Jackson Heights Life

I don't think they are going to get 1.5 million for this house.  Certainly they will get a good price.

  Jackson Heights is NOT there yet in terms of attracting truly wealthy buyers, we just don't have the infrastructure. A young attorney or doctor a few years out of school maybe, but not through the roof Manhattan level buyers.  This block is solidly middle class and until 37th Avenue and Northern Boulvard change significantly, it's not going to be a dreaded and dramatic transformation that everyone fears.  it's not just about housing, it's about grocery stores and other neighborhood amenties. Sorry we just don't have those things in the high end, at least not yet.

Don't tell me I don't get.  I'm not unsophisticated. My husband's family owns a brownstone in Crown Heights that they bought in the 60's and is nown worth over a million dollars. But I have lived in JH for over eight years and there is a very different set of circumstances here. I didn't say gentrification wouldn't happen, it's just not happening in the way and at the pace you think it is.  It will happen but i don't think it will be this year.  Who knows maybe someone will buy the darn house at 1.45, but they better be ready for crummy supermarkets, limited amenities and a rail line that tranverses the sex trafficking capital of NYC.  Oh how about the terrible schools and the blacktop that we call a park. Yes, I'm happy here in JH. I love my neighbors, and i find my block pleasant and pretty. But UNTIL these things change it's not going to be the gentrification revolution that everyone fears. 

and i know we have Joan of Arc and the Garden School, which are good schools. But these two decent choices this will not suffice for the Masters of the Universe and their children that are suppose to be moving in. 

jhnyc, play nice!  You are being condescending.

Sorry I did not mean to sound condescending. I don't like that people put down the neighborhood to keep prices down.

We are being realistic.  We can love our neighborhood but still have issues with certain parts of it. 

JH is just not going to gentrify like Brooklyn. We've been hearing that it will for the last 10 years and while coop prices are going up, it's nothing like what's happening in places like Bushwick. The commercial rents are way too high and this is a middle-class area, not a poverty-stricken neighborhood with bargains galore to be found.

Sure but your comparison (Bushwick ) is not the right one. Prospect lefferts and ditmas Park are better examples. Not poverty stricken and middle class residents. What you hear the last 10 years is finally true. Prices in coops and single families have shot up everywhere in the desirable parts of queens. And this is only the beginning. It happened fast and caught people by surprise.

I work in a law firm . One of the associates where I work grew up in JH, and her parents still live here. She is planning on buying a house in JH for herself and the extended family. She makes a good living but she is not a master of the universe. Another attorney who just left my firm to work at a NONPROFIT just bought an apartment here for himself and his wife (also an attorney who just started at a NONPROFIT), so they could start a family.
My husband and I are paralegals an make a good living, both have college degrees but enormous college loans. We just bought our second apartment here (sold the first). This is really more the type of buyer moving into JH, at least for now. These are not wealthy people but they make decent livings, perhaps more than working class but not Wall Street.  Will the Masters of the Universe come here? Can't say, but I don't think it'll be for a few years.  Yes, prices are skyrocketing but it's really more diminishing inventory and well, greed.  Would I pay 1.45 million for a house when it appears my next door neighbor's attached house looks that way (like there might be squatters inside). That said, the rest of the block is very nice, the middle class owners proud and taking care of their properties.

if they already have the buyers, why bother listing the house?

and, I live here too, I think I saw a listing for the second, rundown, place on MLS a few months ago, at a very low price. they made the mistake of showing one interior shot that showed graffiti ... INSIDE the house. it wasn't up for long, but it stuck in my mind.....