'Williamsburg is Nuts. Red Hook is Quiet and Peaceful.'

This weekend’s “Living In…” feature in the Times is about Red Hook, and the article summarizes its pros—its relative peacefulness and handful of wonderful businesses—as well as its cons, most notably its lack of easy access to mass transit, unless you consider the B61 bus a reliable form of mass transit. On the real estate front, neighborhood brokers report that demand is high and inventory is tight: “Deborah Rieders, a Corcoran broker who sold Mr. Kenedi and Ms. Kaiser their house, said that this passion for the area had contributed to a resurgence in sales, after a period of relative inactivity during the downturn. ‘There’s a real lack of inventory’ at the moment, she said. ‘I have a lot of people that want to buy down there — you’re lucky if a house comes on the market every four or five months.’ Which means that even out-of-the-way houses sell for a premium, she added.” Speaking of Mr. Kenedi and Ms. Kaiser, it sounds like they bought the property we featured as a House of the Day last summer that had a backyard chicken coop. The couple moved from Williamsburg, and Kenedi had this to say about how their new neighborhood compares to their old one: “Williamsburg is nuts. Red Hook is quiet and peaceful.” Brokers quoted in the article say that single-family houses generally start in the $800,000s but can go up to almost double that in asking price for prime blocks and properties in tip-top shape. Co-ops and condos, which are not available in abundance in the neighborhood, tend to sell in the $300,000-to-$500,000 range, say brokers.
Outlier Near the ‘Center of the Universe’ [NY Times]