Category Archives: Neighborhoods

West Harlem Came After Central Harlem

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I don’t want to bore people too much with a bunch of maps, but it’s interesting to note that West Harlem (Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill) came well after Central Harlem (which as we saw last time came after East Harlem)…

In my last posted I showed that the period of lots of street openings in Central Harlem was around 1869 to 1872. Looking at the interactive maps on the NY Times, you’ll see the streets in Sugar Hill were opened in the mid 1880s – about 15 years after Central Harlem. Here’s a map from 1884 showing that many of the streets in Sugar Hill hadn’t been opened yet (they were opened a year or two later)…

Remember that actual development (not just street openings) was well under way in Central Harlem by that time.

When you look further south to Hamilton Heights you’ll see that the prime blocks there (the ones currently landmarked), weren’t built until the mid 1890s. Here’s a map from 1892 showing that streets like Hamilton Terrace weren’t open yet.

So in general East Harlem came first, then Central Harlem, then Sugar Hill, then Hamilton Heights.

The Development Of Central Harlem Streets

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The New York Times has an interesting interactive multimedia presentation that shows which streets were opened at what time. I thought I’d do a few screenshots to show the development of Harlem over time…

Starting with 1812, you can see that the only road in Harlem was 8th Avenue (now known as Frederick Douglass Boulevard). However, this isn’t surprising. In 1811 the New York Planning Commission said that “Harlem would not be developed for over a hundred years.” At the time, population was dwindling in Harlem and only 91 families lived in the area as of 1820. Harlem back then was just a few big estates with one school and one church.

After FDB was opened not much of anything happened… By 1834 only a few other streets had been opened – 125th Street, 129th Street, and East Harlem saw 3rd Avenue open.

A bit more happened after 1834. By 1839 you can see that East Harlem was being fleshed out as were a few streets north of 125th. Finally, you also see that 7th Avenue (now known as Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard) and 5th Avenue are opened, as was Mount Morris Park West.

The activity in East Harlem came about because the New York and Harlem Railroad (now known as Metro North) was incorporated in 1831 and their tracks went through East Harlem.

Over the next 8 years it seems nothing got done in Central Harlem… The 1847 street map is pretty much identical to the one from 1839…

Harlem went into another decline after 1850 – perhaps not in the number of people, but in the quality of people as poor Irish squatters started moving in. By 1857 a little more was happening in Central Harlem, but not much. 119th Street was opened, as was a small portion of 120th Street, and a little bit of 117th over by Morningside Park.

Another 7 years goes by and by 1864 Harlem was still in decline and not much was happening…

Then things start to change… Three years later, by 1867, 124th Street, 122nd Street and 115th Streets had been opened as had a number of smaller sections of streets.

Then the pace of things really starts picking up. Two years later, in 1869, a whole host of streets (including our street – 123rd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue) are opened. The Harlem street grid we know today is finally getting fleshed out.

Most of the remaining streets are completed by 1872…

The street building in Harlem was most definitely a case of “if you build it, they will come”. It took the streets being built to get the railroads to come. In 1880 an elevated railroad came to Harlem. And once the railroads were there most of the building started in earnest as real estate speculators tried to cash in on the newly accessible area. The mansard roof townhouses on our street were built that year. Our place (and it’s siblings) were built in 1884. And most of our block was built out by 1890 with a couple of large apartment buildings being completed by 1895.

By 1887 the little blocks over by Morningside Park were completed as was Madison Avenue north of 120th Street.

WSJ Editor Moves In After Renovation

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For those of you who are looking for what it really costs to renovate a townhouse – Julia Angwin, an editor at the Wall Street Journal, has been blogging the renovation of her brownstone that’s an avenue and a half from ours – just down 123rd Street, west of Manhattan Avenue. Well, she’s “done” and has moved in…

Her blog is one of the few that discusses cost. She and her husband bought the place for $800K in February of 2010 – just a month before we bought our place. Their townhouse is 16′ x 60′ x 4 stories – so 3,840 sq. ft. That means she paid $208/sq. ft. That may seem a little high, but theirs was not a shell – just a place in need of major renovation.

Their renovations were estimated to cost $350K, but wound up costing $420K ($109/sq. ft.) They went 20% over budget in part because they jumped right into renovations with very little planning. They hadn’t planned on replacing the roof (only patching it). They hadn’t planned for a back deck, etc.

Stairs in Julia Angwin's house before renovationSo they say they spent $1.22M in total. Let’s call it $1.25M since I’m sure there were at least some costs that weren’t reported. That means their total investment was $325/sq. ft. which is very close to what I estimate our cost will be when we’re done – the difference is they’re moving in after 13 months and we’ll move in after 21 months (if things go smoothly).

One thing that should be noted is that they’re not really done yet. They still need to get a new C of O. Without a new C of O they can’t legally rent the basement apartment. Apparently, the process of getting a C of O can be a bit tortuous. I wish them the best, but there are things I don’t quite understand about what I see online concerning their renovations. For example, I’m a little confused about their sprinkler situation. Their Alt-1 filing says there were no sprinklers in the building, but I see them in the “before” pictures – so not sure what the story is with that. I think I see flush sprinkler heads in some of the after pictures – but I’m not 100% sure whether they’re there or not. The Alt-1 doesn’t mention sprinkler work. I’m guessing because they were spending less than half the value of the building on renovations they got in under more lenient rules. I just hope they don’t encounter major problems with their C of O inspection.

Anyway, here are some before and after pictures… I love the picture of the stairs (above and right)… I actually really love the blue wallpaper and how it combines with the maroon and green in the picture. Not sure I’d want to live with it, but it photographs beautifully. There were actually quite a few interesting colors in the house before renovation. On other blogs people have criticized her for stripping the soul out of the place. Personally, I think it just needs a little color – most everything is now white. Here’s an after shot of the stairs. Unfortunately (IMHO) they removed the wainscoting…

The stairs after renovation

Here’s some of the rooms before renovations… Some of them make me want to shoot an art film… The rooms are beautiful in some respects, though I wouldn’t want to live in them – just pretty in pictures…

Here’s the future kitchen before…

Green room before renovation

And the kitchen after…

Julia Angwin's kitchen

And another before shot…

Bedroom before renovation

Here’s what will be the ground floor rental (looking forward)…

Messy room before renovation

And the rental after renovation (looking back)…

Rental unit's kitchen

The fireplaces were something they took a lot of heat for in blog comments. They were concerned their kids would get lead poisoning from them, so they took all of them out and only left one in their master bedroom.

Fireplace after renovation

The master bath was another problem area. The glass hasn’t been installed around the shower so it looks a little bare right now, but the problem was the bathtub. The contractor didn’t leave enough space for the deep soaking tub they wanted, so they got a shallow tub which is useless – it’s not much good as a bathtub and they don’t need two showers in one bathroom.

Master bathroom with shallow tub

So that’s the type of renovation you can pull off in 13 months with a total investment of $1.25M. That gives you a 2,600 sq. ft., 4 bedroom owners triplex and an 870 sq. ft., 1(+) bedroom rental unit (minus space for stairs).

And as far as the payoff… CONSERVATIVELY her place is now worth $1.6M ($417/sq. ft.) so with $1.25M invested they just netted $350K (on paper), but it could very well be worth more – they’ve got an excellent location – very close to express trains and to Columbia University.

What Things Are Selling For In West Harlem

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The other day I looked at what things were selling for in and around Mount Morris Park, so I figured I’d do the same thing for West Harlem (Sugar Hill & Hamilton Heights). I did a radius around a friend’s place in the middle of the historic districts up there and what I found was that prices per square foot just aren’t as high in West Harlem as they are around Mount Morris Park.

Square Feet $/Sq. Ft.
Address Date Price Official Actual Official Actual Class
406 W 146 27-Aug-10 $526,050 4,510 4,250 $117 $124 C0
410 Convent 21-Dec-10 $1,450,000 3,328 3,328 $436 $436 B1
413 W 148 30-Dec-10 $1,120,000 4,760 4,400 $235 $255 B1
761 St Nic 16-Nov-10 $707,500 5,673 5,400 $125 $131 C5
466 W 144 01-Oct-10 $2,000,000 5,895 5,775 $339 $346 B1
197 E’combe 06-Oct-10 $923,793 2,802 3,334 $330 $277 C5
423 W 141 18-Nov-10 $1,100,000 3,440 3,150 $320 $349 C0
515 W 152 31-Jan-11 $610,000 3,764 3,871 $162 $158 B3
524 W 140 15-Dec-10 $920,000 2,825 2,430 $326 $379 C3
102 E’combe 01-Oct-10 $525,000 3,790 3,400 $139 $154 A9

Red lines are 1 and 2 family. Blue is 3 family. Black is 4+ family & SROs.

There are fewer sales to work off of, and none of the shells were in as bad shape as the ones near Mount Morris (the West Harlem shells all had windows), so it’s hard to do an exact comparison. Also, some of the sales on the list had odd histories with auctions and lis pendens just before the last sale – I’m not sure they’re good comps since other things may have been in play on those sales.

Regardless, while one sale did hit $2M, what you’ll notice is that the price per square foot for that sale was only mid-$300s/sq. ft. – about $100/sq. ft. lower than in Central/South Harlem. Only one sale got above $400/sq. ft.

When I did the same analysis 5 months ago I saw the same trend – West Harlem prices just aren’t as high on the high end – which leads me to the same conclusion – West Harlem is a great place if you want to pay a bit less for well-kept house. That’s also consistent with the low prices in South Washington Heights – just north of Sugar Hill.

The other conclusion is that because there’s less of a gap between shells and the high end there’s less opportunity to make money renovating a shell in West Harlem than further south.

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.