The great Brooklyn house hunt continues. So, I’m helping this chick find a house, right? She’s got a decent amount of change in her piggy bank. She’s open to somewhat of a fixer upper. Open to a few different neighborhoods. You would think it would be easy, no?

WTF?

Personally, I’m not one to look at houses for an entire year. That would drive me nuts. But the gal in question is no Prima Donna. I mean, I’m right there with her looking and I wouldn’t have gotten into a bidding war over any these places either.

Let’s see…what have we seen? My favorite was 11th Street (above). Ok, so she was kind of scared off by the amount of work while I fell in love with the place. But hey, it’s not me buying it. Loads of detail on a great block. I’d say a pretty solid investment IF they would go down in price, because it will be a costly restoration.

Then there was that limestone on 9th Street that was TOO nice. Really. It was like a museum. Just beautiful, perfect detail but not I’d imagine an older, very refined person living there.

The Hoyt Street gut reno we saw on Sunday was great. The seller took a shell and gave it a fabulous modern makeover. Alas, something was amiss. The location wasn’t a match for Chickie and there were a couple of other issues she wasn’t crazy about.

We looked at a lovely place on 8th Street. Move in condition, but the configuration was screwy, so there would be work to do even though it didn’t need work. Know what I’m sayin’?

The Prospect Avenue 3 family had potential and is perhaps worth revisiting, but she would want to convert it into a 2 family, installing an internal staircase in the lower duplex . Again, a place that would have to be ripped apart even though it’s in perfect cosmetic shape. Seems wasteful to do.

Oh, then we saw an apartment on 13th Street. It was really nice, but I’m trying to convince Chickie that rental income is golden! I don’t see the point in paying a bunch for an apartment when you could own an entire house with income and total autonomy.

So, there you have it. Even if you have some money to play with, it’s never enough. If her budget was $800k, it would almost make the search easier. There would be fewer neighborhoods and more of an incentive to settle for something. Right now everything is at the top of her budget and needs another coupla hundred thou of work.

Poor girl.