tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541468051247516447.post1783484608477796695..comments2024-02-19T05:18:27.849-05:00Comments on <center>the Q at Parkside</center>: What's REALLY Going On, In Our Little Bit of Brooklyn, NYC, USA: Part IClarkson FlatBedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13463744536115119388noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541468051247516447.post-34654809241318105692011-11-28T06:59:49.401-05:002011-11-28T06:59:49.401-05:00Also, the very rich may not have much income from ...Also, the very rich may not have much income from wages (i.e. working at a regular job), but they still have it in interest and dividends - and considering the low interest rate climate, and not-great dividend payouts of late, an AGI of $350K does imply a pretty substantial asset base to start, more so than some corporate hack who only has to work 90 hours a week (or more) for his/her salary and bonus.babshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08365488181982105888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541468051247516447.post-88272900974439129702011-11-28T06:50:12.843-05:002011-11-28T06:50:12.843-05:00Gotta say that the people who are buying $1.5 mill...Gotta say that the people who are buying $1.5 million houses are by no stretch of the imagination middle class (except, perhaps, in NYC - is an annual income of $350K really all it takes to be in the 1%? That must account for about 25% of people in NYC). Even with a substantial down payment, banks still have a debt:income threshold of about 28% (meaning that if you make $100K/yr. they don't want to see you with more than $28K in debt before the mortgage.) So say you're fine with that because you have no student loans as your parents just wrote a check every semester, or you're older and have paid them off, and your kids go to public school. You've got a big chunk of cash from sale of that co-op you bought for cheap all those years ago and you are able to put 50% down on the house, leaving you with a $750K mortgage, equalling monthly payments of just over $3,500, given today's crazily low interest rates. And considering that a pretty universal rule of thumb (for buying as well as renting) is that your income should equal 40x one month's housing payments, you'd only need to make $140K per year to carry that. Now tell me how many middle-class people are going to be able to unite all those conditions? It's much more common for both the mortgage and the income to be considerably higher. And if the mortgage is low, the income is usually even higher than that.babshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08365488181982105888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541468051247516447.post-28721891254081855142011-11-27T20:07:27.787-05:002011-11-27T20:07:27.787-05:00Alexis, while you are of course correct that it wo...Alexis, while you are of course correct that it would take a substantial income to support such a large mortgage, most people buying so expensive a house would be trading up from a sold property that pays a large part of the purchase price. I am not saying that there are no wealthy people in PLG, just that the people who bought expensive houses might not be. <br /><br />As Babs said, mortgages are public information so if you know the address you can find out how much mortgage was taken.Gary of PLGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06891613858168168167noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541468051247516447.post-30033227919124342482011-11-27T00:33:45.215-05:002011-11-27T00:33:45.215-05:00True, true, Alexis. You caught me on my tendency f...True, true, Alexis. You caught me on my tendency for exaggeration. Of course, top 1% of NYC is quite different than of the USA. I used NYC for my guesstimation (closer to 600K), but rich is rich, so thanks for calling me on it. I would still like to make a big distinction between earning top 1% and owning top 1%. You might think the distinction is splitting hairs, til you realize that the richest Americans don't necessarily EARN much at all, and much of their "income" disappears by the time they file.<br /><br />And please...rip into the post if you find fault. If I didn't want to hear your opinion, I wouldn't share in such a public space. And when you do, please share YOUR thinking when you moved to the area. If it deviates from what I've described, I would love to hear it. My point is, generally, that buyers and renters use the same logic they always did, and thus describing a Brooklyn neighborhood as "in transition" is entirely relative to one's vantage point. Ask someone living here for 30 years just how long the word transition has been applied - after awhile it becomes meaningless. If rents and house prices double every 10 years, the graph looks pretty constant. I though Milford Prewitt's assertions pretty persuasive at the PLGNA meeting - that class or education, rather than race, should be the defining question here, but that's practically a bigger bogeyman in discussions. Plus, making assumptions about someone's wealth is tricky business, and unless you're their accountant, pretty pointless. <br /><br />Lastly, then I really must try to sleep under the cloud of choking smoke (!), I'm particularly struck by the fact that, even during this major recession, the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of our country is taking place, pretty much under the radar - from Boomers to X's and Y's and millenials, and the effects towards our country's tendency towards Oligarchy will be enormous...regardless of one's adjusted gross income.Clarkson FlatBedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13463744536115119388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541468051247516447.post-66904996344918977892011-11-26T21:49:53.481-05:002011-11-26T21:49:53.481-05:00"I still have my doubts that seriously wealth..."I still have my doubts that seriously wealthy people - one-percenter or even five-percenter types of any ethnicity - would choose to live on this side of the park"<br /><br />I'm not going near most of your post but as to where the 1% is--"Based on 2009 tax year filing data, the Internal Revenue Service says an adjusted gross income, or AGI, of $343,927 or more will put you in the top 1 percent of taxpayers" and that is really a minimum level of income anyone would need to sustain a $1.5 million dollar purchase with a 30 year, unexotic mortgage so yeah, the 1% has definitely moved to PLG, earning well over 10x the average per capita income.Alexisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541468051247516447.post-74733063301643484852011-11-24T13:37:54.106-05:002011-11-24T13:37:54.106-05:00My husband had the opportunity to buy cheap the 2B...My husband had the opportunity to buy cheap the 2BR coop apt in Park Slope he rented after college. It was on a good street but near a drug corner with dealing in and around a skanky dusty bodega that had cock fighting in the basement, on 5th ave. Once the city closed that bodega and that corner was busted and cleaned up in 2004 and great new businesses immediately started arriving in droves on that section of 5th Ave (yes the corner had to be cleaned up first, for those who think fab amenities arrive first and THEN the dealers go away) the values increased and we sold the apt for an amount that allowed us to buy our small house in the Manor. We could have afforded an only slightly bigger condo in Park Slope for the same price. But we really more space because of our work. So we too came here to buy the best we could get for our budget. <br /><br />BTW, Tim, your hunch about Windsor Terrace is correct -- a friend's uncle is a retired cop and he told her it had always been a cop and fireman neighborhood where blacks didn't rent or buy. Or even walk through.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541468051247516447.post-11581897837370814182011-11-24T11:06:52.713-05:002011-11-24T11:06:52.713-05:00We bought our house in LM 2005, my uncle died in 2...We bought our house in LM 2005, my uncle died in 2007 - he was the last family member living in the family home on Nostrand Avenue. So with that passing and our move here, our family (white and Jewish) has continuously occupied a small bit of the 'hood since the 1930's when my grandparents moved their family here from Bed Stuy. <br /><br />We traded a 2 bdrm/2 bth on the upper West Side (next door to where my great-uncle and aunt lived since they married in France at the end of his service in WW1) for our house here - pretty much even Steven. We chose this nabe after looking in many areas of Brooklyn because, as Tim says it was the best we could afford. In this case the family tie was part of the equation along with all the other more obvious benefits of living here. <br /><br />We love it here and never regret our decision.Gary of PLGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06891613858168168167noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541468051247516447.post-2449043293557298322011-11-23T20:34:30.042-05:002011-11-23T20:34:30.042-05:00can't wait for Part II!can't wait for Part II!Eagle-Eye Mr. M.S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06933147456139856101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541468051247516447.post-44408514280917882132011-11-23T12:52:27.179-05:002011-11-23T12:52:27.179-05:00Good stuff, Mr. Clarkson
Also I recently met a ma...Good stuff, Mr. Clarkson<br /><br />Also I recently met a man who had a rent controlled studio apartment in the East Village for $63/monthAriellahttp://ariellapapa.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541468051247516447.post-26489131807572235082011-11-23T10:24:34.786-05:002011-11-23T10:24:34.786-05:00You realy got it right Tim; great essay!You realy got it right Tim; great essay!Bob Marvinhttp://robert.marvin.brooklynartist.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541468051247516447.post-30782043698888191572011-11-23T09:59:44.669-05:002011-11-23T09:59:44.669-05:00Sorry, lead paint ended in 1978; rent controll doe...Sorry, lead paint ended in 1978; rent controll does not apply to apartments that became vacant after July, 1971.babshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08365488181982105888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1541468051247516447.post-74732699809274562572011-11-23T09:08:53.031-05:002011-11-23T09:08:53.031-05:00Just a couple of precisions: 1. Rent control no lo...Just a couple of precisions: 1. Rent control no longer exits. The program ended in 1978. Any remaining rent controlled apartments are occupied by the same leaseholders (or family members who lived with them at the time of their death) since then. When a rent controlled apartment is vacated, it converts to rent stabilization. 2. A building cannot "pull out" of rent stabilization (unlike other programs like Mitchell Lama, of which we don't have any in this neighborhood as far as I know). Instead, rent on individual apartments is increased any time there is a vacancy, and also to cover major capital improvements, all with the ultimate goal of getting that individual apartment off of rent stabilization - the ceiling here was just raised to $2500 from $2000, so there is some protection for tenants still being enacted in Albany. 3. A rent stabilized building can convert to co-operative or condominium status, but unless 85% or more of tenants buy their apartments, it will be a non-eviction plan, meaning that rent-stabilized tenants retain their right to occupy their apartments under the same terms as always.<br /><br />In terms of your "best I can afford" argument, it's important to remember that "best" is a subjective term and doesn't always equal a purely financial consideration. Many people in this neighborhood could afford to live elsewhere, but have chosen PLG for other reasons - the location, the architecture, the people, as well as the $$. <br /><br />And real estate transactions, including mortgage filings, are matters of public record and are available for consultation on-line through various public and private databases, so, like it or not, they are everybody's business. Even co-op prices, which used to be secret, are now able to be discovered due to the imposition of real property transfer tax on the seller, enabling one to back into the sales price. Really unlike the old days (pre-2005), when the rich would simply pay all-cash for their co-ops and no-one would ever know how much they paid.babshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08365488181982105888noreply@blogger.com