Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Closed in Crown Heights: 1319 Bedford Avenue






Is it just us, or is Crown Heights, Brooklyn so hot right now?  $2,000+/month studio apartments, $10,000+/month townhomes, and $30M beer halls - oh my!  Even the vacant lots are getting boudgie...




Last month this huge barrel-front limestone 4-Family in Crown Heights at 1319 Bedford Avenue closes for $1.7M cash.  Yup, that's another well over $1.5M sales price for the area, and not delivered vacant, or shiny, or new.  And for all you Google Mappers out there, yes, that is the Bedford-Atlantic Armory directly across the street, still currently used a homeless shelter.





No tree-lined block here, just a busy intersection for sure, so why is a building like this fetching almost $2M?  Well, at 20' x 78', there's lot of space to play with.  Huge buildings like these are nice for investors and developers because they can be spacious floor-thru rentals, condos, or chopped into smaller units.  Many play them as 8-Families in 4-Family clothing, getting the size of a 5+ unit without the rent stabilization.  Even 2 years ago we were bullish on one of these that was a vacant SRO for $1.5M like 1329 Pacific Street:




Which closed last year and by this summer had turned into two renovated 3BR's per floor renting between $2,699 - $2,850/month...






So if an SRO further into Crown Heights that needed a total gut can go in contract for $1.5M almost 2 years ago, is it that surprising that a legal 4-Family that's faster & more straightforward to reposition goes for 13% more today?

The extra-deep 4-Family is a lay-out that's been taken advantage of in other top emerging (at the time) locations such as 33 St. Marks Avenue, 35 St. Marks Avenue, 489 Park Place, 1020 Park Place, and a few others that Platinum Members have under-bid on or have a contract on as we speak.  We'll take a look later this week at a record-breaking 8-Family seen only on HomeCanvasr.com that's in contract in Clinton Hill without even hitting the market. 

The buyers at 35 Rogers Avenue must be really happy with a comp a block away like Bedford as they undergo their renovation.   The same broker on 1319 Bedford Avenue has huge rent stabilized corner Crown Heights 8-Family's in contract for even less than this price.  But 1319 sits somewhere in between those and townhomes.  If semi-finished 3-Families like 1072 Dean Street can go for $1.7M as surprise last year, is a huge 4-Family around the corner that needs more work really that crazy this year at $1.7M?  We've seen studio apartments in East Williamsburg fetch $3,000/month.  "Is Brooklyn Over?" when studios in Crown Heights start going over $2,000/month, or is Brooklyn just getting started?

This week we'll take a look at the most affordable 2BR apartment in all of Prospect Heights, and hopefully some upcoming top-notch Crown Heights rentals near Franklin that we expect will have plenty of demand.



Pro's:  curb appeal, huge size, free market, under $300/sqft, great condo conversion or buy & hold opportunity, technically close to the best Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights have to offer

Con's:  busy block, across from a homeless shelter, really tweener location, took cash, price sounds lofty at first, comes with tenants, work to be done

Ideally:  certainly a buy & hold for the long haul, but you know it's getting frothy when even the bargains have pretty big price tags

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