Leigh Kamping-Carder

In honor of Columbus Day, BrickUnderground will be taking a break from posting until Tuesday morning. Hope you're having a safe and enjoyable long weekend! 

You wouldn’t stroll into Duane Reade and expect to pay more than the listed price for a bottle of shampoo. But walk into a Brooklyn open house, and chances are you’ll have to fork over more than whatever dollar figure the seller’s looking for.

Overhauling a mid-19th century townhouse is an undertaking, to say the least, so we’re always curious to hear from people who’ve done it—or are in the midst of doing it. Michelle Cohen, a writer with the real estate blog 6sqft, is one such intrepid renovator: she’s remaking a four-story, two-family brownstone in Clinton Hill and blogging about her experience.

One of New York City’s least expensive types of housing is a co-op in a landlease building, a property where the apartment dwellers don't own the land beneath the building and must pay “ground rent" to the landowner, often a real estate investor.