Someone buying this property will obtain a piece of cultural history

March 9, 2016 12:41 AM

Maya Angelou's Harlem home is up for sale - and it can be yours for about $5 million.
posted by divabat (11 comments total)

Poetry pays?
posted by fairmettle at 2:07 AM on March 9, 2016

I run past this house almost every day. I had no idea who lived there.

That sale price is a testament to the gentrification of this neighborhood as much as it is to Angelou's fame, really. This is only slightly above the going rate for single-family brownstones in this neighborhood.

The land records I found have the property being sold in 2000 for $145,000. That's a 3500% return on investment over 16 years, if it sells for close to the asking price. Not too shabby.
posted by Oxydude at 5:42 AM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

That $145,000 buyer may have spent $2mm or more to buy out the 4-8 rent-controlled or -stabilized tenants and do what looks like a down-to-exterior walls complete demolition and reconstruction.
posted by MattD at 6:13 AM on March 9, 2016

I think the $145K is just a data error -- Trulia says "Sales price computed from Transfer Tax. No indication whether tax was paid on full or partial consideration."
posted by miyabo at 6:55 AM on March 9, 2016

MattD: "That $145,000 buyer may have spent $2mm or more to buy out the 4-8 rent-controlled or -stabilized tenants and do what looks like a down-to-exterior walls complete demolition and reconstruction."

Is that a rule in New York? I've never heard of protections like that. Around here new landlords just refuse to renew the yearly lease and tell the tenants to get out.
posted by octothorpe at 8:41 AM on March 9, 2016

Can't. Saving up to buy 50 Cent's place in Connecticut.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:58 AM on March 9, 2016

octothorpe: "Is that a rule in New York? I've never heard of protections like that. Around here new landlords just refuse to renew the yearly lease and tell the tenants to get out."

Well I assume that's why MattD said "rent-controlled or -stabilized." There's not much point to rent control if landlords can refuse to renew the lease and find market rate tenants instead.
posted by crazy with stars at 11:32 AM on March 9, 2016

That's a 3500% return on investment over 16 years, if it sells for close to the asking price. Not too shabby.

If the figures are right, that's an annualised profit of nearly 25% per year, every year.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:09 PM on March 9, 2016

crazy with stars: "Well I assume that's why MattD said "rent-controlled or -stabilized." There's not much point to rent control if landlords can refuse to renew the lease and find market rate tenants instead."

That makes sense when I think about it. Never lived anywhere with any kind of tenant protections like that.
posted by octothorpe at 2:03 PM on March 9, 2016

Rent-control and rent-stabilization are both mandatory-lease-renewal regimes. Any building in NYC that was an apartment building before the mid-1970s (and that's almost 100% of Harlem brownstones) will have or will have had rent-controlled or rent-stabilized tenants. When you want to make them into a single family home again, you pay buyouts. It used to be it was enough for a downpayment on a condo in Florida, now you are paying the price of the condo in Florida, and maybe the first ten years of property tax and maintenance, to boot.
posted by MattD at 3:08 PM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Cool, a fireplace in the kitchen.
posted by SpacemanStix at 7:52 PM on March 9, 2016