House of the Day: 274 Clinton Street
The owner of 274 Clinton Street must be kicking herself for overpricing her four-story brownstone when she first put it on the market more than a year ago. The listing started out in March 2007 at $2,900,000 before being reduced to $2,775,000 a month later. In January of this year, it went down another $100,000….
The owner of 274 Clinton Street must be kicking herself for overpricing her four-story brownstone when she first put it on the market more than a year ago. The listing started out in March 2007 at $2,900,000 before being reduced to $2,775,000 a month later. In January of this year, it went down another $100,000. On Monday, it got whacked to $2,300,000. For some reason, there are still no interior photos available, which seems like an unwise move; the house is also on a shallow lot (68 feet). This is a sweet location, but without more info to work with, it’s impossible to say whether this falling knife has reached the ground.
274 Clinton Street [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark
Head-to-Head on Clinton Street [Brownstoner]
Photo by Kate Leonova for Property Shark
There is indeed a reason why this listing has no interior photos. Although this is an owner’s duplex with rental units, the rentals are not segregated from the owner’s living space at all. The parlor entrance, hallway and staircase are configured the same as it was originally, when it was a single family home. The owner (a very nice grandma) has chosen to rent to people she trusts, and by extension she trusts them and their guests to maintain her pretty hallway. It’s like a bed & breakfast in there. The only thing between the owner’s space and her tenants’ is her locked interior door at the far end of the parlor hallway.
The parlor floor has some nice details but the rest of the house does not. The rental units are mediocre, pre-fab laden constructs that have to be updated or gutted, depending on whether you want to eliminate the units or not. They are good enough to rent as-is, I guess, but not for top dollar. In any event you would most likely NOT want to keep the open architecture of the parlor access if you were buying this place to live there and rent at the same time. Therefore, you’re looking at significant costs to renovate even if you keep the rental configuration.
If you wanted to convert this to a single family or an owner’s triplex, you’re in for a more costly project. The rentals and the garden floor would need to cosmetically gutted, perhaps more (I couldn’t tell just by looking around).
Bottom line: people won’t pay the big bucks for a house that needs a lot of work. That’s why it hasn’t sold.
No, but I enjoyed his posts last night… very funny. I noticed the back and forth between you two. He’s entertaining but sometimes it’s difficult to get a picture of what’s really going on inside, just like the 274 Clinton Street listing above (staying on topic).
Biff…have you seen Putnamdenizen lurking anywhere today…need to tell him something?
Dave, unfortunately some posters have a very difficult time staying on point. Personally, I can never understand it. Oops, did that sound pedantic?
I’m on a Mac and it always says that the server can’t be found everytime I post. I just ignore it and it gets posted
Hilarious. I won’t even look at a $1500 rental without a picture. You would think that someone selling a $2MM+ home would take a day to clean up and snap some photos.
P.S. Brownstoner, you’ve really gotta fix your commenting. This has been going on two weeks now. We’ll see if this even posts.
For the same reason you are complaining about it; they have nothing better to do. At least they’re not pedantic.
Am I missing something??? why are those 2 “guests” talking about the Flea and renovation regulation???????????
There is more regulation for a raffle than there is to renovate your brownstone. Sorry, what seemed like a good idea is a gov’t nightmare.