs
-Expensive!
heh brownstoner, can you please set a word limit? all these long responses are just too much. they need to be a little more concise in their statements. didn’t they have fabulous english teachers at their prep schools?
CHP,
Thanks for the support. Owning and maintaining a brownstone in Brooklyn is certainly something to be very proud of as well, so I congratulate you too. I’ve passed up many great opportunities but am still living in an apartment.
Hopefully one of these days, I’ll go for quality of life and get a brownstone . . . either that or move to Southern California and get a house. . . I haven’t really decided. Until then, I’ll just plod along, check out Bronwnstoner, and dream.
E-bomb, I offer you my most sincere congratulations on your success. I’m sure it’s not easy, and I personally would not want to be a landlord on that scale.
In regards to your non-paying tenants, I am fully aware, as I have always said here and elsewhere, that while most people are honest, some are not. I believe in reaping the consequences of what you sow. If you’ve held up your end, and they are not holding up theirs, without other mitigating circumstances to the contrary – I have no problem with you evicting them. I may be a liberal softie, but I’m not a sucker.
I think our differences are that your experiences have made you feel that those people are the norm, while I still feel they are the exception.
CHP and Friends,
I’m not complaining about being a landlord. I wouldn’t be one if I hated it that much. My point is simply that owning and managing LOW INCOME housing is very difficult to do profitably. I NO LONGER OWN LOW INCOME HOUSING because we made very little, if anything when we owned it. I’m just trying to share my extensive personal experience with you folks.
I currently own and manage some apartment buildings in lower Manhattan. I have a mix of free market and rent regulated tenants. I’ve renovated many of the apartments and replaced boilers, electric, etc., so I don’t have too many maintenance issues.
Of course I dislike rent regulation in NYC. I’m forced to directly subsidize lucky individuals who happened to rent their apartments years ago. It bothers me when I hear folks say they deserve their “deals” since they’ve lived in their apartments so long. It’s crazy . . . as if occupying an apartment is in some way similar to working or paying for something.
Through a combination of risk taking, luck, and hard work, I’ve done pretty well. My buildings are all in great shape and everybody’s apartment problems are resolved immediately, whether they’re low rent or high rent.
For your information, CHP and B2B I have several low rent tenants who I have given break after break after break to and still they are several months behind on their rent. I’m the exact opposite of the GREEDY LANDLORD you envision.
Whatever difference it makes, I’m a Democrat who wants lower taxes, like I’m sure many of you are. I’m not “bitter about being a landlord.” I’m just experienced and willing to tell it like it is.
Just curious, Ebomb…Are you a Republican?
I agree with CHP. If your buildings are making you so stressed and hateful, you need to get out of it. Relax, baby, learn to love again.
Sorry, that was “wretched” and “crawling” – typo errors above.
This is getting positively Dickensian.
Oh, where to start?
No, you certainly don’t have any proof that “that nearly every single person I’ve met with special housing is scamming the system.” That may be your impression and opinion, but that’s all it is. I don’t know where your buildings are, but you certainly seemed to have tapped into the mother lode of deceitful wrechedness there. Amazing.
And you pay your cleaning lady an entire $120 a day? Wow. That must be that free market premium price you were talking about. Does she work 5 days a week for 8 hours a day? Do you deduct taxes, and social security? Or does she pay that out of that $120? Do you pay her health insurance, or is she covered by your corperate insurance so that if she gets hurt cleaning, she doesn’t have to go to the emergency room for 8 hours, and pay a small fortune to see an overworked intern, and perhaps miss a day of work, for which she will not get paid? If you don’t, aren’t you scamming the government as well? Maybe her “scamming” of section 8 is allowing her an affordable apartment somewhere so that she doesn’t have to spend 2 hours commuting to your place of business. If you factored in your food, utilities, medicine, commuting costs, even work clothing, plus those of your family, plus rent, could you live on $120 a day, even in one of your building?
I have read a basic economics book, thank you, I took university courses from the people who wrote them. I also am a landlord. I know it’s not easy, and it certainly isn’t profitable for most small landlords and the system is not on our side. I’ve had to evict, and it was very costly, and unfair. My current tenants are both great, but even at market rate rents, they are only enabling me to break even, not get rich. I need them to pay my mortgage, they need me to supply them with decent, livable housing.
Your bad experiences seem to have made you very bitter. If you hate it, and your scamming, worthless tenants so much, why don’t YOU sell and move out? Or buy a building with higher income tenants in a higher income neighborhood? You seem to have lost your compassion and your objectivity. As much as we all hate government interference, the government has to step in when the private sector steps out. I’d rather my tax dollars paid for even “undeserving” people to have a roof over their head than not. It’s a better alternative than stepping over them in the street, or running from them in a dark alley, or having them crawing in through my window. History, one of those other classes I took, teaches that a society that villifies, blames, then isolates and ignores the poor, will soon find itself in a class war with those same poor people at the gate with weapons, hungry and desperate enough to take what they want. Don’t think it can’t and won’t happen here.
Yes, the best solution is a free market. But you can’t just wish that into being, with everything else being unequal. In the meantime, shipping them off to Siberia is not the solution.