300 8th Avenue

Seven stories of brick and limestone on an 11,115-square-foot lot, holding roughly 40,558 square feet. The building is over-built against today's zoning, which permits 3.0 FAR on the residential portion of a split R7B / R6B lot against the 3.65 that stands — the ordinary condition for a 1920 building on an avenue that was later downzoned to a contextual district.

The inventory is small apartments, and a buyer should approach the building on that basis. Studios and junior one-bedrooms dominate; kitchens are frequently kitchenettes rather than separate rooms; and the prewar features that survive — subway-tiled bathrooms, plaster detail, real closets in apartments that have no business having them — are the compensations. Because the apartments are small, three variables carry almost all of the price variance: floor, exposure, and whether the layout has been reworked to gain usable space. Line position matters more here than in a larger-unit building, because a single window is the difference between a bright apartment and a dark one.

The size of the inventory has one direct financial consequence worth understanding before you shop. Many residential lenders apply a minimum square-footage threshold below which they will not write a mortgage, and apartments at this address have been marketed on an all-cash basis for exactly that reason. That is a unit-level constraint rather than necessarily a board rule, and the two need to be separated: ask the board what its financing standard is, and ask your own lender whether it will lend on the specific apartment. Do both before you sign a contract, not after.

The corporation has run the building as a cooperative long enough to have a substantial file, and the documented service model is straightforward — elevator, resident superintendent, laundry room, no door staff. Ninety-five apartments carrying that operation is an efficient ratio, and it is a large part of why the maintenance figures here are among the lowest in the Park Slope co-op market in absolute terms. Measured per square foot the picture is less flattering, which is the honest way to compare this building to a larger-unit peer.

A 1920 masonry building past a century old carries a fully predictable capital agenda: FISP/Local Law 11 façade cycles, roof and parapet, elevator modernization, boiler and riser stacks, and windows. None of that requires Landmarks approval here, which shortens the calendar and lowers the cost against an in-district comparable, but none of it is optional either. Ask management for the last two FISP filings, the reserve balance, the assessment history, the current underlying mortgage terms and maturity, and the board's capital plan. With a small underlying mortgage and a large unit count, the reserve position and the assessment record are the two numbers that will tell you most about how this building has actually been run. The corporation's financial statements are maintained in The Roebling Research Library and reviewed with clients during diligence; no managing agent is asserted here and the agent of record should be confirmed with the board.

Solve the financing question first. Ask the board for its standard and ask your lender about the specific apartment. At this unit size the two answers are independent, and an all-cash requirement discovered late will cost you the deal.

Ask your attorney to establish the corporate history. The land records do not show a conversion deed to a separately named housing corporation. Have counsel confirm the corporation, the offering plan and the share allocation from the corporation's own documents.

Buy light. In a small apartment, exposure and floor are most of the product. Walk the specific unit at the hour you care about and do not accept a comparable that faces a different way.

Read the reserve and the assessment history. The underlying mortgage is small, which is encouraging and not sufficient. A century-old building has a façade, elevator, roof and boiler calendar regardless of how little it owes.

Use the district line. Being outside the Park Slope Historic District is a genuine cost and calendar advantage on exterior work. Confirm it, understand it, and factor it against in-district alternatives.

Lead with entry price and location. This is one of the few remaining ways into Park Slope ownership, in the middle of the neighborhood rather than at its edge. State it plainly and let the address do the work.

Name the financing terms up front. If an apartment will not qualify for a mortgage, saying so in the first conversation protects the deal and shortens the buyer pool to the people who can actually close.

Photograph the lobby and the entrance. The limestone surround and the decorated ceiling are the building's architectural argument and most listings at this price point do not have one.

Comp per square foot, not per room. Averaging across a 95-unit small-apartment building tells a buyer nothing. Anchor to matched 2025-forward sales on the same line, floor band and condition.

Mention that the building is outside the historic district. Buyers comparing against a converted brownstone on the next block are comparing two different alteration regimes, and almost nobody explains it to them.

If you're considering 300 8th Avenue, also evaluate:

• 130 Eighth Avenue (814 Carroll Street) — the 1950 doorman co-op up the same avenue, inside the district; the full-service alternative
• 140 8th Avenue — the 1936 Art Deco co-op on Eighth Avenue; the district's largest interwar building
• 225 Lincoln Place — six-story 1920s co-op with a documented flip tax and sublet framework
• 209 Lincoln Place — ten-story 1928 co-op with its own parking lot; the height-and-view alternative in the district
• 220 Berkeley Place — 1955 postwar co-op inside the district; the mid-century plan alternative
• 235 Lincoln Place — 1937 co-op at smaller scale
• 420 12th Street (Ansonia Court) — the Ansonia Clock Factory loft conversion in the South Slope; the opposite end of the same neighborhood's inventory
• 343 4th Avenue — 2006 Fourth Avenue condominium; condominium ownership at a comparable entry point
• 445 5th Avenue — large Fifth Avenue condominium; new-construction ownership nearby
• 20 Plaza Street East — 1940 full-service co-op on the Grand Army Plaza arc, also outside the district line