Checking In On 268 Wythe Avenue

Quite nice looking, but people simply are not buying in Williamsburg right now unless it's a fire sale.

Buying anything up there for over $500 psf with 5000 apartments on the market (or coming to market by year end) would make one an idiot.

It's so funny to now talk to my once DIE HARD Williamsburg friends. Now that they've read that stupid NYMag article, they hate it there now. Silly.

Posted by: 11217 at July 27, 2009 11:16 AM

the slats are necessary imo
when you walk by you see the whole unit very clearly without them, no privacy

i've seen a place on berry street and N7 that before it opened was a wall of bare windows and now that people have moved in its a wall of solid curtains. Almost never seen a curtain open, in fact people have started hiding stuff between the window and the curtain because the curtains never open - bicycle, boxes etc.

Posted by: 11211 at July 27, 2009 1:48 PM

Wine lover,

I don't know why you continue to engage on this board. You are a racist, and everyone knows it.

Clearly you've never heard of a thing called "shadow inventory"

Here is something for your reading pleasure, since you clearly missed it...

http://nymag.com/realestate/features/57904/

And just a couple paragraphs for you:

According to a study Maundrell released last month, 2,818 new apartments will have hit the market by the end of this year, with another 2,766 projected by the end of 2010. On top of this, Fannie Mae, the country’s most dominant home-mortgage lender, recently implemented a policy requiring that buildings be 70 percent in contract before guaranteeing mortgages, thus delaying the moment when a developer can stop covering the taxes and common charges on a finished project. (While most other banks require 50 percent of a building to be in contract, Freddie Mac, the other chief lender, is expected to follow Fannie Mae’s lead later this month.)

“The thing is,” Maundrell told me as we drove past a sarcophagus of a building on Berry Street, “a year ago, those inventory numbers would have been great news. Buildings around here have been selling out so fast that there didn’t seem to be an end in sight.” He paused. “Now, with the new restrictions, the bottom line is that most of the new buildings will have to be turned into rentals. The problem is that, for a lot of these guys, that’s just not an option.”

Posted by: 11217 at July 27, 2009 1:53 PM

"now, who the f knows where things are going"

I know exactly where they are going...down. You seem to be the only person who doesn't realize that.

It is SO OBVIOUS from every one of your posts that you are one of those absolutely desperate buyers who are trying to cling to your housing equity. It's one thing to tout your neighborhood, but to be an outed racist and continually come here and tell us how amazing Williamsburg is, is SO TRANSPARENT.

And we never heard your response from the questions posed to you last week...is there ANYTHING about Williamsburg you DON'T like??

You are a fool for being so blind as to what's happening around you.

Oh and for hating an entire race of people.

Posted by: 11217 at July 27, 2009 1:59 PM

bjw2103:

Unless you've done your own study, I'm more apt to take this guys word over yours on the inventory numbers.

"According to a study Maundrell released last month, 2,818 new apartments will have hit the market by the end of this year, with another 2,766 projected by the end of 2010."

I don't believe he'd be including Domino or the 3rd NSP in that tally to be completed by 2010....

Have you walked around the neighborhood lately? If you have, you'd see what rough shape it's in with regard to empty and abandoned looking buildings on nearly every single block.

The only thing keeping the place alive right now is the nightlife and restaurant scene. Once that dies down, Miami here we come.

Posted by: 11217 at July 27, 2009 2:39 PM

bjw2103:

I should also say that judging from your commenting history and unabashed defense of everything Williamsburg and knowledge of specifics of certain developments, you most definitely sound like a broker. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but clearly it's in your best interest to refute what I'm saying. Even if it might be more true than what you are saying.

Posted by: 11217 at July 27, 2009 2:43 PM

Well in my case, it's fly cuban homies, but YES...I'll take any! ;)

Posted by: 11217 at July 27, 2009 3:08 PM

I've actually come to enjoy Williamsburg quite a lot this summer, and have been partaking in the drinking and restaurant options more than ever.

But as a residential neighborhood, it's toast for at least 5-7 years and quite possibly longer. It's GREAT news for anyone wanting to get in and buy something cheap although, but the entire neighborhood was built on the speculation that it would be the coolest place on the earth forever.

The rest of Brooklyn was not.

Having paid the prices people paid in the last few years to sit next to empty and rotting buildings...well not my cup of tea and from what I gather...not the cup of tea from people I know who live there either. They bought there because they thought it was cool. What happens if that goes away even a little bit? I mean...the schools aren't great, there's very little green space, crime seems to be on the rise, the median income is still in the mid 20's...do you REALLY think all those people who moved there with families aren't going to consider bolting if Dressler, Dumont and Bird ended up going out of business (heaven forbid!).

Again...I trust someone's numbers who actually DID a study on it, not some anonymous person on a blog who says he's not a broker, but "already done his own tally"

Posted by: 11217 at July 27, 2009 4:37 PM

Well yeah...those weren't the best examples, DH.

But there are a lot of yuppie 30 something parents in Williamsburg who would think those closings would represent the end of civilization as we know it.

The thing is...once all of this shakes out, Williamsburg will probably be a lot better place for it...more people will be able to afford it...the kinds of people who actually made it a place to live and play. That's a great thing...but you've just got to fight the wine lovers of the world who paid too much for their place and want to fight it tooth and nail all the way down.

Posted by: 11217 at July 27, 2009 4:49 PM

"Prices are way to high in Williamsburg at the moment."

This is really the only important sentence of this entire thread.

Posted by: 11217 at July 27, 2009 5:24 PM

"I'd like to know the details behind this broker's study (and NOW people believe brokers?"

In what interest would it be to a broker to announce that there's over 5000 units of inventory about to come online?

If anything that gives him MORE credibility because he's owning up to reality.

Unlike a certain someone else we are getting to know.

Posted by: 11217 at July 27, 2009 5:45 PM

Sorry man. It's all in good fun.

I really don't care which numbers are correct and hope it's not the higher number. I don't like seeing Brooklyn suffer (even Williamsburg) but I'm just facing reality head on and if it turns out better than some people are predicting, fantastic. Your numbers seem very low to me. Especially as I've been there lately and witnessed what I feel to be a rather strange feeling of walking by so many unfinished and neglected properties in a relatively small area. And knowing that quite a lot more are on the way...

As I said...the net effect in the end will be a positive one, no doubt. Just as I hope falling prices will have a positive affect on my own neighborhood, and allow a more diverse and vibrant group of people the opportunity to be able to afford it.

Posted by: 11217 at July 27, 2009 8:04 PM