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The (other) Brooklyn Flea

<i>A buyer's vision makes a 'handyman special' townhouse an eventual steal</i>

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Brooklyn native Margaret Cuonzo at 50 Duffield Street in Downtown Brooklyn.From the July issue: In the current market, home purchases — even at the lower end of the price spectrum — can be just as hairy as commercial real estate deals.
Brooklyn native Margaret Cuonzo, for example, got a steal on her recent purchase of 50 Duffield Street, the three-family Downtown Brooklyn townhouse she is currently renovating. According to city records, she paid $705,000 — “basically, the price of a condo in one of the nicer buildings [in the area],” said Cuonzo, who teaches philosophy at the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University.
But it took nearly a year of wrangling with banks to take possession of the house, despite the fact that Cuonzo is “more than qualified” to buy it, said Jacqui Howard Sicignano, a salesperson at the Corcoran Group who represented the seller.
“I was putting down a big down payment, and still I went through hell,” said Cuonzo, who is hoping to move in this November. [more]