The Real Deal: A Dose of Reality for Crown Heights Market
Citing some of the discussions on this blog, real estate mag The Real Deal puts the Crown Heights market in its place this month with an article entitled, “Sellers Swallowing Their Pride in Crown Heights.” While not dismissing the nabe’s merits, the basic thesis is that the market got ahead of itself and there’re are…
Citing some of the discussions on this blog, real estate mag The Real Deal puts the Crown Heights market in its place this month with an article entitled, “Sellers Swallowing Their Pride in Crown Heights.” While not dismissing the nabe’s merits, the basic thesis is that the market got ahead of itself and there’re are lots of homeowners with a deluded sense of what their places are worth. (Yesterday’s HOTD is further proof of that phenomenon.) Several brokers are surprisingly frank about clients who insisted on slapping ridiculous prices on their houses, only to have them languish on the market. Here’s a great anecdote:
Kevin McNeill, a senior vice president at Corcoran, is all too familiar with this phenomenon. He points to a three-story townhouse he helped put on the market for $1.2 million back in June. “It was overpriced, but her next-door neighbor had listed at $1.4 million,” says McNeill. “Hers was similar [to her neighbor’s], and when she saw $1.4 million it was hard to talk her off the ledge.” For two months the home languished. Then in August the seller agreed to drop the price by about $100,000, but still it sat. It wasn’t until McNeill convinced her to lower the price below $1 million that the house sold. “The minute we brought it to $995,000, we sold it within days,” says McNeill. “We closed at $960,000.”
The implicit conclusion of the article, which we’d agree with, seems to be that in the new, post-subprime paradigm, $1 million is a huge psychological barrier in Crown Heights, as it is for most of Bed Stuy. But as Corcoran’s McNeill says, “When people talk about price reductions in these neighborhoods, it’s not about the market, it’s about improper pricing.”
Sellers Swallowing Their Pride in Crown Heights [The Real Deal]
Photo by gkjarvis
where is crown heights?
is that near park slope?
Your MOM can do that too, 3:43. But I’m sure you’re not bragging about it.
You’ll find many people willing to buy in Baghdad and Beirut, too. That doesn’t mean they’re safe.
Crown Heights’ main claim to fame is that it violates the laws of physics….by sucking and blowing at the same time!
brooklynian is pure garbage.
Where are the front doors on these houses?
1:06 you couldn’t be serious about what you see.
Well, 2:21, apparently many of your neighbors disagree with you. Check out the Crown Heights board on brooklynian.com, where posts about muggings, gunfire, gang activity, and assualts are commonplace.
http://www.brooklynian.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=4&sid=fb86b426e5152c2d5878557890cb6088
Posted by: guest at December 6, 2007 2:29 PM
I just read it. Contains lots of different opinions, both pro and con. Have to say though, I didn’t read anything that remotely resembled 1:06’s comment.
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/sections/news/crime/
Crime occcurs throughout Brooklyn and NYC. Some neighborhods have less crime than CH, some more. Posters like 1:29 and 2:29 seek to stigmatize CH and its residents with alamarist posts that are akin to those from “The What” albeit on another subject. Clearly many, many peoople are comfortable living and buying in CH.
Of course, these neighborhoods have good and bad parts. I would actually like it if someone gave a breakdown as to the good and bad parts of CS and BS.