House of the Day: Victorian in East Ditmas
We’re not sure if this house is technically in Ditmas or Midwood, but it’s a well-preserved corner house on what looks to be an attractive block. Is it worth the $939,000 asking price? No idea. The fireplace is a little random, but otherwise quite nice details. There was an open house yesterday so hopefully we’ll…
We’re not sure if this house is technically in Ditmas or Midwood, but it’s a well-preserved corner house on what looks to be an attractive block. Is it worth the $939,000 asking price? No idea. The fireplace is a little random, but otherwise quite nice details. There was an open house yesterday so hopefully we’ll get some first-hand feedback.
642 East 18th Street [Brooklyn Properties] GMAP P*Shark
Also, the house sold for 750 in jan to someone who planned to do a reno and flip it. Now its back on the market for 939k. Thats almost 200k in profit. A good deal for the seller but not so good for the buyer if the seller only really did 50 – 60k in cosmetic renovations and buyer runs into other problems in the near future.
This is none of those times it pays to have a relationship with a top shelf inspector.But in most cases a buyer will come in , see all the nice shiny things, fall in love and have an inspector suggested my broker or agent. And have no idea how much the seller picked it up for.
House flipping is a great way to make money but here in new york i fear that its driving up the market to the point it will burst soon.
We are talking about real estate here, moreover, real eastate in New York. Everyone here wants to make a profit in any case. Secondly,these are very old homes. In most cases your going to have to go into your pocket sooner or later after you buy one.These homes are not being put on the market by well meaning conservationist etc. Most often they are first perchased by a “flip artist” and put back on the market after a few thousand dollars of cosmetic renovations.
I personaly believe that a person should leave a home better than he or she found it, after all we all expect to make a profit apon selling. But lets face it, people sell their homes for many reasons (few ever say ” this house is fantastic and perfect in every way..lets sell it”).
If after buying a house and furnishing it you find there is little or no many to do any big repairs or required upgrades you have purchased too much house.
As to the issue of Flatbush being on a very positive upswing over the past years, well thats true for the most part but i personaly think its about to take a turn due to the developement and displacement in lower Bedford-styversant Ft.Green areas.
Would i buy that house?..Not as an investment.As a home to live in , yes provided I had a couple 100k left over to make any changes i’d like and bring everything up to date and code.As a first house–no way.
Even a house for $1.1m needs work, many time a house looks pretty in the picture, but one needs to get past that and really look at the home itself.. All these homes need some sort of work and need to be maintained. Maintaining these homes cost a lot of money…
Some people are forgetting also that a buyer has to pay a 1% mansion tax on any house over $1M. So that’s why many time we see home for $999K to avoid that mansion tax. That’s a big deal!! So that home for $1.1M that still needs work will cost a buyer an extra $11,000 paid at closing.
That’s $11K less to do work on that home..
It was listed for $849,000 and apparently went for $900K. So, if it went for $899K, that would make a difference?
It was LISTED for $849K and apparently went for $900K. So if it went for $899K that would make some huge difference ?
I’m growing weary of this. Just because your a bit bitter that you had to drop $100K to get your house up to snuff, doesn’t mean there were NOT other houses in the area that needed less work and were on the marked last year.
This year, your SOL, cuz all the home owners saw what houses were going for and upped their asking price.
No, but the house DID sell for 900K, and the new owners most likely did spend some more cash renovating, even just minor cosmetics can add up quickly. Maybe the new owners were asking too much (but if they get it, then I guess not – that’s the market). But I’m not sure I see your point. Houses that sell below 900K are still extremely rare in Victorian Flatbush. Even though this one was asking less, it sold for 900K. Again, that seems to be the bottom end of the market here now.
Actually the one house I had seen (and mentioned had not yet been resided) was in a Brownstoner recent sales post:
http://brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2006/02/residential_sal_26.html
Legal 3-family, 3-story prewar Victorian-style house, it was listed for $849,000 and apparently went for $900K. As far as I can tell, the owner’s have done nothing to the exterior, it’s same as when it was on the market. And never saw a dumpster or sign of work crew, (pass that way all the time) so they didn’t do anything major before they moved in.
So the house was $900K, didn’t fall down, and didn’t need hundreds of thousands of work done before new owner’s could move in.
Although I would like my marble baths and new kitchen sooner rather than later, I did not need to have my house, which still needed $100k worth of work (plumbing, electricity, plastering, sidewalks, etc…) gut reno’d to move in. Still I didn’t see a single house in the under 900k price range that didn’t need this sort of stuff done. To be fair, I was not interested in properties that were not in prime locations, so did not look on the borders (south Midwood, anything near Avenue H, etc…) I’m just wondering what brokers you were using – because I just didn’t see the properties you must have visited advertised anywhere. Also, it’s important to realize that house inspectors can’t find a lot of electrical and plumbing problems, environmental hazards, that do exist, as they can’t take down the walls. There can be lots of issues when you actually buy the house that come to light after you’ve bought the house, no matter what the inspection says. I know this first hand.
Yes, they were inspected by an engineer and found to have list of fix it later items, and a few fix it sooner items (but nothing structural).
I noticed that one house, that I looked at, still 1 yr later has not been resided by it’s new owner, and it really could stand to be done. All houses were a bit outside the historic Ditams Park boarders, so yes some were vinyl sided. (oh the horror!)
And again, I’m stressing these houses are perfectly habitable, but not classed as luxury houses. They have some period detail, and are really nice, but not mansions.
And the fresh coat of paint was so that you could move in, and do repairs as need and on your own time table and as budget allows.
I’m not a “it’s got to be gut reno-ed and marble kitchen & bath” person. If it got four walls, no leaks, no dangling wires, and a roof that’s intact, I can move in. And the majority of the places looked at were well above this basic standard. Did see one house did really need full kitchen/bath redo of 2nd floor, it was really trashed by an ex-tenant. But all house, houses already had people living in them, they were not boarded up and abandon, or falling down.
And there is a huge difference between declaring a house “practically falling down” and saying it could use $100K in “improvements”.