Maybe you were too chicken to venture out to Church Avenue on the 2/5 trains when this gem was asking $859K in 2012, but we weren't. We'd been hoofing it out to Church Ave since 2003. Picked up for $869K just before the clock struck 2013, 245 Martense Street hit the open market this year for $2.4M, and closed last week way over asking price at $2.72M. This 8-Family cash cow features original details, new upgrades, lots of free market apartments and stabilized apartments in line with or exceeding market rents. No wonder it was perfect for buyers looking for solid return, capital preservation, and/or 1031 action. No wonder this place made it to the top of Loopnet's most popular listings in Brooklyn on the open market...
Pre-market, the biggest commercial brokers told us to take offers we had in the $2.3-$2.4M range, saying they'd charge us 6 figures in commission and not net us anymore money. But the building, affectionately known as "The Old Man", wouldn't stop there.
Sleep on Brooklyn at your own peril, but they still won't believe it until it happens a dozen more times. Nobody thought $2,000+ 2BR's were coming to Lefferts, but we knew any deal around the corner from the 2/5 with legit BR's all over the place was poised to tick up, rent regulated or not. We tried to tolja' back in June it was going down over ask; now it has. And the hunt begins for the next project.
"But where is the next hot neighborhood in Brooklyn??" they always ask us.
Oh, silly! It's not that simple. It never has been. You can overpay in any neighborhood, good or bad. You can also underpay in any neighborhood, good or bad. The trajectory of each building is case-by-case and not told by its zip code alone. But they don't hear us though.
As even the Park Slope-mobile parks over in Crown Heights...
And Park Slope cats get houses boudgier than Fort Greene's people, on a block where investors are bidding $2M+ for a tear down frame house...
And $3M sales (not asking prices) are popping up in Bed-Stuy, where $900K scared people just 3-4 years ago. And the word "gentrification" is even starting to sound too subtle...
Wu-Tang's "Cash Rule Everything Around Me" feels as poignant as ever. Or just a good punchline...
We'll keep trying to breakdown the nuanced trends that conk trained eyes over the head, while Brooklyn keeps singing, "If you don't know me by now..."
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