Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Flipping Is Easy in Crown Heights: 857 Park Place





How do you make $400K plus in less than a year in Crown Heights?  We'll show ya!  All last year, many Brooklyn buyers came out of the woodwork realizing that Crown Heights was the obvious next shoe to drop in the gentrification that's sweeping eastward in brownstone Brooklyn.  Folks with as relatively little down as $100K we're happy to tell us what was and wasn't worth ~$700K, but we figured all these homes wanted to be $1M sooner than later.  We didn't realize how soon "sooner" would be.  Case in point, 857 Park Place was a listing that was even on your Streeteasy for all to see last year, and it was in and out of accepted offers around $750K.  A few wanna-be developers who could afford it many times over all cash passed on it (they also passed on no-brainer gems such as 181 Park Place, 1142 Dean Street, 22 Arlington Place, 26 St. James Place, 71 Irving Place, 289 Clinton Avenue, and 308 Clermont Avenue - so what do they know?), and even end-users who couldn't afford any house besides this one in the area were passing on it flippantly.  The seller went with an FHA offer from someone they'd been working with for some time.  However, after months in contract, the financed deal fell through and the house was rescued for the same price all-cash, closing in March this year.  It appraised for $1M at the time, and is back out now with a list price of $1.2M...




Trust us, you're paying for more than just floor plans when you get this house, even though the listing shows nothing else.  We were impressed with its end-user potential when we got inside last year, and things have only gotten better in Crown Heights, even if the house itself hasn't.  We hear there are offers significantly over $1M in already, so it's not a game out there.  When the $1.2M listing this year is worse than the $775K listing last year and buyers still waste no time coming in strong, you KNOW you're dealing with a hot market.  Up 60% in under 9 months?  That's just how we roll.



Pro's:  great block,  a relatively affordable way to participate in the market, a 3-Family with a yard and rental income still beats a condo

Con's:  no pics on the listing, not the best house on the block, can't play woulda/coulda on last year's pricing for this same product, "Nostrand is too far" still rolls off the tongue for lots of folks

Ideally:  don't sleep on Crown Heights next time, if there is a "next time"


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