The 14 Most Affordable Neighborhoods in Brooklyn
There are only two neighborhoods in Brooklyn where the median price per square foot is less than $200. And you’ve probably never heard of either of them. Where can a Brooklyn buyer on a budget buy a home for less than $200 a square foot these days? That works out to be a whole house…
There are only two neighborhoods in Brooklyn where the median price per square foot is less than $200. And you’ve probably never heard of either of them.
Where can a Brooklyn buyer on a budget buy a home for less than $200 a square foot these days? That works out to be a whole house for less than $500,000 or an apartment for less than $200,000.
In two neighborhoods: City Line, nestled between East New York and Queens’ Ozone Park, is $199 per square foot. Remsen Village, located between East Flatbush and Brownsville, is $153 a square foot, according to the most recent data from PropertyShark.
Buyers who can stretch to $300 a square foot will have more choices. Altogether, there are 14 neighborhoods where prices are less than $300 a square foot. They include East Flatbush, Cypress Hills, Ocean Hill and Bushwick. Here they are:
Coney Island: $296 psf
New Lots: $296 psf
Bushwick: $287 psf
Flatlands: $273 psf
Sea Gate: $271 psf
Ocean Hill: $267 psf
Canarsie: $254 psf
Farragut: $250 psf
Brownsville: $248 psf
East New York: $230 psf
Cypress Hills: $220 psf
East Flatbush: $203 psf
City Line: $199 psf
Remsen Village: $153 psf
Although technically not under $200, at a median price per square foot of $203, East Flatbush comes close. The area is not exactly under the radar anymore, either.
Affordable Areas
Real estate agents frequently recommend East Flatbush, as well as Cypress Hills, to clients interested in buying a whole house for well under $1,000,000. Its standalone circa-1900 wood frame Victorian and Edwardian houses are similar to those in Ditmas Park, although the area also has a wider variety of housing types, including many more prewar apartment buildings.
East Flatbush and Cypress Hills, as well as Ocean Hill, are fruitful places to look for buyers who specifically want a turn-of-the-last-century home such as a wood frame house with a porch, brownstone, or bow-fronted row house. Pictured above is Clarendon Road in East Flatbush.
East Flatbush is also teeming with development. Dozens of wood frame houses are being sold as development sites to be razed and turned into big apartment buildings. Development has been brisk in Ocean Hill as well.
The PropertyShark data includes closed sales of all types of homes through 2014. It does not include sales for 2015. It’s likely that by the time all the data is in for 2015 (by the second or third quarter in 2016), Bushwick will no longer be on the list of under $300 per square foot.
Asking prices in Bushwick are now over $1,000,000 for renovated homes, and many sellers have been getting their prices, or close.
To see the price per square foot in 2014 and 2004, and the percent change, click in on a specific neighborhood on the PropertyShark map.
Prices Rise
It’s no secret that prices of homes have been rising quickly throughout Brooklyn since 2012. Only five years ago, less than $200 a square foot was the norm in many areas in central Brooklyn, including Bushwick and the brownstone-heavy neighborhoods of Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and Prospect Lefferts Gardens.
PropertyShark’s data shows price increases of 40 to 72 percent in those areas in the decade since 2004. With the median prices there now running $347 to $465 a square foot, depending on the neighborhood, a whole house will be more than $1,000,000.
[Photo: Clarendon Meadows Civic Association]
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“City Line, nestled between East New York and Queens’ Ozone Park”, Shouldn’t it be the City Line section of East New York near the Queens Border?
Growing up City Line was basically only the commercial strip of Liberty ave. from the Queens border to the Conduit, it’s only recently I’ve seen the surrounding area being referred to as City Line, apparently my family’s home is in City Line but it’s always been just East New York. I’ve also only known people to call the area south of Linden Blvd. (southern half of City Line on the map) as part of New Lots. Funny thing is Google maps shows different borders from the map above and places a chunk of City Line in Cypress Hills, it also shows Cypress Hills as a neighborhood separate from ENY instead of a subsection which it doesn’t do for the other subsections.
I would say City Line is probably the most diverse section of ENY, people would be surprised by how many Middle Eastern, Southern Asian and West Indian families live here. On my block alone I have neighbors from Jamaica, Pakistan, Ghana, Panama, Guyana and we’re Latino. City Line is mostly Multi-Family homes, so if anyone is looking for a single family Cypress Hills especially around Highland is your best bet, It’s has an almost suburban feel.
I made this based on Streeteasy data a few weeks ago:
Brownsville $142 per ft² (avg.)
Farragut $255 per ft² (avg.)
Northeast Flatbush $258 per ft² (avg.)
Flatlands $274 per ft² (avg.)
Wingate $319 per ft² (avg.)
Flatbush $371 per ft² (avg.)
Prospect Lefferts Gardens $518 per ft² (avg.)
east flatbush is probably one of the few places left with reasonable subway access and charming housing stock left at affordable prices. it’s a wonderful area. I don’t live there myself (i’m more west in flatbush proper) but my boyfriend bought a house on the edge of E Flatbush and we really love it.
Probably more useful to look at current Streeteasy asking prices for houses, by neighborhood.
East Flatbush has some great blocks. Even the Fred Trump rows of late 1930s houses, near Holy Cross Cemetery, are pretty well kept up. If you can get one near the 2/5 trains, west of E40 or so, they are still a very good deal.
The other day when this same map was posted I had a few problems with it, and so did other people. They were quicker to comment so I figured there was no point in my 2 cents. This time, the list provided doesn’t really jive with the homeowner is able to get… Here’s an example along with proof. While there might be a very large number of properties trading hands in Bushwick for less than $287 sq ft, it isn’t for a homeowner.
http://streeteasy.com/for-sale/bushwick/status:open%7Cppsf:-300
$300 sq ft yeilds 6 properties
http://streeteasy.com/for-sale/bushwick/status:open%7Cppsf:-400
$400 sq ft yeilds 33 properties
http://streeteasy.com/for-sale/bushwick/status:open%7Cppsf:-2000
This ought to show everything right? $2000 sq ft in bushwick yeilds 72 properties
If 1/3 of the properties in bushwick are priced between $300-$400 sq ft, and we know that there are only 6 priced below $300 sq ft, how exactly would we get an average ppsf of $287? Jumbo sized developer teardown purchases. These guys are skewing the numbers posted here in a big way. Especially when we can deduce that the numbers from streeteasy indicate that the avg ppsf in bushwick for a homeowner is really closer to $400 sq ft.
FWIW I picked bushwick because I know it’s a hot neighb, I see developers building new stuff almost every time I visit friends, and all my friends do is complain about how high their rent is getting.
Great read! I just bought in East Flatbush and love the area. With all of the one and two family houses, there is a great neighborly vibe.
excluding, not including.
I wrote what I wrote because searching for a house is stressful, frustrating, exhausting, and costly (for most people it will be their largest purchase). I remember combing through listing after listing only to find them defunct or still lingering on after the properties had sold. At one point I had a found some backdoor on a centurty 21 page that showed me century 21 bk MLS properties that were soon to be listed, but not.
Ultimately the tool that turned out the best results was zillows ‘recently sold’ filter. They also have a ‘pending’ filter that might be useful to some, but as you said that can take quite a while to update.
Anyway – What I noticed was a trend of houses buying and selling way below market rate, and every time I would look into it, it was teardowns, or REO’s, or courthouse sales. Which all sound like something you want to get in on, until you find out that you just don’t have the background, financial savvy, network, or in some cases size (do I need a warehouse factory to redevelop or just a home?). There is a real estate market that exists for professionals only and including that in the same pool of numbers as avg joe/janes would probably yield a totally different list.