Bidding tops minimum for Queens homes by 36%

Single-family home at 23-31 37th St., Long Island City, fetches highest price in public administrator’s auction, going way over its minimum.

The auction Wednesday of 15 apartments and single-family homes in an estate sale by Queens Public Administrator Lois Rosenblatt will add $6.012 million to the city’s coffers.

All of the properties remaining after three apartments were routinely withdrawn before the event, which was held in the State Supreme Court building in Jamaica, found buyers.

Proceeds exceeded by $1.6 million the total of $4.412 minimum prices set by the public administrator, or 36 percent.

Although a Long Island City house that had been withdrawn from previous sales twice received the highest winning bid, $935,000, a Woodside house that went for $315,000 registered the biggest percentage gain over the minimum.

The Long Island City property went for Continue reading

Queens administrator to auction off 18 properties

2 South Country Rd., Westhampton

Queens Public Administrator Lois Rosenblatt has scheduled the estate auction of 13 houses and five co-operative apartments for June 13.

Included in the auction are properties in Little Neck, Westhampton and Monticello.

Minimum (upset) prices, which are set by Rosenblatt at 25 percent below the appraised value, range from $64,000 for an apartment in Jackson Heights to $675,000 for a house in Long Island City that was withdrawn prior to the administrator’s sales in December and March.

Below are the properties to be offered next month: Continue reading

Harlem brownstone used as church faces auction

227 Lenox Ave.

Change of plans: Out and About will be posted next week

The bankruptcy auction of a 6,398-sf building configured as a church and including four apartments on Lenox Avenue in Harlem is scheduled for Feb. 2

Among five other properties to be auctioned are a one-bedroom co-op in Castle Village (where I once lived for 10 years) overlooking the Hudson River in Manhattan’s Washington Heights, a four-bedroom single-family home in St. Albans, Queens, and a one-bedroom co-op in Briarwood, Queens.

Springfield Missionary Baptist Church has been the owner of the central Harlem building, which is in need of renovation and lacks a proper certificate of occupancy.

At Continue reading

City collects $3 million from Queens auction

The estate auction of ultimately 19 properties in various Queens neighborhoods attracted $2.969 million in winning bids last week.

Withdrawn from the sale was a two-story detached frame house in East Elmhurst, and six of the properties failed to achieve their minimum bids.

The highest bid went for the Elmhurst house shown here; It sold for $500,000, well above the upset price of $319,000.  In all, nine properties were hammered down at prices higher than the minimum set by Queens Public Administrator Lois M. Rosenblatt.

Below are the all the results of the auction, which was held March 15. Continue reading

Auction: College Point houses among 20 for sale

Minimum bid: $551,000 for this College Point house with two-car garage. Snow shovel not included.

Queens Public Administrator Lois Rosenblatt has announced that an estate auction of seven co-ops and 13 houses will be held on March 15 starting at 11 a.m.

Prices range from $55,000 for an apartment in Jamaica and $551,000 for the College Point two-story detached brick houses shown at left.

The estate of Franz Vormittag, the house sits on a 5,000-sf lot and is subject to tenancy.  Taxes are $6,677 annually.

Other properties to be auctioned are listed below along with Continue reading

Bid on 29 apartments, houses in Queens, Brooklyn

The minimum bid for this Bayside property is $338,000.

The public administrator in Queens is auctioning off 10 co-ops, one condo and 18 single-family houses, each of them left by owners who died without a will.

The estate auction takes place June 29 at 11 a.m. at 88-11 Sutphin Blvd., Room 62, Jamaica.  Inspection will be June 26-27 between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Regarding the co-ops below, the contracts will be nullified and deposit returned in the event that a board rejects a successful bidder. Continue reading

7 co-ops, 11 homes to be auctioned off March 9

The office of the Queens County Public Administrator has scheduled the auction of seven co-ops with starting bids ranging between $56,000 and $176,000.

Google satellite view of the Malba, Queens home to be sold. Click to expand and, below, see a photo of the two-story brick house with garage.

Also on the block March 9 at 11 a.m. will be 10 single-family homes and a condo (from what I can tell) with bids starting between $162,000 to $950,000.  The high upset price is for a place at 141-42 11th Ave., Malba.

And if you’d like to buy a big bunch of properties all at once, there’s a significant auction of a foreclosed East Harlem complex scheduled for March 11 at 11 a.m.

For risk-takers, the co-ops are being sold subject to the approval of the buildings’ board of directors. The units are: Continue reading

Going once and then going one more time

If you have your heart set on buying an apartment or single-family home in Riverdale or Queens, you may well get a great deal in two separate auctions announced over the weekend.

First, Riverdale in the Bronx.  The Solaria, a 20-story condominium on W. 237th Street, towers over the surrounding low-rise neighborhood with a glass-walled facade that echoes the sleek buildings now seen all over Manhattan, the New York Times observes.

It has a rooftop observatory with a telescope, a children’s playroom, an entertainment center and lounge, balconies, on-site parking, large layouts — in short, everything except buyers.  As of last week, only 10 buyers had actually closed on apartments, the last in September 2008.

Now the developer is offering the remaining 54 units at auction on Nov. 22 in what Jim Corum, the president of REDC, the California auction company that is handling the sale, called an “accelerated marketing plan.” He said it presumably with a straight face. Continue reading