ugly-house-1208.jpg
We were going to pull together three different places to feature in this edition of Horror Show Friday but this place seemed to be able to stand on its own. Fittingly, the broker manages to reach new depths of illiteracy as well.
$529000 Amazing luxury 2 family [Craigslist]


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply

  1. Benson, point taken and I’m sure you are right about inventory. But my thought and mine alone is, those fedder home developers that have been building for the last 30 years, probably cared more about the project they construction because it reflected on them. These days, you have every “Joe” developing who is just trying to make a profit. Granting they should not care how I feel about what they put up, but I thought the purpose of building was to sell.

  2. benson- you’re going after MM over that thread? What for? what malicious smear- the pastor? You must be kidding.

    It just goes back to the whole how much community responsibility people want to take. the pastor seems to have no respect for the community he was in, and now he has no church either. Any institution or business that depends on the community needs to respect it. I’m not saying a church should have to abide by what others want, but in this case is seems karma kicked in. Had BRG been lying about anything that happened, it would be malicious. But she wasn’t- and calling St. Montrose on it is a real stretch.

  3. More responses:

    Bxgrl: the issue here is taste, not quality. The quality of the building is covered by the building code. NYC has the toughest building code in the nation.

    Brooklyn816: These fedder homes have been built for about 30 years. While there may be some unsold inventory right now due to the economy, they have been widely bought, and accepted, in moderate-income areas during this time. Again, I urge all to go to the neighborhoods I listed above.

  4. Montrose;

    Here is the issue I was talking about:

    http://bstoner.wpengine.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/12/green_church_ca.php

    Please read the entire thread. This is your “supporter” in action, and your statement to her was “I’m with you”.

    Returning to the issue of these homes:

    -good luck on convincing the people of NYC that they need a taste czar;

    -slopefarm: the reason that most of these homes are set back is that the City zoning requires that all PRIVATE new homes provide space for one car for every two units. In upper-scale housing this is accomplished by underground garages. In new homes it is accomplished by setting the house back and putting a car pod in front.

    If you want to pull the home back to the existing building line, you would have to get rid of this requirement. However, I doubt that most moderate-income folks would accept a new home that didn’t have a parking space.

  5. Neighborhoods are communities, not just amalgamations of buildings. When developers throw up cheaply made and badly designed structures it takes away from everyone, most especially so in poor or working class neighborhoods that are trying to come back.

    I tend to seriously doubt that any builder throwing up something so obviously done for maximum profit with very minimal effort, is putting up a good quality building. We’ve seen too much of that in Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy.

    Brownstone stock is expensive to maintain (d-uh, I know.)But the overall quality and beauty of them make them worth the effort, and makes such neighborhoods desirable. “Brownstone Brooklyn” is been a term of pride. When developers tear them down or build this kind of cheap, ugly building in empty lots, it impacts the neighborhood and drives down property values. These brownstone neighborhoods are an asset.

    I read a lot about the psychology of investors and how it impacts the finance markets, consumer confidence, blah,blah, blah. Isn’t that why marketing is a billion dollar business? I don’t think we consider that enough in regards to the architectural stability of borwnstone neighborhoods. Organizations like CHNA do recognize this factor, which is why there is good financial reason for landmarking them. It isn’t just about “pretty.” (I can’t wait to be taken over the rails on that statement:-).

  6. I would think that not taking aesthetics into account is why so many of these properties are still sitting on the market but that is just my opinion. We have been looking for a house for a while and I can tell you, that if it was just about the space the developer was providing inside (which I find great, except the kitchen sitting in the middle of the room) we would have purchased a while back. But the look outside, and not the brick or stucco turn me away. It is the fact that the house stands out too much. They are either built too far back or protrude out or the scale is just off. It doesn’t have to be a brownstone, I like brick, but at least scale it to the size of the house you are building next to. How a block looks matters, aside from cost and space provided. Just because I live in a house that was built cheaper doesn’t mean it has to look cheap.

1 2 3 4 5 7