Genetic Testing Gives Helpful Warning Signs

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I bought myself a genetic test from 23andme.com for Christmas and the results just came back and I’ve got a 37% chance of getting prostate cancer. Given that there are very few men in my family (so not much of a family medical history for prostate cancer) that’s really useful information. (I have 4 sisters and no brothers, my dad had 5 sisters and no brothers, and my mom only had 1 brother.) While I’m not going to worry about it too much, I think I’ll find a proctologist and get regular exams for prostate cancer. 37% is pretty substantial risk.

I’m also at increased risk for age related macular degeneration (9.5%), melanoma (4% + my father has had skin cancer), and a few other things – all of which are still pretty unlikely even with “elevated risk”. There are also a few diseases where I’ve got a lower than average risk – Restless Leg Syndrome, Rheumatoid Arthritis, etc.

They also break down how likely drugs are to work on me. I’m more likely than average to be a heroin addict 🙂  Coumadin (which I think my father takes) will work better on me than most people, and so on.

Being gay I’ve always wondered if I was immune or resistant to HIV. Turns out I’m neither. (10% of Northern Europeans are resistent and 1% are immune to most forms of HIV). There’s are also genes that can predict whether your likely to be one of the lucky few whose bodies can keep HIV in check without medication – one of those genes suggests I’m completely average and have no special protection, but emerging research on another gene suggest I may have a little protection – that I’m 2.9 times more likely than average to be someone who’s body can control HIV.

The report said I had a 72% chance of having blue eyes, and if I didn’t have blue eyes there was a 27% chance my eyes would be green, with brown being highly unlikely. Well, I had blue eyes as a kid, but now my eyes are green. I also found out that I don’t taste some bitter things the way other people do and that affects my food preferences.

Then they break down my family history. I had always been told my mom was Scotch-English and my dad was Scotch-Irish, but I had no clue what that meant. Were those Scots who went to England and Ireland (e.g. Chinese-Canadian are Chinese that moved to Canada), or was it a mix of Scotch, English and Irish? Well, the report didn’t clarify those questions, but they did show me that my mom comes from Northern European ancestry and my dad comes from more Eastern European ancestry. Here’s the map of mom’s “Scotch-English” ancestry – she’s haplogroup H1…

maternal ancestry

And here’s the map of dad’s “Scotch-Irish” ancestry – he’s haplogroup R1a1a (the most common group in Europe)…

paternal ancestry

The report goes on and on and on (they map over 900,000 points on the genome)… In most cases the results were average and not all that interesting, but there was enough that was interesting that I’m glad I took the test. Knowing my risk of prostate cancer justified getting the test all on it’s own.

I got the test during a holiday sale back in December. It cost a total of $170. They used to charge $500, but reworked their technology so they can do moer data points (900,000+ rather than 300,000+) at a lower price. The price has gone back up by $100, but still lower than it was. There are some big names behind the company including Google and some big well known biotech firms. If you’re interested, I suggest you try it. However, if you live in New York the test is illegal. They can mail it here, but you have to go out of the state to spit into the test tube and mail the test.

What Things Are Selling for Around Mt. Morris Park

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Yesterday and today have been busy days… Yesterday the bank’s surveyor came by and we had to get him into the back yard (easier said than done). Today we had two appointments – one with the bank’s appraiser who is tasked with figuring out the future value of the house after renovations. And the second appointment was with a DOB building inspector to get our stop work order lifted.

In preparation for the appraiser I shelled out $70 for a Property Shark membership and stayed up late last night looking at the numbers. Banks have reputations for getting the least expensive appraiser – often ones who have no experience with Manhattan real estate. Even people who understand Manhattan real estate can get tripped up with Harlem townhouses – you have ones selling for $300,000 and others for $2 million and the official square footage is sometimes right and sometimes completely wrong. I figured I’d give the appraiser my own list of comps to reduce their chance of getting it wrong and messing up our mortgage. So here’s what I found…

Square Feet $/Sq. Ft.
Address Date Price Official Actual Official Actual Class
168 W 123 03-Mar-10 $530,000 3,600 4,500 $147 $118 C4
136 W 123 19-Nov-10 $595,000 2,652 3,640 $224 $163 C0
139 W 123 30-Nov-10 $540,000 3,120 4,160 $173 $130 S5
124 W 123 19-Jan-11 $309,000 2,115 3,264 $146 $95 C3
124 W 123 1-Mar-11 $535,730 2,115 3,264 $253 $164 C3
239 W 123 15-Sep-10 $495,000 2,499 3,400 $198 $146 C5
115 W 120 13-Aug-10 $1,975,000 3,000 4,480 $658 $441 B9
148 W 120 05-Nov-10 $1,525,000 3,380 3,468 $451 $440 B9
246 Lenox 09-Dec-10 $1,150,000 5,368 7,040 $214 $163 C5
260 W 121 20-Sep-10 $1,100,000 2,808 3,600 $392 $306 C5
22 W 123 16-Dec-10 $395,000 2,484 3,200 $159 $123 C5
18 W 123 28-Oct-10 $600,000 2,484 3,200 $242 $188 C5
208 Lenox 08-Dec-10 $825,000 3,882 4,482 $213 $184 C5
183 Lenox 19-Aug-10 $795,049 4,162 6,555 $191 $121 C5
108 W 119 27-Aug-10 $960,234 3,969 4,392 $242 $219 C0
120 W 127 08-Oct-10 $300,000 2,697 4,284 $111 $70 C5
118 W 127 08-Oct-10 $300,000 2,697 4,352 $111 $69 C5
19 W 120 30-Jul-10 $1,800,000 4,680 4,400 $385 $409 B9
140 W 118 23-Nov-10 $1,180,000 3,808 3,808 $310 $310 B9
57 W 119 14-Sep-10 $1,750,000 3,536 3,536 $495 $495 B3
64 W 119 06-Jan-11 $1,500,000 2,700 3,536 $556 $424 C0
146 W 130 28-Sep-10 $889,500 3,861 4,680 $230 $190 C0
140 W 130 17-Nov-10 $490,000 3,332 3,910 $147 $25 C5
99 Morningside 28-Dec-10 $975,000 4,226 5,850 $231 $167 C2
11 E 127 23-Dec-10 $1,175,000 4,380 3,201 $268 $367 C0
152 W 132 24-Jan-11 $510,000 2,199 2,880 $232 $177 C3
2087 5th 23-Dec-10 $ 2,075,000 4,960 6,600 $418 $314 C2
233 W 113 19-Jan-11 $1,350,000 2,464 3,200 $548 $422 B3

There were more columns on my spreadsheet, but they didn’t all fit. The places are ordered by distance from our place. There are a few things to note…

First, the ones that are struck through are foreclosures – their amounts aren’t real sales amounts, they’re the amounts that were due on the mortgages. There may be foreclosures that aren’t struck through – I didn’t check extensively.

The next thing to note is the ‘building class’ column. Class B buildings are 1 and 2 family. “C0” buildings are 3 family. C2 is 5 or 6 family. C4s (like ours) are old law tenements. And C5s are rooming houses. (C4 and C5 are collectively SROs). The one S5 was an old union lodge.

You would think that 3 family homes would sell well since there’s lots of rental income to offset expenses, but taxes on them are still low, but that’s not the case. As you can see Class B buildings (2 family) consistently have much higher prices (I’ve colored them dark red). A while back Harlem Bespoke made a big of a deal that the $2 million ceiling had been broken with the sale of 2087 5th Avenue, but it’s a 5 or 6 family building. That’s more of a rental building than a typical townhouse, so I wouldn’t say the ceiling has been broken at all – it’s still very much in tact.

The other thing to note is that shells can still be picked up for under $150/sq. ft. and after rehab they’re worth about $450/sq. ft. If you do a nice, but not extravagant job rehab will cost about $200/sq. ft., so you’ll net $100/sq. ft. in profit (on paper at least). If you can put up with 2 years of chaos, shells are still an excellent investment.

As it turns out I didn’t really need to do the cheat sheet for the appraiser. When I showed him what I had done he pointed to the Class B prices and said he had seen those and that was the ballpark he was considering going into our meeting. So it looks like we’re safe on our appraisal. The bank needs us to appraise at or above $1.35M and it looks like he’ll put our future value somewhere between $1.5M and $2.0M.

“Disco House” Sells for $700K

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In our hunt for a townhouse we looked at 30 different places. A few of them were far more memorable than the others. One of the memorable ones was 642 West 158th Street, which we saw in August of 2009. Entrance of 642 West 158th StreetIf you’ve ever driven up the West Side Highway and gotten off in the 150s, you drove past it – it’s on the block just as you get off the highway.

Well, it sold January 21st for $700,000. It had been on the market since June of 2009. It’s original asking price was $1.1M, which had been dropped to $895K – so the buyer negotiated $200K off the asking.

It’s a nice wide townhouse – 18 2/3rd feet wide. Including the solarium extension and the room under it, the house has roughly 3,800 square feet, so it sold for about $185/sq. ft.

The house was memorable because it had been completely rehabbed at one point – probably in the late 70s or early 80s and made into the dream house for a playboy. There was a dance floor, red satin curtains, an overly opulent swan faucet in the parlor bathroom, cedar lined closets, and so on. In it’s time it was an over the top “party house” renovation. As we walked through it you could almost envision the parties, the lines of coke, and the sex in the bedrooms upstairs. The house definitely left an impression…

Dance floor in party townhouse

Opulent swan faucet
Red curtains + chandelier

On the upside, while it needed a major renovation, what it needed was largely just cosmetic – but we’re talking major cosmetic work. There was also some cracks in the front façade which might indicate structural issues, and the rear solarium was leaking and there was a pretty serious mold problem because of it. But all in all, the house was solid and probably had newish electrical and plumbing.

Besides the taste issue, on the downside was location… The only subway close to it is the 1 train. There’s lots of traffic passing in front of the house off the Westside Highway – so it’s not a cute tree-lined brownstone block. The neighborhood isn’t as good as some others, etc.

BUT – with just a little work the house was completely livable if you can deal with the decor. So this is another (just north of Harlem) Washington Heights townhouse that’s selling at a pretty economical price. I’d guess it would cost about $150/sq. ft. ($570K) to renovate the place properly, so the total cost is under $1.3M and under $350/sq. ft. But you could spend less and have a perfectly nice townhouse for under $1M. So there are still good deals available if you need space and can only afford to spend under a million.

Act Now To Get Historic Preservation Tax Credit

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If you’re currently eligible for historic preservation tax credits that reimburse you 20 to 40% of your renovation costs, it’s important that you act now – you may not be eligible for the tax credit once the 2010 Census data come out and it looks like that will happen in May of this year (though it may be as late as August). New York State will begin using the data shortly after it comes out. The application process can be rather complicated (depending on what you’re doing) – so you should get started now. And my understanding is that you only have to have your initial application in before the new data are implemented. That application doesn’t have to be perfect – you can work out the details shortly thereafter.

The reason why this is important is because I’m convinced most of Harlem will not be eligible for the tax credits once the 2010 Census data are implemented. The tax credit only applies to census tracts that are below the median income for the state. Take our census tract for example (tract 222): In 2000 the median household income for New York was $43,393, for our tract it was $38,293 – so really close. [I think they’re using median household income, if they’re using family income the numbers were $51,691 / $41,994, and if they’re using per capita income the numbers were $23,389 / $22,402.]

So Harlem neighborhoods were just under the cut off in 2000 and Harlem has improved drastically in the past 10 years. Even with the recession it’s improved much faster in the past 10 years than the state as a whole. I just can’t imagine that we’ll be eligible based on 2010 numbers – now is the moment to get the tax credit…

One Step Forward, One Step Back

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Well, we had two pieces of news tonight…

First, Wells-Fargo approved our renovation loan and gave us a commitment letter. It’s scary how big the loan is, but the numbers work when it’s all said and done. So getting the mortgage firmed up is a great step forward.

Second, our expediter sat down with the Boro Commissioner at DOB today. She said he almost lifted our stop work order, but ultimately refused saying he wants to see both sets of approved plans. UGH! A step backwards (or at least not a step forward).

There are a number of issues at play. The first is that last year someone at DOB emphatically told our architect’s expediter that the old plans could not be renewed – that two years had elapsed and they were under the 1968 building code, so that was that. Well, apparently that was wrong – they can and should have been renewed. So new plans were submitted and approved without closing out the first ones. The stop work order is because the original plans weren’t closed out before the new ones were approved and permitted. The close out process involves an inspection so they know what was accomplished under each job. Only the boro commissioner can waive the inspection. If we have to wait for the inspection it’ll be another month delay. Luckily we’re not paying mortgage right now…

Still, it all started because someone at DOB gave the wrong info to the first expediter… This whole this is just a bureaucratic mistake…

At least the mortgage is good news…