Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Price Drop on Fort Greene 8-Family: 132 Lafayette Avenue



Around the corner from yesterday's pick, in the heart of Fort Greene, comes an 8-Family that's been on steady price drop since last year. 132 Lafayette Avenue first listed for $2M on 6/10/2010. Just a month later it was dropped to $1.8M, then $1.7M a month after that. By the end of December 2010, the listing was no longer available. Fastfoward through the market turn to 6/6/2011 when it was re-listed for $1.85M, and now reduced two days ago to $1.65M. The listing has no interior or exterior pictures, no rent roll (the old listing calls out "140K"), and no breakdown of the layout of the apartments. Even the number of apartments is foggy:

"FABULOUS EIGHT FAMILY- FOUR WILL BE VACANT IN WEEKS. SIX REMAINING APARTMENTS ARE MARKET"

Hmmm, so if 4 will be vacant in a few weeks and the 6 remaining are market... where did the extra two come from?



Luckily StreetEasy is on-point enough to keep track of even rented & expired rental listings, so we can get a little peak into what's going on. This 1BR rental in the building listed for $1,750/month for 2 months at the end of 2010, until finally renting for $1,600 at the beginning of 2011:



StreetEasy had another rental listing from 2010 for a 650 sqft 1BR for $1,600/month too. These are very plausible rental numbers over here. However, another tricky number is the square footage of the building. Property Shark has it as 20.8' x 40', which over 4 floors gets their 3,330 sqft. Was there an extension built? Because the listing says 8,200 sqft, meanwhile by our count 8 units x 650 sqft per unit = 5,200 sqft. More fuzzy math?

Pro's: location, rental income potential, 8 x 1BR units optimizes space for income, even more upside yet to come

Con's: curb appeal, lack of clarity on tenancy status & interior, Lafayette's a hectic street here

Ideally: great potential here, but this isn't the best 8-Family in the area by a LONG SHOT. Contact us for more info...

1 comment: