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L o o k in g a t L iving fro m B r o w n s to n e B ro o k ly nBY KAY HOLMES SHARKSSo you want to buy a brown - stone. Nothing special, mind. Just a simple, one-family, three-story brownstone, with parquet floors, original shutters, marble mantels, maybe some decorative molding, a country kitchen with exposed brick and, oh yes, a rose garden in the back. It doesn%u2019t have to be in the Heights but a tree-lined block is a must, gas-lamps would be nice. Near shops and subways and good schools, of course.And the price? You were thinking of $60,000? Think again.That kind of money will buv vou a shell in Brooklyn Heights, something with fair mechanicals in Boerum or Cobble Hill, a liveable piece of real estate in the middle of the Slope and a place with potential in Carroll Gardens or Fort Greene.This is 1978 and brownstones are no longer a hunk of junk someone is trying to unload. In the last five years the aforementioned Brooklyn brownstone communities have become establishm ent, liven people from Manhattan and Westchester and New Jersey have read the ads and decided to come home to Brooklyn. And the cost of that reverse migration has soared.In the last year alone, according to realtors, the demand for renovated brownstones in those communities exceeded the supply by as much as 25 to I. It's a seller%u2019s market, no question. And while interviews with some dozen realtors show there are still some bargains to be had; they aren%u2019t often on tree-lined streets, crammed with original detail or complete with a country kitchen.Would you consider, for instance, a tinned-up, one family brick that%u2019s standing and not much else for $10,000 in Clinton Hill? Or i ........... i .. . . %u201e r _ a l u u i m n g i i u u . t t . u n u u . n w u . i w i$38,000 in the lower Slope? Or a four-story house in a pristine part of Cobble Hill%u2014that needs much, much work%u2014for $35,000?It's possible to buy a threefamily brick in move-in condition for $13,000 on Warren Street and Fourth Avenue and a block away on Prospect Place see a four-familythat sold for $65,000, according to Eileen Farrell of Best View Realty Houses in the recently landmarked portion of Fort Greene range from $15,000 for a shell to $95,000 for a beautifully finished Italinate brownstone. And in Prospect Heights you can bus a double duplex with detail for $ 3 9 ,0 0 0 or a superbly renovated carriage house for $95,000.Nat Hendricks, realtor and presi dent of the Brooklyn Brownstone Conference, lists three factors that influence the cost of real estate location, location, location. Other realtors agree. Simply which block a house is on, and in which brownstone community, deter mines its market value. I hat accounts for the wide variation of price.\dricks said, tend to be multiple dwellings on the fringes of established communities or with special features like two sitting, robust, rent-controlled tenants. The potential buyer has to be a bit of an ail venturer, with a fair amount of imagination and some home improvement skills, to snag a bargain brow nstone todas.And whereas 15 years ago those adventuresome t\\pes were the only folks w lin'd consider living on Dean Street in Boerum Hill, for instance, there aren't many pioneers out there anymore. It%u2019s not that Brooklyn brownstones have changed--though there are certainly fewer available but that the people looking at them have.Or put another away, as it was by Roberta Albanian of Ka/eroid and Arberman Realty:\for $35,000. They have the same mentality that brownstoners did 10 years ago. People who are looking for houses are also looking for the brown n?one Th'.'v r'%u2019 willirig to pay to be part of the club, the community, tha1 brownstones have come to represent.%u201c It%u2019s unfortunate but true,%u201d she continued, \to spend a lot more money for location and charm, which is other people%u2019s furniture, than for 220l O N I I S t 1 1 >O cto b er 12, 1978. THE PHOENIX, P a g e 13