A few months back all over the popular news was the story of the North Hollywood home at 11222 Dilling Street used as the model for The Brady Bunch being placed on the market. The home subsequently sold to Discovery Inc.‘s HGTV network and is now bring renovated by the Brady siblings with additional guidance from The Property Brothers.
While the Brady kids have varied careers including Christopher Knight AKA Peter Brady who now produces a furniture line the siblings may wish to look to Eve Plumb AKA Jan Brady the misunderstood middle child; as real estate investor she as been quite savvy on the East and West coasts and definitely not misunderstood.
At present Ms. Plumb and her husband’s Ken Pace just listing a property on the Upper West Side of Manhattan at 2025 Broadway for $735,000. The unit 22-J is on the 22nd-floor, 716-square-foot co-op is in a full-service building by Lincoln Center and Central Park. For those who may not know Manhattan, a desirable area. Of note Ms. Plumb purchased the unit for $589,000 in January of 2013, not a bad profit at all.
Back in 2016 Ms. Plumb purchased a penthouse at 330 East 49thStreet just east of the heart of Midtown Manhattan for $1,557,000. The unit, a 2 bedroom is approximately 1,100 SF yet has three (3) setback terraces which are most desirable in an open-space starved city. In addition, the penthouse features a windowed galley kitchen, two marble bathrooms, hardwood floors and lots of closet space, according to the listing.
The two buildings in Manhattan are known as post-war construction which usually trails the market versus pre-war apartments and of course the new in-demand curtain wall designs yet savvy investors know such apartments in these buildings usually have locations that cannot be replicated and can be purchased for 20-35% below comparable new and pre-WWII constructed apartments. For more about NYC apartment styles the following is an excellent primer: Postwar, Prewar and Everything Before
Yet most impressive is probably Ms. Plumb’s first foray into real estate. In 1969 at the age of 11 she purchased with the assistance of her parents a beach cabin (850 SF – pictured above) in Malibu for $55,300 or $377,225 in today’s inflation adjusted dollars. The bungalow style home, which is located on Escondido Beach Road and thus on one of Malibu’s most picturesque beaches, includes three bedrooms and 1.75 bathrooms and NO heat or air-conditioning. Of note the quite modest home sold in 2016 for $3,900,000 off an asking of $4,150,000. “Way to go Jan“. Below the smaller home on the foreground.