Townhouse Auction at 419 W. 145th St

What looks good about it? It's a broken down SRO with no CNH and a history of squaters, according to the DOB. Ever see the movie Money Pit, from the 1980s?

It's the location. 145th Street in that area has picked up tremendously over the last 6 months, with more businesses looking for space in that location - and co ops selling quite well. If a person knows what they're doing - I'm sure it would be quite a nice buy.

That's a good price for a brownstone, but will take A LOT of money to renovate!

Probably gonna take 500k to renovate

What are you talking about? You think you can renovate a shell, that was used as an office before it became a vagrant hotel and and SRO, for $500,000??? Let's just say you go for the cheapest renovation possible:
$200/ sq foot * 4,000 sq foot = $800,000. PLUS anything you need to do to rebuild the systems, add windows, etc. $1,000,000 is the bare minimum.

PLUS the legal cost and waiting time to get the CNH, which is a effing nightmare.

People have lost everything on houses like this. Anyone who is not a real easy estate professional should stay away.

How about for a do-it-yourselfer? I've read some great stories about people picking up brownstones and townhouses on the cheap and then restoring them over decades, coming out multi-millionaires when it's time to sell.

I think that had more to do with the general increase in home prices in Harlem. 20 years ago, you could have bought a TH in good condition for $100,000. Now that would be $1,500,000 - $2,000,000 (depending on the neighborhood - below 125 and west of 5th is most valuable). The easy money has been made.

If you are buying something like this as a DIYer, you better have friends who are licensed plumbers, electricians, etc. This house does not have a CofO - so the DOB will be all over it before they issue one. MUST MUST MUST be up to code.

There're lots of romantic books from the 1970s-1980s about renovating rowhouses, and maybe still people on brownstoner.com who did it on the cheap and aren't sick of talking about it.

I know a few people who did it. E.g., the couple who bought a house in Ft. Greene in 1984 for less than $100K. It's almost done. Their application for a Certificate of No Harassment got turned down for no reason that I can tell. Somewhere in all the pages the remaining tenant said she had to clean her bathroom herself; maybe that was why. They paid for all the work out of income, getting just a baby mortgage after 15 years or so. I'm pretty sure they did it as a project rather than a money-making venture.

I live in the neighborhood. I am a cheerleader for the neighborhood. That said, this property is not for the inexperienced. It will take a very special buyer to make this "quite a nice buy". While the opening price is reasonable- an informed buyer will be weary about biding much higher.