Real Estate
This Hamilton Heights
pad needs work, but has a great G.W.B. view.
Fixer-uppers are so doable! ... Really?
BY MARTHA WILKIE
Whenever friends begin renovations, I send them a
New Yorker cartoon in which an agent shows an
apartment to a couple and says, “It’s a real fi xerupper,
how’s your marriage?”
Renovations can be fraught. A rule of thumb is that it’ll take
twice as much time and cost twice as much as you think.
One family spotted a townhouse in the Village that was a
(relative) bargain: a single-family that had been converted to
apartments in the 1920s. Delivered empty — except for one
tenant. Architects Zack and Richard H. Lewis, a father-andson
team, worked around this.
“Dust and managing expectations were probably the hardest
things,” Zack Lewis said. “To complicate matters, we added an
elevator that had to cut through her apartment. It all worked
out in the end, but the duration of the project was something
no one was truly prepared for.
“We started to renovate around the tenant, but it was hard
on her, so she was happy when we bought her out,” the owner
said. “The lucky part is that the house has a beautiful, traditional
layout, which I love. I think the trend for open spaces has
gone too far. Our rooms are comfortable on a human scale.”
According to agent Hanina Levin of Wohlfarth & Associates,
“Some buyers love ‘wrecks.’ With a wreck they get to
start from scratch and the result will be exactly to their taste.”
This Morningside Heights building
has a fixer-upper that needs so
much fixing, the agent won’t show
the apartment’s interior.
A two-bedroom, two-bath on E. 72nd St. is well priced and
looks nice in the photos, but Levin admits it needs work.
“We had it staged — actually, not virtually — but it took
months of peeling off ancient wallpaper and fabric, and cleaning
and scrubbing and painting, not to mention removing
lots of broken furniture,” the agent said. “We cosmetically
improved it so prospective buyers would see the tremendous
pluses of the space instead of immediately focusing on the
need for renovation.” $949,000.
(Wohlfarth.com/listing/RPLU-403619489693/)
A three-bedroom, one-bath in Hamilton Heights has, in
the agent’s poetic words, a view of the “sparkling necklace
of lights that is the George Washington Bridge at sunset.”
$499,999.
(Streeteasy.com/building/79-hamilton-place-new_
york/2t)
Also, in Hamilton Heights, a three-bedroom (although it
looks like two, really) needs work, but has nice original details,
like unpainted French doors. $300,000.
(Compass.com/listing/228184249327436977/view)
Morningside Heights has an affordable three-bedroom, twobath
on the market. Currently used as an offi ce. The agents
don’t dare show one photo, so caveat emptor. $795,000.
(Stribling.com/properties/20754612)
30 May 23, 2019 CNW Schneps Media
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