Killer SRO Opportunity: 138 Prospect Place

You want to live here: around the corner from the B/Q trains at 7th Avenue, on a cute little block in Prospect Heights at the cusp of Park Slope and Prospect Park. Even as an SRO, this house has value all day. There's all kinds of $2M houses crawling around over here, this will be one in the near future. $1.2M isn't even that crazy an asking price. 138 Prospect Place is a 20' wide brownstone building that's got a Certificate of Occupancy (and listing) talking about a 1 Family duplex and 7 furnished rooms on the other floors. What has us confused is how there are only 2,725 square feet if the building is 20' x 55' and four stories with the garden level. Perhaps not all floors are as deep?

Who knows if it's delivered vacant, with tenants (potentially hostile), with a Certificate on Non-harrassment filed or not? These are unknowns that have real effect on the value, and are worth looking into, but this property will move regardless. There are only so many place like this on these blocks.

Not much can be expected of the interior, but as often is the case, we get a few janky pictures of the original details like marble fireplaces:



The owner seems to have had this house for decades, but faced numerous Lis Pendens in 2003, 2006, and 2007 for tax liens on what are relatively miniscule amounts. Property Shark is even showing a foreclosure auction that was scheduled for 11/18/2010 for those tax liens. It's unclear to us whether the auction happened and now someone's flipping it, or if the seller still has a chance to get out from under it. The listing appeared about a month after the auction was scheduled for. Call the agent, get the scoop, there's something juicy here!

Pro's: curb appeal, 55' deep, proximity to trains, park and many neighborhoods, tree-lined block

Con's: lack of clarity on SRO status, hefty renovation may be in order, tenants may be hostile

Ideally: there's room well below asking price to satify both buyer and seller.