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Inside the Open Houses

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This month, Riva Froymovich drops in on open houses in a well-heeled Brooklyn neighborhood and on the eastern edges of the Upper East Side.

Upper East Side: Less traffic in far-flung areas

On the easternmost reaches of the Upper East Side, four avenues away from the nearest subway, dwellings are not as tony and residents are not as wealthy as the Upper East Side stereotype.

There is a 7-Eleven on York Avenue and East 84th Street where prepackaged sandwiches and Super Big Gulps are served. On Second Avenue, neighbors pound $3 well drinks at Brady’s, which boasts both pool table and darts, as well as seven satellite televisions. It isn’t quite Woody Allen’s stomping grounds.

On a Sunday afternoon in the middle of last month, John Carapella of Citi Habitats waited patiently for potential buyers at an open house for a sun-filled one-bedroom co-op at 415 East 85th Street.

“I think the Upper East Side is just more practical than anything else,” he said of the $545,000 listing. “Especially as you go east of Second Avenue,” he added, noting buyers can get more square feet for their money than below 14th Street.

A few people had visited the apartment earlier, but Carapella was waiting alone beside a doorman, not the white-glove kind, in the lobby around half past one, an hour and a half after the open house began.

The corner unit had been on the market for three weeks at the time of the open house.

Four flights up the 12-story building, wall-to-wall windows overlooked a quiet, residential block and a yellow townhouse from the 1920s.

“Nice view, right?” Carapella asked.

“Yes, the prices have cooled down,” he acknowledged, though he added, “buyers are there — they haven’t gone away.”

He planned to have another open house. There weren’t any definite buyers that had come around yet.

A few blocks away, Brown Harris Stevens broker Steven Plac showed off a studio in a nondescript high-rise building on East 88th Street to what appeared to be two prospective middle-aged buyers (possibly parents) as the owner escorted a reporter outside.

“I never realized I wanted a Murphy bed until I had it,” the owner, Lauren Ravitt, said, by way of explaining the space saver in her apartment. Her husband sat in a lawn chair outside the building, waiting to usher in any other house hunters that should arrive.

Newly married, Ravitt, 30, is fleeing the city for the suburbs, and for space to live in the family way. She is selling the modestly sized apartment — with said Murphy bed, hardwood floors and a bathroom skylight — after living there for two-and-a-half years. She is asking $259,000.

The pre-war high-rise has a shared garden, and sits adjacent to the Richard R. Green High School of Teaching. “Oh, I forget that’s there,” Ravitt said, because she is rarely out on the block when school is in session.

Indeed, the neighborhood is quiet — it isn’t anywhere near the shopping foot traffic of Fifth and Madison avenues, or a major means of transportation.

Kate Burton of Halstead Property waited earlier that day at another open house inside 511 East 82nd Street, off York Avenue. The new-to-market ground-level one-bedroom duplex with spiral staircase has a white brick fireplace, chef’s kitchen with granite countertops and a pass-through to the dining room, high ceilings and two bathrooms.

While the neighborhood has the right sizes, and prices, for young Manhattanites, Burton said she has lately noticed a proportionately larger amount of empty studios and one-bedrooms on the Upper East Side than in other areas.

In addition, in the under-$1 million price range, there is more negotiation, she said.

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“But who can afford it out of college?” Burton asked, and said, as a result, she has seen many parents buying for children in the neighborhood.

Burton said her apartment exclusive has “a townhouse feel,” plus there is a “bonus suite” — an underground living area that measures around 33 feet by 10 feet.

The co-op, priced at $1,099,000, received nary a visitor that afternoon because it was just listed the day before on the brokerage’s Web site and not yet mentioned in the New York Times, Burton explained. She said she expected more interest the following week.

As of late October, however, this apartment — and the other two — were still listed on their respective brokerages’ Web sites.

Cobble Hill: Limited choices in Brooklyn suburbia

Cobble Hill is the real Brooklyn suburbia: Couples walking the leafy sidewalks aren’t all young, and seldom wear Converse sneakers like hipsters in other neighborhoods; comfy looking restaurants tout piping hot soups on outdoor chalkboards; children are everywhere, yet apartment complexes are not.

“It’s so green, and there are smaller buildings and lots of kids around,” Kate Winn said, listing all the reasons she loves the area.

Winn glided around the washer/dryer of an immaculately designed two-room studio with brick fireplace at 142 Baltic Street, which, as of an open house in the middle of last month, had been on the market for five weeks. Five groups visited that Sunday to see the property, listed at $389,000.

Currently renting in the neighborhood, Winn, who works for the A & E television network, doesn’t want to leave.

“It’s the charm, the history,” explained the listing agent, Suzanne Wolf of the Corcoran Group. “You can look over and see the big city. But at the end of the day you’re a world away.”

Wolf cited the sense of community and the easy commute when it’s time to step out. However, the scaled-down size of the neighborhood, its copious landmarks and its deeply rooted residents limit the flow of newcomers. It’s the “nature of the community,” Wolf said. “The inventory in these neighborhoods is always limited.”

Nearby there are two four-family houses up for sale: 126 Pacific Street and 194 Baltic Street. While the supply is limited, the market appeared promising in Cobble Hill that autumn Sunday.

The brick townhouse at 194 Baltic Street is 25-feet wide and comes with tenants and a fifth-floor attic, priced at $2.35 million. “Worst house on the best block” said one potential buyer, freelance editor Steven Antonson.

The character of Cobble Hill is distinct from the rest of BoCoCa (the acronym used to describe the brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods of Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens), explained Antonson, who once lived in Carroll Gardens.

“The people are very different,” he said. He lauded the restaurants, the enclave’s well-maintained identity and safety, as well as the local school; Antonson has two children that he wants to attend P.S. 29.

As far as the tenants go, “It would be the only way to make it work for us. It has great potential,” he said.

“There are a large number of people who want to live in this community. And when [houses] come up, they do sell,” said Amy Krolak, the broker with Brooklyn Bridge Realty selling 194 Baltic.

Meanwhile, a browsing neighbor eyeing a garden-level apartment listed at $749,000 inside a landmark brownstone at 135 Pacific Street was surprised by the open house traffic. “It’s not usually this busy,” said Chris Young.

The property was viewed by 20 parties over two hours.

Young and Erin Hayes, who rent nearby but are taking their time to make a purchase, were kicking tires. “We don’t want to make a concession,” Young said, noting however that “there are so few places that are available around here.”

“We’re willing to wait to find the perfect place for the right price,” Hayes added. After living in the East Village, she said she appreciates the “strict separation between residential and business and nightlife.”

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