Bushwick Apartment Roundup 1/24/08
#1 — $1050 — 3br: What the hellll? Okay, here’s my analysis: this must be rent-regulated, which means that it must be in the lovely beaux arts and art nouveau blond brick building at 41 Jefferson Street, across from the amazing St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. The small windows in the pictured bedroom probably indicate it’s one of the ground floor apartments, but I can’t tell. The kitchen is massive, built-ins are in an almost tacky abundance, there’s a dishwasher, there’s free laundry, AND pets are accepted! You’d be dumb, just…dumb as dirt, not to go check this place out.
PETS OK Jefferson Street and Bushwick Myrtle JMZ
#2 — $1175 — 2br rr: Basic railroad with a sunny kitchen that could accommodate a café table. Aside from the annoying, off-putting, duMb-GurL wr☆t☆ng in the ad, I can find few drawbacks to the actual apartment: great price, good location, decent condition. I caution, however, that it is not at all “super close” to Greenpoint, or even Williamsburg. Gawd. Or rather, omigod!
CATS OK Grove and Irving Myrtle/Wyckoff LM
#3 — $1500 — 2br: It says three bedrooms, but it seems to suggest one is an office, so I’m sticking with two, still a good price for a nice two bedrooms and an office. Interesting floors, decent new kitchen (counters “in Granite!”), and in a “private house” in an intact little pocket a block from Irving Square.
Weirfield and Irving Halsey L
#4 — $1100 — 2br: Also says “can be three-bedroom” but we’ll just stick with the fact that it is a two-bedroom. It’s still pretty cheap, but then that’s because it’s in Siberia: by the Wilson L stop. It claims the rent is below market because it’s winter. Seems like a decent place for the money.
PETS OK Schaefer and Wilson Wilson L
#5 — $1300 — 2br: A nice apartment in a pretty building, with a cool, young landlord who lives nearby. He says they often have BBQs and screen movies in the backyard in the summer. The place is a bit far from the subways, I have to say. Utilities are “50% off” — forgot to ask him what exactly that means and it’s too late now.
Central and Putnam Gates JZ
Dishonorable mention: aptsandlofts.com again takes the category with this cheesy, flavorless, charm-vacant new construction POS they’re trying to unload on unsuspecting students who don’t know any better. It doesn’t even say where it is except that it’s “walking distance to the J train” — oh, good, cuz the rest of Bushwick is sooo far from that filthy stepchild line. The price for this echo chamber-like three-bedroom dorm in an architectural travesty? Three thousand, two hundred dollars. US ones! Get. Real.
from the wtf file: Ugh, god. East Willie? “Flat”? “Stu-stu-studio”!? Is this an ad for an apartment or a fucking emetic? This would be a perfectly fine apartment — cute details, good layout, pet friendly, okay price, liberal views on modifications — but this contact person is an utter douchebag. Furthermore, it’s on the Bushwick side of Flushing, not East Williamsburg. At least there’s “no credit check, dude!”
January 25th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Here’s 147 Starr Street, the newly renovated building on Maria H Park. Does $1400 for a railroad seem reasonable? I don’t know how to judge anymore.
http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/abo/546758424.html
January 25th, 2008 at 11:49 am
147 Starr, If it’s a ‘true’ 2 br, maybe a good price? I dunno still seems high to me!
Similarly, the building next to me is being reno’d one appt at a time. I talked to my favorite neighbor Mike who lives in the building and he said someone is moving in to one apt shortly and it’s going for $1500.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Wow, I am speechless… Actually, all the buildings around the park with six or more apartments (not including Knickerbocker side, which is exempted due to retail on first floor) are made up of rent-stabilized, railroad style, two bedrooms.
My apartment is cheap in comparison. Still, I wish I would have gotten my apartment on the park when I first moved to the hood in 2000. I’d have been taking some serious gambles with my life though. Back then there were occasional packs of stray dogs running through the park and crackheads everywhere–no exaggeration!
January 25th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
the starr st place: form the photos you can see the kitchen is on one far end (has windows), so if it’s a RR then somebody has to walk through somebody else’s bedroom, which means the inner bedroom isn’t really a bedroom. it’s a wide hallway!
January 25th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Oftentimes the stabilized price is above market prices. Depends on the unit and building, of course.
January 26th, 2008 at 12:31 am
I’d say that’s rare Jeremy, not impossible or non-existent but rare. if it were the case, it would pretty much deflate any argument that rent-stabilization of some units is what drives up the prices for those that aren’t.
January 26th, 2008 at 9:22 am
The argument is that rent-controlled units drive up prices — there are still 50,000 rent-controlled units in this city. I don’t know that many people with rent-stabilized apartments, and the ones I do know are/were “upside-down,” so to speak. One was me: my rent was 20% below the stabilized price, so the landlord hilariously called it “preferential rent.” Another is in your building: her rent is about 30% lower.
I know this is anecdotal, and most stabilized rents are likely under market by 20-30%. But there are certainly enough examples of the other way around to say $1400 is probably perfectly within the regulated price of the unit you posted. Which reminds me, I should do a specific Starr Street parkfront roundup. I always seem to miss them on the day I’m doing the roundup!
January 26th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Yeah a park round up would be appreciated. I could even do it as I check every week on CL for MH Park apartment prices.
Your comments on stabilization are fascinating. There seems to be no rhyme or reason.
So you got a rental history from the Division of Housing and Community Renewal for your old place?
The $1400 rent I linked to above is for an apartment in an ENTIRELY renovated building: 147 Starr. My humble building is far from even remotely renovated.
The DHCR registered rent for my apartment is $940.00 a month, and that is exactly what I am paying.
I wonder if, ipso facto, that means that my neighbor is paying $658.00 for her swank apartment? Even I would be up in arms then!!
I’ll have to congratulate said neighbor one day when said neighbor is not totally stoned.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Haha, oh, Armstrong.
When I signed the lease on my old place, they said in the lease that we were getting “preferential rent” of $3250, to rise to $3311 after a few months. But they wanted to let us know that the actual stabilized rent was something like $4100. The package had all kinds of legal junk from the city in it.
As for the pot smoker we’re talking about, I’m not gonna get into the specifics (numbers) of what I am told her actual rent and the stabilized rent is — it was actually a third friend who helped her get the place who told me that, so I am going to defer to what is probably your more accurate knowledge.
All the confusion and misinformation proves the whole system is fucking byzantine. More power to whoever has the wherewithal to milk it.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Uh, rereading my comment above, I certainly should not have used the word “oftentimes.” I just meant to say “it’s possible.” Who’s the editor around here?
January 26th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Rent stabilized apartments are crazy. The owner, when they recapture, can raise the rent $25 per month for every $1000 they put into renovations…
It’s also kind of weird, all the classifications. Tenants have all kinds of rights when you get down to it, fair market value tenants and rent controlled alike…
Tenants can break a window and stop paying rent. Owners can get shit on.
Of course, owners can tear the roof off and water down a tenant’s belongings. It’s their real estate. They can do what they want with it!!!
Mwhahaha!
January 27th, 2008 at 1:49 am
Rent stabilization, in a nutshell, ends when an apartment’s rent goes over $2000.00 a month thru increases (approved by NY state rent control board) over time AND that tenant makes over $150,000 in income for two consecutive years in a row.
Both conditions (rent and income) must be met for a unit to leave the program.
It can also leave stabilization via vacancy decontrol (one tenant moves out, the landlord makes improvements and a new tenant moves in at a rent over $2000).
Rent stabilization came about to ensure working class and middle class people could find and keep housing in the city. It’s not like millionaires get to move into stabilized units for stabilized rents or anyone technically gets to keep them for life no matter what their financial circumstances are. And yes, the system gets abused on both sides but I’d say that’s the exception and not the rule.
So anyway Jeremy, from my assessment, your apartment was not technically stabilized in the first place, unless you had lived there before the rent went over $2000. I assure you of this.
Actually all this information can be found at http://www.dhcr.state.ny.us so I won’t babble on, but thanks for humoring me!
February 24th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Just FYI to the above comment from Armstrong: 147 Starr is far from entirely renovated. As a tenant in a so completely un-renovated unit in the building (moldy walls, cheap carpet/linoleum, drop ceilings, chipping lead paint, collapsing bathroom ceilings), I just had to say that.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:52 am
I stand corrected. what’s the address of the building I’m talking about? it’s completely empty right now, renovated and awaiting tenants.. it must be one fifty-something Starr? sorry about your troubles. it might be a good idea to call 311 and get info on how to force your landlord to make repairs. or go to http://www.tenant.net
March 9th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
thanks Armstrong. The building you are thinking of is next door (probably 149 Starr)…a beautifully renovated empty building. They finished work on it in late summer, and it is still completely vacant. Who knows why. I went on tenant.net, and am going to get these drop ceilings taken out if it’s the last thing i do. There are rodent skeletons up there! And beautiful tin ceilings about a foot above them.