It's a challenge to get your hands on a four-bedroom house in the historic and very, very popular Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope. It's pretty much impossible to get one with a driveway, which is one of the things that makes this house such a rarity. It's semi-attached -- another wonder in brownstone-land -- with four bedrooms and four baths, a total of 1,648 square feet. Yeah, it's not a grand brownstone, some of which can total as much as 5,000 square feet, and it definitely needs some love on the inside: the kitchen and bathroom have some standard, underwhelming Home-Depot-type fixtures, pressboard cabinets and high-1980s tile.
What it's got going for it is location -- on what's called a park block (meaning one block from the park between 8th Avenue and Prospect Park West, which runs along the park) -- and that darned driveway. It can cost up to $300 for a spot in a garage, so figure a $3,600 per year savings right there.
Then there's the school district, beloved P.S. 107, home of the Readings on the Fourth Floor series, where every famous living Brooklyn writer has orated to raise funds for the school. Guess that means that it's not so well-funded despite being a serious draw to the area. Good news is that with this house you'll have enough space to invite neighborhood kids, and their cultured parents, over to play.But the price, at $1.8 million, strikes me as very optimistic, stuck in the past around 2007 or so. This three-bed, three bath immaculate home two blocks away is on the market for the same amount, and this one is light, open, and totally renovated...but no driveway, it's true.
