Procrastinet

New Link/Obsession

filed under: The Weekly WANT IT

At the bottom of the "Stufflust Central" links on the right, you will see a new link - to Brownstoner, a blog about the Brooklyn real estate (specifically, obviously, townhouse) market. This reflects not only the fact that the site is extremely interesting (at least for those of us who live in Brooklyn - everyone else may get a "how those weirdos over there live" frisson from it but are unlikely to need to visit too often), but that I have immersed my family in another obsession.

Last time, it was real estate upstate, which was eventually derailed by the fact that we - um, how do you say it, again? - oh, that's right, HAVE NO MONEY. I keep forgetting that. This time, hand in hand with my suspicion that the current cool down in the real estate market may be somewhat long-lasting, I've been looking at what we could afford if we were to cash out our theoretical equity by selling our apartment.

As I was looking, I started to notice a small market of sub-$700k 2 family rowhouses, within a block or two of actual Park Slope. They're in a gray area, not yet on the other side of Prospect Expressway (which is absolutely South Slope or, more accurately, Greenwood Heights, no matter what the listings say), but beyond the south edge of the Park and a few blocks farther from the crunchy glamour of Slope Proper.

So yesterday we stopped by a couple open houses. FUN! We've been in our current place for four and a half years, and when we bought that we weren't even shopping - we came and looked at this place, liked it, and bought it. Before that, we were renting, and ended up renting one of the first apartments we looked at. So we haven't really experienced real estate shopping as married grown-ups.

That said, the stuff we could realistically afford is pretty limited. Okay, very limited. 16' wide rowhouses do *not* offer a lot of living space, even if they do have three floors. And the ones that are under $700k are not in very good shape. They do have yards, which is the real killer. But they all felt cramped and depressing, like a run down Hobbit Hole.

We returned to our apartment, which we've been taking somewhat for granted lately, and revelled afresh in the 11' ceilings. We have for the moment resolved to get it into better shape rather than looking to move - once I (finally!) finish the bathroom downstairs, I'm going to look at putting built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along our entry wall. And someday maybe we'll actually get up the nerve to try to buy a part of our neighbor's back yard, which butts up against our rear windows. There's a 8'x10' part of it, behind our bedroom, that they never use, which has become overgrown with a weed tree (as in, a junk tree that grows fast like a weed, not as in a gigantic marijuana plant). So we're betting that the offer of several thousand bucks in the bank will outweight the conceptual benefit of an unused few feet of yard.

In the meantime, we'll also be saving up (someday) to move onto our new Favorite Block In The Whole Wide World (which we just discovered last night on a post-dinner stroll, a failed attempt to get Max to knock out before 10pm): Fuller Place in Windsor Terrace (a few blocks east of us).

On both sides of the street, impeccable brick three-story townhouses all have front porches and gardens. It's about the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and has become our new seven-year plan...

Posted by rjt at September 18, 2006 02:24 PM