Monday, September 10, 2012

Bed-Stuy Open House Tomorrow: Final Bids This Week


Not on your Streeteasy or your New York Times, this weekend we toured a 4-Family in Bed-Stuy with an open house tomorrow (Tuesday) and we're told they're taking final bids this week.  $975K might sound like a steep price for a fixer-upper, but you'll be slow on the uptake if you only look at comps (an indicator that lags by as much as 6-9 months), because a whole new batch of pricepoints are already in the pipeline on the best blocks of Bed-Stuy.  The sale of 271 Jefferson Avenue for $1.2M, which was recorded last month, has set off a chain reaction among sellers in Bed-Stuy.  Insiders have told us that $1M was a psychological threshold that many owners were eager to achieve, but now an Elliman listing selling for $1.2M has set the bar even higher than that.  More & more of the people who wanted to sell around $1M just a few weeks ago, now say they'd rather sell around $1.2M, and many are willing to hold out until they can get it.  And places such as this 4-Family fixer-upper are among the next-best houses to drop accordingly.

On the same block as this open house tomorrow, there are some serious mansions.  Cousin John recently finished out a 4-Family renovation for around $250K on this same block, on a house that sold for this same price this time last year.  They got new mechanicals, some new kitchens & baths, and pretty much pimped their ride.  And that's a budget that's been thrown around for this house, which we think would more than bring it up to speed.  Lots of details are already intact, along with some janky updates...




Getting a 20' x 42' brownstone on a 100' lot for a standard 4-Family with details for under a million is spot-on with this market.  Some floors are livable, even if their updates aren't that tasteful.  And most of the major repairs can be isolated on the lower floors, where you may be doing mechanical work anyways.  There are some leaks and some rough spots.  You'll definitely have to do a few repairs if you want to move in soon, but nothing that isn't happening all over this neighborhood these days.




Pro's:  not on everyone's radar, not asking an absurd $1.2M, original details, not far from the train

Con's:  really short notice for final bids, some funky updates, some funky configurations on some floors, needs work, won't last long

Ideally:  definitely worth a look if you're even considering anything in this genre

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