Genie in a Bottle: 173 Amity Street

You don't see a corner 8-Family bowfront limestone in Cobble Hill come on the market that often.  Weighing in at a whopping 13,000 sqft, this 30' x 90' building is unattached on 3 sides and has over 20 windows on each floor.  173 Amity Street is a serious flagship property.  It listed at $5.5M and closed for $4.525M cash last month.  That's no small amount of money, but $348/sqft is a great price for such a monster piece in an area where smaller townhomes can fetch $3M easily.  You can check out a rental here, but no pics (or even a layout) were really necessary to move this piece.

After another great play in nearby Carroll Gardens went in contract last Fall with multiple back-up offers at 364 Union Street for its asking price of $2.5M - or $333/sqft - it was no surprise to see 173 Amity get the love it deserves.  A comment on Brownstoner asks, "How many of the 8 apartments are RC or RS ? Presumably the rent roll is low, otherwise it would have gone for much more."

Well, half of the apartments were rent stabilized, with a range from $1,233/month to $2,315/month.  However, the other half were already free market with actual rents as high as $3,800/month and 2 apartments delivered vacant with projected rents of $4,500.  With a total projected rent roll of $266K/year and potential to easily reach $290K/year even with the rent stabilized rents as-is, this building is another cash cow waiting to happen.  173 Amity may have sold for "only" a 4.79% - 5.3% cap rate, however with lots of upside left if you know what to do with it.

We call it a "genie in the bottle" when a building this juicy has plenty of upside to unlock.  Christina Aguilera sang, "I'm a genie in a bottle, ya gotta rub me the right way."

And if you know how to rub it, there's all kinds of potential to unlock in a building this large, this nice, and in this prime of a location.  If you wanted 3 & 4 bedroom apartment rentals in an 8-Family limestone over 10,000 sqft even closer to the train than this for less than half the price, with even higher upside, than you should've been rolling with us this time last year when the highest bid on 234 St. James Place of $1.6M was up for grabs.

Nowadays, a smaller, corner limestone 8-Family on the edge of Prospect Heights and Crown Heights at 706 Classon Avenue wants $3M.  And that's a fixer upper without the rent roll of 234 St. James or 173 Amity.  It won't be long before 173 Amity can go the way of 397 1st Street.  But pricing as a buy & hold winner makes sense too.  For those who know how to rub the lamps, a few more genie in a bottles are coming out on the market now.

Pro's:  location, corner, size, rent roll, upside potential

Con's:  takes deep pockets to acquire

Ideally:  great buy & hold and/or eventual condo conversion