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I'd add to that the fact that the pricier unit appears to be in an architecturally "grander" building, which abuts a pretty posh row of brick and mortar buildings ... classic Boston aesthetic.
I.e., curb appeal. This said, 4x is a wide gap.
I was going to type the same thing. That’s a nice looking building.
I also wouldn’t buy a place that had 3 bedrooms and only one bath.
It sold for about $820K and again there were multiple offers. By chance, the folks who bought this unit from me also listed it for sale in June 2019. This property sold for $865K.
So, one unit appreciated about $45K and the other appreciated $200K. Seems like quite a disparity. The units themselves are quite similar and have very similar floorplans. They also have very similar locations and are located only about 4 buildings apart. The main differences are 1st floor vs. 3rd floor and 2 full baths vs 1 full bath. The Claflin Rd building in general was better cared for although the units themselves were both in similar condition.
Why did one unit appreciate 5.5% while the other appreciated 22%? What do you think? Is this reasonable in your opinion?
As a buyer (not realtor) who has looked/visited extensively in that very area, I see a few differences between the two properties that would certainly have affected my interest/willingness to bid:
1. A second bathroom is HUGE. One of our main driving factors in house hunting right now is we want a place with a second bathroom. Even at the discounted price, we'd have walked away from the unit with 1 bath. I can't imagine a family sharing a bath and/or 3 adults splitting a unit and sharing a single bath.
2. Garden level is a slight detraction; my preference on outdoor space is a roof deck or balcony over yard as it's less maintenance and more private.
3. I didn't notice off-hand what the HOA fees on each unit were, but if the cheaper unit had a HOA >$500, that's also a pretty big detraction. If the building has multiple units with renters in it, that's also a detraction. I walked away from an otherwise decent place on Winthrop once because there were just too many renters in the building.
As a buyer looking in Brookline currently with a budget that's aligned with those units, I can say as a buyer I wouldn't have even bothered going to an open house for the 1 BR place; I probably attended one of the open houses, if there was one, for the 3/2, though I can't remember since at this point I've looked at well over 50 units in Brookline, including around 10 in that Garrison/Winthrop/Addington area.
I agree for $250k I'd figure out a way to put in another bathroom if I wanted the bathroom and the neighborhood that badly.
Perhaps the sellers for the 3/2 were far better negotiators than the sellers for the 3/1 were. Real estate is nowhere near as efficient as the stock market.
I'm getting very confused by some of the replies ...
Sorry about that! I tried to keep it consistent by talking about the units in the same order. So if I said this vs. that a few times the "this" would always be the same unit and the "that" would always be the other one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by karen_in_nh_2012
WHICH ONE is on the 3rd floor -- the one with 1 bath or 2?
The Rawson Rd unit is on the 3rd floor. The Claflin Rd unit is on the 1st floor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by karen_in_nh_2012
But I think it is the RAWSON building -- the $865k one -- that is on the first floor since its listing mentions stairs to the basement? It has 1 bathroom.
Nope! Rawson is on the 3rd floor. In these buildings the unit number often indicates the floor number as the whole floor is one unit.
Both units had a back stairway which leads down to the basement. The layout of the units in each building is virtually identical which is partly why I'm surprised about the large gap in value.
The Rawson unit is actually slightly larger than the Claflin unit because units on the first floor of these buildings give up some space to the building foyer which is common area. So, the units on the 2nd and 3rd floors are usually slightly larger.
Quote:
Originally Posted by karen_in_nh_2012
I would think the extra bath AND being on the top floor would help the Claflin Rd. condo appreciate more than the other building ... but not 4x more!
Claflin has an extra bath and is on the 1st floor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by karen_in_nh_2012
(And Mike, I am curious: are these converted single-family houses (from decades ago)? If so, how is the soundproofing? I'd hate to spend a million bucks on a condo and discover I can hear my neighbor's TV or stereo! )
Nope. These were always 3 unit buildings. The one on Rawson actually had a button in the floor of the dining room you could step on to call the servant from the kitchen. That's how old these buildings are. If this was originally a single family you're not going to find that button all the way up on the 3rd floor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by id77
1. A second bathroom is HUGE. One of our main driving factors in house hunting right now is we want a place with a second bathroom. Even at the discounted price, we'd have walked away from the unit with 1 bath. I can't imagine a family sharing a bath and/or 3 adults splitting a unit and sharing a single bath.
Agreed. A second bathroom increases the potential buyer pool for the unit and the 2 bath unit should sell for more. I've always felt that way and when I sold the two bath unit for $80K more than the 1 bath unit I thought that was a pretty good margin. $250K seems excessive to me for what you gain.
Quote:
Originally Posted by id77
2. Garden level is a slight detraction; my preference on outdoor space is a roof deck or balcony over yard as it's less maintenance and more private.
Neither unit had a yard as the parking is immediately behind all of these buildings along both streets. The Rawson unit had a front and rear deck. The Claflin unit does not have any decks at all as the front deck at one time was closed in and converted to living space. The photo on the Claflin listing of the back for some reason focuses on the neighboring building which is brick. The Claflin building is stucco.
Quote:
Originally Posted by id77
3. I didn't notice off-hand what the HOA fees on each unit were, but if the cheaper unit had a HOA >$500, that's also a pretty big detraction. If the building has multiple units with renters in it, that's also a detraction. I walked away from an otherwise decent place on Winthrop once because there were just too many renters in the building.
Again, at the end of the year the amount you'd be out of pocket would be relatively similar in either building. The addition monies you'd pay at the Rawson association would go into a reserve fund which would be there either to defer costs of repairs that you'd have to pay otherwise through a special assessment or should increase the value of the association.
IIRC both buildings were 100% owner occupied.
Quote:
Originally Posted by id77
As a buyer looking in Brookline currently with a budget that's aligned with those units, I can say as a buyer I wouldn't have even bothered going to an open house for the 1 BR place; I probably attended one of the open houses, if there was one, for the 3/2, though I can't remember since at this point I've looked at well over 50 units in Brookline, including around 10 in that Garrison/Winthrop/Addington area.
So if I told you that you could buy the Rawson unit, have a bathroom installed, and still pay significantly less than you would for the Claflin unit you wouldn't be interested at all?
Quote:
Originally Posted by simplexsimon
I agree for $250k I'd figure out a way to put in another bathroom if I wanted the bathroom and the neighborhood that badly.
Perhaps the sellers for the 3/2 were far better negotiators than the sellers for the 3/1 were. Real estate is nowhere near as efficient as the stock market.
I tell my clients all the time . . . there's one person out there who will pay more for your home than anyone else. We need to find them!
Ultimately, the value of a home is what the average buyer is willing to pay for it. However, there's always that statistical outlier. The differential here just seems a bit extreme to me unless there's something that's changed significantly since I sold both of these units.
Rawson Road was underpriced - either poor advice or owner wanted/needed to sell quickly - they are essentially losing money when you figure in transaction costs, inflation etc.
The market in Brookline has certainly appreciated more than the ~5% gained for the Rawson Road property over that timeframe, and the selling price of $608/ft is on the very low end for comparable properties.
We own a 2+b rental in Coolidge Cr. which is not that dissimilar from Wash. Sq. We would expect a comp./ft more in line with Claflin than Rawson.
The extra bath in Claflin is certainly a selling point point but not to that delta. The top floor/'penthouse' in Rawson is typically more desirable and should counter that to some extent.
Agreed. A second bathroom increases the potential buyer pool for the unit and the 2 bath unit should sell for more. I've always felt that way and when I sold the two bath unit for $80K more than the 1 bath unit I thought that was a pretty good margin. $250K seems excessive to me for what you gain.
Neither unit had a yard as the parking is immediately behind all of these buildings along both streets. The Rawson unit had a front and rear deck. The Claflin unit does not have any decks at all as the front deck at one time was closed in and converted to living space. The photo on the Claflin listing of the back for some reason focuses on the neighboring building which is brick. The Claflin building is stucco.
Again, at the end of the year the amount you'd be out of pocket would be relatively similar in either building. The addition monies you'd pay at the Rawson association would go into a reserve fund which would be there either to defer costs of repairs that you'd have to pay otherwise through a special assessment or should increase the value of the association.
IIRC both buildings were 100% owner occupied.
So if I told you that you could buy the Rawson unit, have a bathroom installed, and still pay significantly less than you would for the Claflin unit you wouldn't be interested at all?
I tell my clients all the time . . . there's one person out there who will pay more for your home than anyone else. We need to find them!
Ultimately, the value of a home is what the average buyer is willing to pay for it. However, there's always that statistical outlier. The differential here just seems a bit extreme to me unless there's something that's changed significantly since I sold both of these units.
Going through each of these:
Bathroom: Believe it or not, we'd still probably not go for the 1 BR, even at the discount. The reasons I have behind this would be fourfold:
1. We haven't decided if we're going to sell our condo (South End) or not as part of our next purchase, but if we do, that would mean living in a rental/friend's place for the duration of the bathroom reno. If we're lucky, this is only a week or two, but it could also take several months (see #2), and that means months of storage, rental, the hassle of moving twice, and other things that may have one dollar amount on paper but have a much larger personal cost due to the time lost, hassle created, etc. We wouldn't live in the unit while the reno is happening as we have a baby in the family who is crawling (and about to walk) and a construction site is about the last place I want to try to baby-proof.
2. Cost is just unknown until we do it. Surprises are par for the course. We could buy the place and bring in the contractor to find out the pipes weren't quite where we thought or what we thought, or there was a surprise behind a wall or something we didn't think was load-bearing but was. There's just enough ways that this could go from two weeks and $30,000 to 4 months and $150,000 that I would personally prefer to take the devil I know to the devil I don't.
3. There's also what gets axed to make room for the bathroom. Did we take a good-enough layout and screw it up to do this? Did a nice-sized bedroom just become a closet with a closet? Again, devil I know.
4. Dealing with major renovations in condos can suck. Anything semi-major and we gotta get the HOA approval. They could say no or tell us the water heater can't support it or some other blocker. Gotta get our neighbors' approvals in some cases, too. We have to approve construction done in units in the building adjacent to us today because we share power/water feeds to the city among other things. Earlier this year, a bathroom remodel in one of the adjacent building's units knocked out our water for over a day because they encountered a problem.
Out of pocket costs: This is a big one for me, because I like to keep things low. As mentioned above, we may consider selling our SE unit if we go toward the upper end of our budget for exactly this reason. I'd rather make a 50-75% down payment and keep total monthly out-of-pocket low, and HOA fees (and taxes) are a static variable I can't tweak with all the cash up front in the world. That means that if I were to find two units, one for $1.3 with a $800 HOA and one for $1.5 with a $150 HOA, and all else equal/same layout/same caliber location, we'd take the $1.5 place.
As was stated by a couple of posters, putting a bath into an existing old building could be an issue. My daughter had a condo and although it had 2 baths, there was a leak behind one of the showers and the pipes could only be accessed from the unit downstairs. Those owners didn't want their wall torn into.
For that kind of money, I'd walk up two extra flights of stairs and figure out a way to install a second bathroom.
I'm probably considerably older than you. I would not buy a third floor unit at any price, under any circumstances, no matter how favorable. I would not even visit a friend or family member who lived on a third floor. I'm not sure how you would cost that out in dollars but it would be a very large amount.
I also would not think it fun to go through the ordeal of adding a second bathroom.
Rawson listing showed deeded parking. No mention on Claflin. Does it have one?
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