In response to Gary's question on the previous post...according to the city's Department of Buildings, it appears that 27 Lincoln Rd. does not have any active building permits on file. The lot, which also includes 35 Lincoln Rd., also doesn't have a C of O; at the moment, it's zoned for a 2-story business/office. (Of course, there's enough pro-development sentiment that that wouldn't likely present a problem.) This doesn't necessarily mean anything one way or the other: a sale might not have gone through yet; the phantom developer could be waiting to finish up with the asbestos removal; the permits could still be working there way through the pipeline. But it is worth noting...
(In other development news: it looks like the former PPLG HQ doesn't have any active permits out either...)
Showing posts with label apartments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apartments. Show all posts
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Get your condos here! And...your yoga?
The weekend's almost here, which means this weekend's open houses are almost upon us, which means...it's real estate time, folks! Today brings another glowing(ish) PLG feature, this one in the Post. The story focuses on the recent condo development, all of which highlight one of the main attractions of the neighborhood: the prices, which remain less than half as much as those directly across the park in the Slope. There's the 2233 Caton Ave development, a six-story, 15-unit, elevator building; the condos feature oak floors, balconies, and access to the buildings roof deck. It sounds like these are mainly 2-brs, with prices ranging from $400,000 to $525,000 for between 800 and 1,000 sq-feet of new development goodness. (Twenty percent of the units are in contract; closings will begin later this summer.) There's also discussion of the Rogers/Lefferts Aves building; 850-sq feet 2-br units there are priced between $350,000 and $400,000.
Finally, story also quotes Prospect Lefferts United for Services' (PLUS) and A&H's Mark Dicus, who says there are plans to bring a wine shop, a lady-folk gym, and a yoga studio to the area. (Lord knows there's enough vacant retail space.) If those plans do pan out, I'd expect a big change here: the Ditmas exodus went from a trickle to a landslide once The Farm on Adderley, a high-end wine shop, a gorgeous furniture store, etc., joined the already-existing food co-op...
Lord knows there have been stories touting PLG as the next big thing for years (check out this Times story from 2004), but this really is one of the last remaining neighborhoods were single-family homes are available for a million bucks, and it's the only one within spitting distance from the Park (and on an express train). As for 2-brs in new construction buildings with nice appliances for under $500,000...well, try finding that anyplace else from Prospect Park South and points north (or west). The summer buying season should tell us a lot about what's to come. With prices at or above their 2006 highs, people hoping to wait out the boom are likely to wade back in before there's another double-digit increase in housing prices. And for people looking for some of the last bargains in the area...well, we're it.
Finally, story also quotes Prospect Lefferts United for Services' (PLUS) and A&H's Mark Dicus, who says there are plans to bring a wine shop, a lady-folk gym, and a yoga studio to the area. (Lord knows there's enough vacant retail space.) If those plans do pan out, I'd expect a big change here: the Ditmas exodus went from a trickle to a landslide once The Farm on Adderley, a high-end wine shop, a gorgeous furniture store, etc., joined the already-existing food co-op...
Lord knows there have been stories touting PLG as the next big thing for years (check out this Times story from 2004), but this really is one of the last remaining neighborhoods were single-family homes are available for a million bucks, and it's the only one within spitting distance from the Park (and on an express train). As for 2-brs in new construction buildings with nice appliances for under $500,000...well, try finding that anyplace else from Prospect Park South and points north (or west). The summer buying season should tell us a lot about what's to come. With prices at or above their 2006 highs, people hoping to wait out the boom are likely to wade back in before there's another double-digit increase in housing prices. And for people looking for some of the last bargains in the area...well, we're it.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Please tell the Times: there're plenty of affordable rentals out here
Not surprisingly, this Times story about younguns being forced to live in tents and in office buildings is getting lots of attention; on a day with no shortage of real-world news, it's the third-most emailed article on the Times's site.
Those poor little dears: there's 29-year-old Nina Rubin, who "struggled to find halfway decent housing in New York" before moving in to the Long Island City offices of Outward Bound, where she slept on a bunk bed, surrounded by cohorts bedding down in cubicles or on tents on the roof. And Kate Harvey, who joined eight of her friends and shacked up in an office building. (The space was owned by a company that her dad happened to run.)
There are two things wrong with this story. 1. The Times didn't bother to do any actual reporting into what it would actually cost someone to rent an apartment within, say, a half-hour of Union Square, and 2. Their cherry-picked "sources" are either stupid or aren't looking for affordable housing so much as they're looking for free housing...cuz there's still plenty out there that's available for the picking.
Like (and who among you didn't see this coming) a bunch of these offerings in PLG. It's hard to tell exactly what the situation is with these two Lincoln Road apartments, both of which are listed with The Real Estate Group: the pictures on the Times are identical, but one is listed as a 2000-sq ft 2 br for $3200 and the other is a 950-sq ft 2 br for $1950. Whatever the case, these look like pretty good deals: it's a big open space, there's a roofdeck, and a washer-dryer; the bigger of the two apartments is advertised as having new hardwood floors and 14-ft ceilings.
Citi Habitats also has a couple of two bedrooms listed at $2400 and $2100; there's this 3-br on Rutland that's listed at $1,600, and perhaps most enticingly, a $1050, 1-br rent stabilized apartment on Fenimore and Rogers.
I'm sure none of these apartments are as nice as they look, but they'd have to be a helluva lot worse not to be attractive at some of these prices...especially for someone camped out in their dad's office. Eight years ago I felt blessed to find a run-down, 1-BR on Atlantic Ave between 3rd and 4th Ave for $1100. Atlantic Ave was not fun seven years ago. And my apartment was not a couple of blocks from the park.
In its effort to prove that those among us who aren't I-bankers or trust-fund babies are being squeezed out of the city, the Times writes how "the rents for one-bedroom apartments in Manhattan average $2,567 a month, and two-bedrooms average $3,854 a month. ... Because landlords typically require renters to earn 40 times their monthly rent in annual income, renters of those average apartments would need to earn at least $102,680, individually or combined, to qualify for a one-bedroom and $154,160 to afford a two-bedroom." I've never lived anyplace where a landlord insisted I make 40-times my monthly rent; I usually set aside 35-percent of my salary. If you go by my figures, someone making $35,000 could afford a one-bedroom in PLG; three friends all making $27,000 could live in one of the $2000/mo two-bedrooms.
But the real question here isn't why the Times story doesn't present the whole story; that happens all too often. The real question is...why are these apartments sitting vacant? Complaints about services, or Flatbush, don't cut it with me; for $1,000 a month in NYC, you're going to need to make sacrifices no matter where you're living. And there's nowhere else where you'd be be so close to an express train and so close to the park. So what gives?
Those poor little dears: there's 29-year-old Nina Rubin, who "struggled to find halfway decent housing in New York" before moving in to the Long Island City offices of Outward Bound, where she slept on a bunk bed, surrounded by cohorts bedding down in cubicles or on tents on the roof. And Kate Harvey, who joined eight of her friends and shacked up in an office building. (The space was owned by a company that her dad happened to run.)
There are two things wrong with this story. 1. The Times didn't bother to do any actual reporting into what it would actually cost someone to rent an apartment within, say, a half-hour of Union Square, and 2. Their cherry-picked "sources" are either stupid or aren't looking for affordable housing so much as they're looking for free housing...cuz there's still plenty out there that's available for the picking.
Like (and who among you didn't see this coming) a bunch of these offerings in PLG. It's hard to tell exactly what the situation is with these two Lincoln Road apartments, both of which are listed with The Real Estate Group: the pictures on the Times are identical, but one is listed as a 2000-sq ft 2 br for $3200 and the other is a 950-sq ft 2 br for $1950. Whatever the case, these look like pretty good deals: it's a big open space, there's a roofdeck, and a washer-dryer; the bigger of the two apartments is advertised as having new hardwood floors and 14-ft ceilings.
Citi Habitats also has a couple of two bedrooms listed at $2400 and $2100; there's this 3-br on Rutland that's listed at $1,600, and perhaps most enticingly, a $1050, 1-br rent stabilized apartment on Fenimore and Rogers.
I'm sure none of these apartments are as nice as they look, but they'd have to be a helluva lot worse not to be attractive at some of these prices...especially for someone camped out in their dad's office. Eight years ago I felt blessed to find a run-down, 1-BR on Atlantic Ave between 3rd and 4th Ave for $1100. Atlantic Ave was not fun seven years ago. And my apartment was not a couple of blocks from the park.
In its effort to prove that those among us who aren't I-bankers or trust-fund babies are being squeezed out of the city, the Times writes how "the rents for one-bedroom apartments in Manhattan average $2,567 a month, and two-bedrooms average $3,854 a month. ... Because landlords typically require renters to earn 40 times their monthly rent in annual income, renters of those average apartments would need to earn at least $102,680, individually or combined, to qualify for a one-bedroom and $154,160 to afford a two-bedroom." I've never lived anyplace where a landlord insisted I make 40-times my monthly rent; I usually set aside 35-percent of my salary. If you go by my figures, someone making $35,000 could afford a one-bedroom in PLG; three friends all making $27,000 could live in one of the $2000/mo two-bedrooms.
But the real question here isn't why the Times story doesn't present the whole story; that happens all too often. The real question is...why are these apartments sitting vacant? Complaints about services, or Flatbush, don't cut it with me; for $1,000 a month in NYC, you're going to need to make sacrifices no matter where you're living. And there's nowhere else where you'd be be so close to an express train and so close to the park. So what gives?
Friday, May 4, 2007
On sale in PLG: the allure of a $799,000 house (and a $299,000 2BR)
Some interesting properties newly on the market in the hood. There's this two-story townhouse on Sterling between Rogers and Nostrand, which is a bit east of what we normally think of as Lefferts Garden but it is, indeed, part of the landmarked district.
Corcoran has the listing for $799,000; if this was located .2 miles west and .3 miles south (putting it on Maple between Bedford and Rogers), it'd be a steal. As a comparison, check out this Brown Harris property on Midwood between Bedford and Rogers; it's also a two-floor townhouse but is listed at $925,000. The Brown Harris listing does have a garden -- and judging from the photos posted online, the Corcoran house looks as if it might not -- and the B-H listing might have some more original detail, but the Sterling St. one definitely appears to be in decent shape.
There's also this 3-bedroom Tudor on Chester Court listed for $697,000. Even more than the Corcoran house, this is a property that's going to be effected by its location. Chester ain't no Beekman, but it's sketchier than just about any Manor block on the other side of Flatbush. It also butts up against the subway tracks. Still, even for what appears to be a pump-and-dump property, there's a lot to like here: jacuzzi, finished basement, two fireplaces, backyard, exposed ceiling beams, wainscotting, parquet floors; if you told your average New Yorker you could get a single-family home that was a stone's throw from Prospect Park for under three-quarters of a million bucks, they'd assume you'd just been dropped off from a 1990s time machine. (An aside - and I know I'm about the billionth person to remark on this -- but it boggles my mind that some real estate companies are so lazy (or ignorant) as to not even bother to set up a functioning website. It's the equivalent of not bothering to clean up the dog crap in your front yard before you schedule a showing.)
Speaking of stupid web strategies, here's a $299,000, 2BR listing with virtually no information contained therein. I'm pretty sure it's 306 Lincoln Rd (between Rogers and Nostrand). It's these type of properties that are going to be the most interesting over the next year. A million bucks -- which is probably a good average for townhouses in the Manor proper -- is going to be too high for a lot of younger couples/families priced out of Park Slope (or Fort Greene, or Windsor Terrace, or virtually anyplace north of Brooklyn College), especially without the possibility of rental income to offset the mortgage. But a $299,000 2BR with 10% down comes out to a monthly mortgage of $1,662...and that's less than you're gonna pay in rent in most places in the city. When I moved to New York (in the early 1990s), I was paying almost a grand to live down in the Lower East Side, and that was when junkies were literally shooting up on the street. (I actually was only paying a grand until I discovered the apartment I was living in was stabilized; from that point on I paid $350. But you get the point.)
Anyone seen any of these places? Or have any thoughts? I'd especially love to hear from apartment hunters out there...
Corcoran has the listing for $799,000; if this was located .2 miles west and .3 miles south (putting it on Maple between Bedford and Rogers), it'd be a steal. As a comparison, check out this Brown Harris property on Midwood between Bedford and Rogers; it's also a two-floor townhouse but is listed at $925,000. The Brown Harris listing does have a garden -- and judging from the photos posted online, the Corcoran house looks as if it might not -- and the B-H listing might have some more original detail, but the Sterling St. one definitely appears to be in decent shape.
There's also this 3-bedroom Tudor on Chester Court listed for $697,000. Even more than the Corcoran house, this is a property that's going to be effected by its location. Chester ain't no Beekman, but it's sketchier than just about any Manor block on the other side of Flatbush. It also butts up against the subway tracks. Still, even for what appears to be a pump-and-dump property, there's a lot to like here: jacuzzi, finished basement, two fireplaces, backyard, exposed ceiling beams, wainscotting, parquet floors; if you told your average New Yorker you could get a single-family home that was a stone's throw from Prospect Park for under three-quarters of a million bucks, they'd assume you'd just been dropped off from a 1990s time machine. (An aside - and I know I'm about the billionth person to remark on this -- but it boggles my mind that some real estate companies are so lazy (or ignorant) as to not even bother to set up a functioning website. It's the equivalent of not bothering to clean up the dog crap in your front yard before you schedule a showing.)
Speaking of stupid web strategies, here's a $299,000, 2BR listing with virtually no information contained therein. I'm pretty sure it's 306 Lincoln Rd (between Rogers and Nostrand). It's these type of properties that are going to be the most interesting over the next year. A million bucks -- which is probably a good average for townhouses in the Manor proper -- is going to be too high for a lot of younger couples/families priced out of Park Slope (or Fort Greene, or Windsor Terrace, or virtually anyplace north of Brooklyn College), especially without the possibility of rental income to offset the mortgage. But a $299,000 2BR with 10% down comes out to a monthly mortgage of $1,662...and that's less than you're gonna pay in rent in most places in the city. When I moved to New York (in the early 1990s), I was paying almost a grand to live down in the Lower East Side, and that was when junkies were literally shooting up on the street. (I actually was only paying a grand until I discovered the apartment I was living in was stabilized; from that point on I paid $350. But you get the point.)
Anyone seen any of these places? Or have any thoughts? I'd especially love to hear from apartment hunters out there...
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