I Want This 7-Bedroom Brooklyn Victorian, $1.2M

In the posher parts of Brooklyn, folks are still paying a million bucks for shoeboxes (or, since the housing meltdown, maybe boot-boxes). But venture a little further out past Prospect Park toward the once-grand and strangely suburban neighborhoods near Brooklyn College and you can get yourself an estate for the same price.

This one is a rare gem: seven bedrooms, seven baths, a fireplace, wraparound porch and nearly 3,000 square feet to roam around in. It has an eat-in kitchen and formal dining room (when many of us have neither, and just stand up in our kitchen, shoveling our morning toast); parquet floors that still seem to be shiny and relatively unscratched; and a finished basement that serves as its own wing: office, family room, laundry, storage and a home office. It's enough to make you want to switch careers, just so you can work from home.