bklyn closings this mo.: $400k 2-bds, $280k 1bd

We're getting there but it's still not enough. Thanks for providing these comps Graffiti. Me think that paying over $2K a month for a mortgage payment maintenance on a 1Bd all the way down in Windsor Terrace is too much. This apt is not worth more than $220,000 to me.

Graffiti, the closing from the outside look very good. Unfortunately, I know both buildings.

Concord Village, by Bklyn Bridge, has some major financial issues. One of my friends put in an offer a year ago and his attorney did not let him buy. There were lawsuits, mismanagement of funds, insufficient reserve funds, etc. This is the reason why that building is selling for below market.

Vanderbilt, less than a mile from me, has a board of old farts who drive everyone crazy. One of my friends got on the board and quit within 3 months. They have a 4% flip tax, which is not a good thing. It is a true "Sheetrock" building, so you'll hear your neighbors all around you. This building has the highest turnover rate in all of 11218 area code. As soon as people move in, they try to get out.

ab_11218-great post, very useful info.

GraffitiGrammarian-

Did you see this:
http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/415689-coop-160-lincoln-place-park-slope-brooklyn

It just came on the market and seems to be pretty reasonably priced for what it is. Interesting to see what it closes for, I mean even the most finicky amongst us would say that's a good Park Slope location. And the maintenance is pretty understandable with roof deck and all.

hmm, if you look at the floorplan, it looks like they just walled off the dining area to make it a bedroom.

Technically they can call it that because there are windows in the dining area (to call it a bedroom there has to be a window in it). But really it's really just a large one-bedroom. On the plus side I will say that the L-shaped kitchen is better than most ordinary galley kitchens.

But I still think it's over-priced.

Roof decks are common areas, there are lots of rules for what you can do in them. It's nice to have roof deck, don't get me wrong, but it's not like having a private space. You probably can't take a pet on the roof deck, or let your friend smoke up there after dinner, or anything like that. There may be a prohibition against any alcohol on a roof deck .... those spaces are not all that useful.

I'm just not willing to pay much extra for that kind of thing.

Also, ab-'s comments about Concord Village may be true. I never heard that stuff, but the one person I knew who lived there moved out a while back.

But I do have a good friend in the Park Vanderbilt in Windsor Terrace. She's been there for years, never complained about the noise. A 4% flip tax doesn't sound egregious. She's never complained about the board either.

Oh so wait having a top-floor apartment with "private access" or "exclusive rights" to the roof deck doesn't make the deck exclusively yours and private space (I mean minus if building personnel needed to access it)? I always wondered about that cause I looked at quite a few places with "private roof decks" in both co ops and condos and I was always under that impression.

this apartment is less than 600 sq ft. having the roof deck does not make up a shoe box for a bedroom and very high maintenance.

as far as Vanderbilt, there are plenty of people who live there for a very long time. as long as they close their eyes to the board's behavior and actions, and i've seem many shareholders do that in most buildings, there will not be a problem for them. the flip tax of 4% is VERY high for this zip code. it is usually 1-2% and only a few buildings have any at all.

Graffiti:

Re: the Concord Village apartments....can you let me know whether 235 Adams 11D was a 2 bed/1 bath and was 215 Adams 17H a 2 bed/1 bath? Thanks. I do like that complex because it is close to many subways and has some good views in the right building of the bridges. Very family friendly.

babsie, 11D was a 2B/1b, I know for sure. I googled for it and found an old Streeteasy listing that gave the details.

I was less clear on 17H. I tried googling for it but nothing came up. The recent close of $385k was far more than any 1B had closed for recently in the complex, so I was assuming it had to be a 2B.

kimerama: the pictures don't like like that roof deck belongs to one apt. It looks like a communal roofdeck. You're right, they said "exclusive" but these brokers will say anything in an ad, they just want to get you to click through and will use words like that as bait. I see ads all the time that say "private outdoor space" and when you click through it turns out to be a communal garden.

I think if the roof deck was really yours only they would say so more explicitly on the corcoran website.

The interior of that apt is pretty but ab is right -- it's tiny. I think it was originally built as a 1B and when they carved it up into a 2B, that left very little living/dining space. Would you be able to put a dining table and your living room furniture in that living room?

To me, if I am going to pay nearly half a million for an apt, I want to be able to have a modest-sized dining table!

This is still bubble pricing -- not reasonable.

Ab, by the way, I don't disagree with you about the Windsor Terrace prop. Just for fun, I will tell you that my friend bought her 1B there in 1999 (same floorplan as the closing listed above) for $130k.

Do we really believe that 1B has appreciated by 150% in ten years? I mean, obviously it did because someone just bought it for $280k. And my friend says that in 2007, when the market peaked, her floorplan in the building was selling for $360k.

But I think it will never be worth $280k again in that buyer's lifetime. They overpaid. The buble has burst. The value is dropping and is going to continue to drop. If they had waited, they would have been able to buy that place for $200k. Or less.

my friend bought the apt on Vanderbilt, I would guess, in 1997-8. it sat on the market for at least 1 yr and paid $75K. It is a bigger 1 br. at that time, the flip tax was 2%. the board decided to raise it 5-6 years ago. because of that the sale prices dropped as compared to the buildings within a 3-4 block radius.

Babsie, I like Concord Village as well. It's a nice place. I'm quite surprised to hear AB's information about the financials as they have a reputation for being very solid.

Graffiti, I am with you. Half a million dollars should mean a place to put a dining table. Adult living does not include eating off of one's knees on the sofa (unless you're feeling lazy, of course).

Kimerama, does your new place have a roof deck?

Graffiti, 11D in 235 Adams is definitely a 2bed/2bath - the old listing you found is probably for one of the other buildings' 11D (they are NOT all the same - see the concord village site for the various floor plans)
I know this because I looked at that very apartment. I'm really surprised it went for that much. The apartment has a nice layout, but it's a complete wreck, needing at least 100K in work, including a complete gut job on the kitchen, and a thorough rewiring. Very, very rough.
This is the listing: http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/327810-coop-downtown-brooklyn-brooklyn
The agent showing it was kind of flaky, too. Reminded me of the Sham-Wow guy.
It's also one of the smaller 2/2 in Concord Village; lately even the largest, which are over 1,000 sq. ft., haven't been selling for the 500k most sellers ask for them.
I'm surprised to hear about the financial difficulties ab mentioned. Can you elaborate? the info I have seen shows a rather healthy coop structure.

StF62, you mean Dean Hawthorne? Yeah, he's a weird one, but he seems to have a ton of CV listings.

evnyc, I don't remember the guy's name, but he was oddly non-communicative and unpleasant. But if he got 400 for that place, maybe he knows what he's doing. I certainly didn't think it was worth anywhere near that.

evnyc-no I have a balcony. Some of the huge roof decks I saw were awesome, but now that I think about it the apartment was always the same size underneath (like 400 feet) and as much as 400 feet of outdoor space is appealing that much living space is hardly living for the prices they wanted, especially in the fall, winter and spring. Maybe I'm finally over my roof deck envy.

StF62: I haven't seen any 1000 sq. ft 2 bed/2bath in Concord Village go on the market lately. Seems strange to me, but what was the last one going for?

babsie02, there were at least three Concord Village C and G line apartments (those are at 175 Adams St., 195 Adams St., 215 Adams St. and 230 Jay St.) offered FSBO over the last 5 months or so. You can see the floor plans here:

http://tinyurl.com/ywju9x
you need to be careful when comparing floor plans, since Streeteasy lists everything in CV as 175 adams. The letters signify different apartment layouts in different buildings - i.e. a J is a studio at 225, but it's a 2-bed at 175.

They were advertised on craig's list, NYT and on the CV site. I saw them all - the asks ranged from around 475 to a bit over 500; none sold, a couple rented. I think most of the owners I spoke with are willing to wait things out, in the hope of the market coming back up. They can also rent for up to 5 years. One family said that if they didn't get ask, they'd move in themselves. (it was an estate)

The last one to close, at 557k is this one, in Nov. 08:
http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/closing/763814

StF: Thanks. I need to check craigslist more often I think. I have been keeping an eye out on streeteasy but perhaps people are going the FSBO route more and more.

UPDATE: Can you say irrational exuberance? I knew you could.

This just came up:
http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/416945-coop-175-adams-street-downtown-brooklyn-brooklyn

They're asking more than any apartment has ever fetched at Concord Village, as far as I can tell. From the same agent that has been heard to badmouth CV, since most of her listings are at 75 Henry.

StF: I was just going to post this! Over a year ago, the 2 bed/2 bath larger C line wasn't going for this amount. Insane!

you have to forgive Elliman and Corcoran about bad mouthing.... it's just business until they end up bad mouthing themselves...

this should be a listing to watch on the RIDICULOUS PRICE CHOP thread within the next few months.

Correction: Some COMBINED apartments have fetched more, but that was for a 1,700Sq ft 3 bed/3bath.

$650K in Concord Village? No way. I like that complex, and I haven't heard about financial problems or lawsuits. In fact, a number of sales there in the past few years have been people moving from a 1 BR to a 2 BR within the complex. Can't be THAT much of a disaster ...

But I haven't seen any actual financials. Seems well-maintained, though, when I've looked at apartments.

Well, it came in at double the price range quoted in the subject of the thread. 90 1st place #2 in Carroll Gardens.

http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/398587-condo-90-first-place-carroll-gardens-brooklyn

I have walked by this building a few times. I wouldn't have guessed that the market for $1MM brownstone floorthru's still existed...

I will admit that I had saved this sale on my list in hopes that it would languish on the market for 9 months and drop to the 500-600 range.

$650k for Concord Village is a lot higher than 2007 bubble pricing; there is not a chance in hell they will get that.

I spent some time hanging around chatting up the doormen and residents. It seems like a great community. No one mentioned financial problems even when I asked, but then, the last time I was out there was several months ago.

Well, junkman, wait for it to close. If it sold for anything north of $700K, I'd say someone's getting ripped off. Some people are like crows - if it's shiny, they'll grab it.

But how can that place possibly be 1,205-sq-ft?

JKB,
The top floor went into contract as well, last asking price $1.1M
http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/398581-condo-90-first-place-carroll-gardens-brooklyn

The building is still under renovation and doesn't even have a proper front door yet, although there was an open house last weekend. I can't imagine the developer would take 30% off asking this early in the game, but who knows.

The places in this building look nice but I don't see how they are worth 1M each. 5 floors at an average price of $1M = $5M for a rowhouse in carroll gardens? seriously????

i'm guessing that there are more idiots born every minute who want to live in CG than anywhere else in the country, if not the world. this is the most overpriced project that i've seen. for $5M you can get 2 renovated brownstones.

The 2bed/2bath in concord village for $650K was taken off the market according to streeteasy after just a few days.

Well, junkman, what can ya say? Either these are phantom 'deals' (only disprovable when ACRIS shows an actual closing) or some people with some means REALLY want to live in CG in a new brownstone condo.

I've said it before -- CG has the most inexplicably sticky prices of all the 'prime' BK neighborhoods. Still, I'd wait for a closing. Developers have been playing so many games lately, particularly developers sitting on just-finished buildings in a market where no one can get financing to buy new developments.

I agree -- maybe these don't go for 30% off (nothing surprises me anymore about what some buyers can/will pay), but the cost/benefit equation seems way off at current asks.

re Concord Village. 195 Adams, 10A (2 bed, 2 bath, last ask of $449,000), listed originally in March '09 got pulled and now shows up as a rental asking $2,450 a month:

www.corcoran.com/property/listing.aspx?Region=NYC&ListingID=1564928&ohDat=

I saw it, and the pictures make it look nicer than it is.

Junkman, there were some new construction townhouses near CG, they were on Warren Street between Court and Smith, closer to Smith.

That was my old block, I rented there for several years.

Near the top of the bubble, they paved over a commmunity garden at that site on Warren and built 4 or 5 new townhouses, then they carved up each townhouse into 2 duplexes.

I think they sold each duplex for a million and change.

So now, post-bubble, for this developer to ask a million and change for a single floor (rather than 2 floors) at a site in CG, which theoretically should price a bit below Cobble Hill, is truly loopy. I can't imagine what they're thinking. But not even well-heeled buyers in brownstone brooklyn will bite for this bait.

195 Adams, 10A is a 2 bed/1 bath. i doubt it'll rent at that price, since there have been a couple of the much larger 2/2 apartments that recently rented at 2,400, with all fees paid (including the many and various coop fees).

The $650K apt. in Concord Village is back on the market with photos. Looks nice but don't think that the price is feasible in this market. Also, CC are almost $1,200/month!

GG, thanks for the comments. The 2 units in contract defy my disbelief at the pricing.

I think another interesting one to look at will be the 'collection at court' where they demolished almost an entire block on sackett and court. Used to be the old pain management clinic if I remember right.

Supposedly they are going to be a handful of townhomes, condos, etc.

It looks like the developer paid $24M for the space in 2007. I can't imagine they will be turning a profit on this one.
http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/building/290-sackett-street-brooklyn

junkman, are you sure it was the pain management clinic? I thought from the map maybe it was the old union hall, the slate-gray building that had a parking lot in back.

Anyhow, here's an update on the topic of Bklyn 2-beds in the $400k range: here's a very nice place at 951 President in the Slope, three doors from Prospect Park, in a 25-ft wide brownstone, that just closed for $440k.

http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/373764-coop-951-president-street-park-slope-brooklyn

Maybe folks who are not insiders cannot access, but it is nice looking place. It's only 1 bath, but there's a washer/dryer in the unit, pets are allowed, and the maintenance is a reasonable $650.

The original ask was $550k when it was first listed last fall. So the seller took a 20% cut.

junkman, you've got another prospect:

streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/407684-condo-carroll-gardens-brooklyn

Price is right, and commanding views of the BQE.