A snowy Sunday on Long Island’s North Fork, doing drive-bys and walk-arounds of vintage properties under $500K, with mixed results. It looks like half a mil is not enough in these parts to get a great house in a great location; you might get one, but not both.
But hope springs eternal. I’ll be checking out more promising listings in days and weeks to come.
Here’s some of what I saw yesterday. For more info on these houses, go to the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island website; search on town and asking price.
Greenport disappointment, $449K (right) 
An 1890 brown clapboard village Victorian with front porch, in need of much work, on too small a lot, too close to downscale neighboring houses, for too much money.
Thrilling house, misleading listing (below) Late-19th c. Italianate gem in Southold needs tons of work – but who cares? It’s a rare find in a classic North Fork setting, with long farmland views, a small barn, a side porch, and a fair amount of interior detail, enough to suggest what a delightful home this could be.
Listed at $499K on one acre, it will be sold only with 22 adjacent acres for an additional $880K, or $40,000/acre. The farmland is ‘protected’ in perpetuity by a Suffolk County farmland preservation program; it must be used for agriculture and cannot be subdivided or built on. But it could work for the aspiring nurseryman/woman, vineyard owner, or organic farmer.
Wow location, not much house (below). Fantastic wooded acre in Southold, mere yards from Great Pond, and a hop, skip and jump to Long Island Sound beaches.
The house itself is an uninsulated 2BR blue cottage from around 1950 in good shape, in an old-fashioned-feeling compound of cottages, with a tasteful shingled McMansion next door. Permits are in place for a dock and expansion of the house.
A brick fireplace is the only heat source. As is, this is strictly a summer place, or three-season for hardy types. Worth 499K? So far, no one seems to think so.
casaCARA 