Weekly Roundup: Housing stats muddy waters

Here’s your chance to catch up with news included to inform, enlighten and perhaps even entertain you. To read about The Big Apple, check out the other of today’s posts and look for Out and About early next week.

Brooklyn Heights brownstone apartment that a late pugilist, mayoral candidate, author owned is on the market

Fashion designer with an elastic view of her Greenwich Village home stretches its boundaries

Co-op board twice rejects buyer hopeful of acquiring Astor apartment

Selling his duplex for 10 percent below ask suggests he may not be the greatest at everything

‘I wuz robbed,” TV detective might well cry

All-Star third basemen puts tricked-out loft on the market

Apartment at the Dakota caught author’s eye

Russian billionaire’s girlfriend learns that diamonds aren’t a girl’s only friend

Housing construction remains near historic lows, but

City selling 3BR Brooklyn Heights co-ops up to $61,000

You'll probably have better luck than the holder of this ticket, which lost. (Flickr photo by Jeffrey Beall)

If you qualify for Mitchell-Lama income limits and win the waiting list lottery, you and your immediate family of five persons could live in an unspecified area of Brooklyn Heights in a three-bedroom co-op that will cost you approximately $52,000 to $61,000.

With two dependents or more, the income limits range between $40,235 and $151,750. And, no, I haven’t any idea how the requirements work or which buildings are available through the newly opened waiting lists.

If this is a true story, one broker should be shot

Montague Terrace, Brooklyn Heights (Flickr photo by lumierefl)

A friend sent me the link to a New York Times blog, where an anonymous commenter told an anecdote that raised my hackles and, as well, the hair on my head.

It seems a Brooklyn Heights real estate broker leaped over the line of conflict of interest and landed with both feet on the square of ethical violation.

According to the post, the broker is married to the president of a co-op board in the building where the writer, a first-time buyer and foreigner, hoped to live.  The commenter quoted the broker, who is the female half of the couple, as maintaining that she knew exactly what sort of shareholder the board was seeking–“and don’t worry.”

The woman and her husband would facilitate the process, the broker reportedly said. The comment continues: