Mitchell Hall featured in The Observer's Townhouse Fall Edition

I was interviewed recently and featured in The Observer's Fall 2011 Townhouse Edition. The article is about mixed use Manhattan Townhouses. Check it out on page 15-16 and please contact me if you're looking to buy or sell a single family, multi-family, mixed use or income producing townhouse.

MITCHELL HALL

 But if you manage to stumble upon one of these diamonds in the rough the benefits can be quite re-warding. “An owner can do whatever they want, they can own the whole townhouse and rent out part of it for professional use,” says Mitchell Hall from Corcoran. They can take two or three floors as their own, they can take one apartment and rent out the others, there’s a lot of possibility in it. I had a buyer purchase a brown-stone in Brooklyn and it was mixed-use. The ground floor was set up for professional use, he was buying be-cause he wanted to live in it, but the rent [from the ground floor] helped cover his mortgage and expenses,” says Hall.

“These mixed-use townhouses are hot because the commercial space rents for higher price than a residential space and the property is a good investment since it is rare,” says Ms. Beit. Jimmy Choo was privy to this real estate secret, his shoe boutique located on east 51st street between Madison and Fifth avenues is part of a classic mixed-use New York town house. “Some clients are looking for income producing property,” says Olga Neulist of Sotheby’s International Realty, “and therefore rent out part of the house to a commercial tenant or residential tenant who could cover all the house’s expenses.”

 However, mixed-use townhouses aren’t for retail alone, Mr. Hall told The Observer, “A doctor’s office in a brownstone that would be one of the best uses of it. It’s usually a ground floor apartment, ideally there’s a separate entrance. My dentist is in brownstone—I normally see professional use like doctors, dentists or psychiatrists, usually they have a floor and a separate entrance.” Hall continues with a chuckle, ‘You don’t really want to have to go through the building up-stairs to an office.” Mixed-houses, even if unprofitable, are still great self-sustaining properties, especially when held onto over time.

“Beyond paying the mortgage, a lot of times there is not a huge profit, but there is growth over the years. Rents are going to continue to go up, so the value of the whole property is going to continue to go up,” Hall continues. The Corcoran realtor suggests the absence of townhouses in the Upper East Side is a common misconception. “The Upper East Side, you don’t see them on main Avenues like Park or Madison because those are big buildings, but when you go on the side streets like Lexington, you’ll see brownstones, usually they’ll be ground floors below, you’ll have to go down the steps, a lot of those are businesses, doctors, dentists, law firms, even a little real estate firm.”

Mitchell Hall, Associate Broker, The Corcoran Group