OuterB on Queens Real Estate

BAYSIDE

$577,500

46-17 215th Street, Bayside, NY

Three-bedroom, two-bath attached Colonial on an 18-by-100-foot lot, with formal dining room, eat-in kitchen with new appliances, full finished basement with family room, enclosed porch, alarm system and garage. Taxes: $2,862. Asking price: $589,000; on market for eight weeks.

Broker: Carollo Real Estate

Source: New York Post - 8/16

BAYSIDE

$988,000

34-50 200th Street, Bayside, NY

7-year-old brick 2-family. Each unit has three bedrooms, renovated 1.5 baths, dining room, eat in kitchen, finished basement, central air, and 1-car garage. Taxes: $5,002. Asking price: $1,048,888; on the market for 3 weeks.

Broker: ReMax Millenium

Source: New York Times - 8/17

Apparently it is when it comes to having top sales in the borough! Last year, Douglaston Douglas Manor was home to five of the 10 largest home sales in Queens, including sales of 2@ $2.6 million , $2.18 million, $1.85 million and $1.3 million. Quite a heavy hitter for Queens. Most of these are houses, too, not condos. And these prices are still cheaper than Manhattan (and Brooklyn), the top 10% there starting at about $4 million.

It sounds like a lovely community with beautiful homes and an active waterfront. 27 minutes to Penn via LIRR sounds good, too.

Related:
Douglaston Profile [Wikipedia]
Douglaston dominates top sales in Queens [The Real Deal via Miller Samuel]
Douglas Manor Profile [Long Island Exchange]

Last week I mentioned that median sales prices in Queens stayed pretty much the same last quarter. However there has been a weakness in purchasing in the high-end luxury area in the borough and declining median sales prices in both Nassau and Suffolk. News this morning comes regarding shrinking quarterly profits (44%, yow) at Melville (our neighbors to the east)-based American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. This is due to an increase in payment defaults and sagging home prices. Shares of the company rose a bit this morning, but they also slashed their profit outlook. Also, “Mortgage lenders across the country are reporting that investors in the first quarter lost their appetite for mortgage debt as home prices slumped and borrowers defaulted on loans more frequently.” This does not sound like good news - “default” is a particulary frightening word in my book.

Related:
American Home Mortgage up on outlook [newyorkbusiness.com]
Queens’ sales market stays stable [The Real Deal]
A New Law May Hurt More Than It Helps [NY Times]

Apparently, residential markets in Queens stayed stable through the first quarter of 2007, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel. In Queens (as opposed to Long Island, with which it’s sometimes lumped), average home prices increased ever so slightly (a little over 1%), but the median sales prices stayed pretty much the same ($485,000). Prices are expected to go up in the spring (hello nice weather), but note that there has been an increase in inventory in the borough (good news overall). Since the median sales price had almost no movement, the average sales price indicates that there has been less activity in the high-end “luxury” area. Interesting.

More, here.

A Forest Hills reader writes in about the recent open houses in the Arbor Close section of Forest Hills.

Arbor Close is a neat section of about 40 townhouses in Forest Hills, right by the 75th Avenue train stop. All the townhouse are pre-war, circa 1930s, so they have fireplaces and some period detail. What makes the community unique is a private park that the residents share.

One townhouse is for $869K, another $999K. As both homes are 1400sq feet, the real difference is that the higher priced home has a garage. (Begs the question what is a garage really worth?) A home just went into contract in that community two months back for $975K.

Last fall during a birthday party in Arbor Close I got a chance to stroll off in the interior park and snap a few photos. See more snapshots after the jump. It’s reminiscent of the co-op gardens in Jackson Heights, about a block in length, but with shorter buildings and less people to share it.

Terrace Realty has the Arbor Close listings that the reader mentioned. Check the one townhouse for $869k here.

(more…)

In this week’s On the Market the NY Times highlights a penthouse listing at Astoria’s Shore Towers: a two bedroom, two bath, 22nd floor condo listed for $895,000. Includes two garage space, plus building’s indoor pool, gym, etc. The “650-square-foot terrace” can be enclosed, expanding the space. Maintenance is $445/mo, $6/mo taxes.

You know the building. Shore Towers is straight out of the 80s but opened in 1991. It’s that faux-zigguarat behemoth on the East River shoreline. Ugly. But as we said last year, its location is prime and the view sweet, sweet.

The listing doesn’t specify size, but the floor plan via Elliman gives a rough idea. Let’s guess it’s 900 square feet. So say $995/square foot. What do you think? Are they going to get close to asking?

As an aside, there are two websites for Shore Towers. First is the E-Community of Shore Towers, where the news concerns combating noise from Ward’s and Randall’s Islands. The second is the wonderfully 80s site by US #1 Realty, a name apparently “synonymous with Shore Towers” and what I believe is an instrumental track from The Way We Were or possibly Evita. Just load the site with your speakers on and you’ll hear.

• Shore Towers, 25-40 Shore Boulevard (at 26th Avenue), Astoria, NY
• Listing at Elliman
• NY Times - On the Market - 2/16/07

Image of Shore Towers - Credit - Bridge and Tunnel Club

Long Island City’s historic district — that one gorgeous block on 45th Avenue of Hunters Point townhouses — is so small that properties don’t often turn up in brokers’ listings. And this one isn’t in the historic district. It’s about 20 feet away on 23rd St at 44th Drive. Lots of beautiful details.

The asking price would set a precedent for Hunters Point townhouses, but you got to wonder with the #7 rattling overhead on 23rd Street.

• $1,950,000, 44-78 23rd Street, Long Island City, NY , Listing at Douglas Elliman.
• Co-agent Nan Schiff is an old-hand in the neighborhood. Knows it as well as anyone.

One of my favorite Vernon Boulevard buildings is for sale (one of many favorites in a few block stretch). Half a block from Lounge 47 it’s old-school NYC eye candy. Nothing spectacular, just neat-o window arches, yellow brick, and presence.

But drooling is all I’ll be doing. It’s listed at $3.25 million, with 8 units. Looks like a few of the units have been renovated. I’m pretty sure it’s 4744 Vernon Blvd. Anyone can confirm the address?

• 4744 Vernon Blvd [Property Shark]
• Vernon Blvd/LIC [Ardor Real Estate]
• Update - Folks in the comment below and at QueensWest think this building is a flip, bought for much less a short time ago. But Property Shark shows the last sale as 1999.

The NY Post took a magic subway ride to reach its leading House of the Week in Douglaston, Queens:

Douglaston, Queens $1.2 millionBedrooms: 4 Baths: 3 Lot square feet: 8,800. If you’ve never been to suburban Queens (yes, really - and there are still subways here), you should make a point to be pleasantly surprised by this center-hall Colonial. Not only is it right on Douglaston Park (a former golf course), it also has a deck and terrace that overlook a nature preserve.

Nope, no subway out that far. Douglaston Park? You mean Douglaston Park Golf Course, a functioning, thriving golf course? Sure, it used to be called North Hills Country Club Golf Course, but that doesn’t it make it former. Call 718-224-6566 and book your tee times. Enjoy the magic.

• Houses of the Week [NY Post]
• Douglaston Park [GMaps]
• Golf Courses in Queens [About.com]

It’s the first time OuterB has ever seen a CityLights co-op offered for more than a million bucks. CityHabitats has listed a 40th floor penthouse, with two bedrooms, two baths, 1,100 square feet, and a $2.624 maintenance, for $1,150,000. CityLights, one of the two big Queens West waterfront towers, is the place to live in Long Island City (at least until the next batch of towers goes up), but I’m inclined to slam this one.

Of course, the ad says “pied-a-terre” and “love nest,” which is just so lame. Don’t get me wrong, I love Long Island City and the whole Queens West thing is getting bigger and better all the time, but $1,045 a square foot is ridiculous at a time when the co-op/condo real estate market is starting to cool. The listing makes me think of that wacky Million Dollar Homepage.

A Queenswest forum poster thinks this is the same unit that Douglas Elliman tried to sell for $825,000. (Update - see comments.)

• Million Dollar Listing at CityHabitat
• Queenswest.com forum tipster

Photo by Jake of QueensWest.com