Worst forum ever.

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Generalize much?

Heh. I suppose your next point will be that anyone who buys a brownstone is a loser and never amounted to anything in life.

Enjoy your world of vanilla boxes and discussions on how much you liked Da Vinci Code but that "the book was better."

Taxes for my brownstone are about 10k.

Any idea what the projected taxes for the premium units in MP will be? What about the monthly maintenance for all those wonderful amenities? I haven't seen those numbers anywhere.

Musty smell.. try sandning amd sealing the inlayed floors - they come out great for anywhere between $1.50-2.50 sq ft depends on whom you use. A fresh paint job will cure what's left over. That will cost you about 15-20k if you want it done right.

Old creaky stairs - Marty Anderson. About the only man in town -expensive but does amazing work.

Central air - about another 15-20k depending on the size of your place.

They are expensive to bring into the shape you want, but so is the maintenance in MP.

#22
I am not generalizing - this is from personal experience. I looked for a good rowhouse for 3 miserable years. I can't tell you how many I have seen. A small fraction of these are renovated, but even then they lack things like central a/c - but worst of all they have terrible layouts - with no exception. 17' wide, some are like 13' wide, and railroad style. You can NEVER get the nice open feel of a great room in these.

And like I said, the only exceptions (which I don't group under the rowhouses since they aren't attached) are the detached single families in Castle Point. I saw some of these, but they are asking 2.5MM and 2MM for unrenovated ones in decent to bad condition.....and they had one that they were upgrading for like 3MM a year back. Just out of my price range. But to whomever can afford them, I envy them.

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a $1,000,000 unit is maxwell will have approximate taxes of $16,000/ year. Maintenance will likely run $800 or more per month..

That is the tax rate for many areas of NJ - and those with the money to buy it don't complain.
I can cite examples in Monmouth County, Rumson for instance, where homes easily run to 5MM and beyond. Imagine the taxes (incidentally, Monmouth county also has property taxes similar to Hoboken's).

The point is if you have the money you don't have to worry about these expenses. Clearly you do not have that kind of cash or you would be so shocked by it.

One other thing, you can find maint in Manhattan for 2bd's in the new construction buildings to be around 1500. It is very common, yet people buy. You get the point.

Finding a brownstone that hasn't been converted into a 3+ family can be tough. Some of those carve up jobs are heinous.

Some of the renovations are aweful as well. They turn them into cookie cutters.

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That's insane. Paying over 25k/year to live in 1500 sqr ft.

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That's the reality of nyc metro prices. Something tells me you are one of those people who over the next decade are going to be forced to live farther and farther away. Next stop Union City!

1500 square feet is plenty of room, unless you've got 4 kids or something.

Americans have turned into greedy real estate pigs. Everyone needs multiple rooms for themselves. The average home square footage has gone up ridiculously from the 1950's until now. I forget the numbers, but the average home size was something like 1200 s.f. 50 years ago. It's much higher now.

But now, we also have interest only and ARM loans, the average American credit card debt at $9000, everyone credit-carded up the wazoo, little home equity. Have you been watching the news? People can't afford to fill up their gas tanks, and can't afford to get to work because it costs them too much to come in from exurbs where they moved so that they could have 4000 of s.f. of shoddily built popcorn-ceiling crud with half-empty rooms that they can't afford to furnish. They're driving 50 miles to work each way in giant SUVs because normal-sized sedans aren't comfortable enough for their overfed butts.

You may like old-world charm more than contemporary gloss, or vice versa, but let's not bring square footage into it. That trend is going to be so OVER, especially as ARMS begin to fluctuate and if gas prices get higher.