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Thursday, October 4, 2012

Flipper's Paradise: 75 St. Marks Avenue


Have you been around the new Barclays Center stadium on the night of one of Jay-Z's concerts?  The surrounding area has changed forever and there is no going back.


We used to have to shove Prospect Heights down people's throats as a great alternative to Park Slope.  Now it's a foregone conclusion.  And prices are no joke either.  From this time last year until well into this Spring, we couldn't get a $1.5M bid on a 5-story Prospect Heights brownstone on an extra-deep lot to save our lives.  (It's supposedly in contract now for $1.8M cash!)  Then a 4-story beauty a block further east gets almost $3M.  This market is so bullish, it's caught everyone by surprise.

Bob Marley sang about a lady who got a little carried away with the partying, dubbing her a "pimper's paradise".  Now this red-hot bullish Brooklyn real estate market is a flipper's paradise.


Last year, Massey Knakal dropped 338 Clinton Avenue on ya for what seemed like a steep $2M.  Then that bad-boy sold for $1.925M and Elliman re-lists it immediately for $2.6M.  91 Macon sold for $600K at foreclosure auction and TerraCRG was happy to immediately re-list it for $900K.  (We heard they were ripping all the original details out and tossing them in dumpsters without permits too - eek!)  Now another Massey listing at 75 St. Marks Avenue is up for a quick flip.  It listed for $1.65M over a year ago, it dropped to $1.35M, sold for $965K cash last month... and guess who wants $1.895M for it now?  TerraCRG!  They know what time it is.

If you were going to do a flip on this block, maybe you'd rather have bought 96 St. Marks Avenue right across the street for $999K (we offered $1.1M) and turned it into 4 condos for $829K a piece.  But that was 2 years ago now, back when people were still bidding 30% off asking price and actually winning the deal.  Yet that's the slow way to double your money by today's standards.

Pro's:  location, deep building, vacant this time around

Con's:  someone else's flip, check that rent roll, not much yard to speak of, no upside at these levels

Ideally:  we've always said, "You can't out-flip a flipper."

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