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The Brooklyn Real Estate Market Summed Up in One Flyer
Corcoran broker Andrea Yarrington sent this summary of the townhouse sales in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Bed Stuy as part of a marketing mailer last week. Whether you’ve been in the market or not, if you’re reading this blog chances are you have heard plenty of anecdotes about mobbed open houses, multiple bids and all-cash offers. This one-pager is about the best summary of the market over the past few months that we’ve seen. Pretty amazing.
05/13/2013 11:00 AM
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Brooklyn Rents Flat Last Year
A report on the rental market in Manhattan and Brooklyn by real estate firm Douglas Elliman was released today and it found that the median rental price in North and Northwest Brooklyn was $2,572, essentially the same as it was this time last year. The rental price per square foot ticked up just 4.6 percent over the year. According to the report, this may indicate a period of slower rental price growth ahead. Studio apartments took the biggest hit, with the median price falling by 5.5 percent, possibly because some of these tenants are leaving the rental market to become first-time buyers. One and two bedroom apartments saw modest gains. The largest jumps were for luxury apartments: the average price and average price per square foot were both up 12 percent over this time last year for those units. And Brooklyn, even these tonier neighborhoods, remains a significant bargain over Manhattan with an average price per square foot of $35 compared to $50 in Manhattan.
The Elliman Report: Manhattan and Brooklyn Rentals
Sorry Brooklyn Rents Still Cheaper Than Manhattan [Brownstoner]
02/13/2013 9:30 AM
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Massey Knakal Releases Third Quarter Sales Info
Massey Knakal released its third quarter market report for New York. On a larger scope, there’s been a 40 percent increase in New York City-area property sales since last year. Here are the Brooklyn details: 691 transactions have occurred this quarter, an increase from last year; 859 properties sold, an increase of 47 percent from 2011 on an annualized basis; and the aggregate sales consideration throughout the entire year was 110 percent higher than last year. Massey Knakal also announced they took over leasing at 112 Montague Street, the old Starbucks space. Brooklyn Heights Blog recently wondered what was up with the space, now empty for almost five months.
10/25/2012 10:00 AM
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Market Snapshot: Kensington
The good folks at PropertyShark compiled market data on Kensington for a market snapshot. The borders used are Coney Island Avenue to the east, Caton Avenue to the north, McDonald Avenue to the west, and Ditmas Avenue to the south. Charts show the highest closed sales prices in 2009, with median sales prices pretty sporadic since then. Apartment sales prices were on a steady increase from 2005 to 2009, with prices averaging out around $250,000 after a median sales peak at $325,000. Prices on one- to three-family homes, in the past four quarters, ranged from $550,000 to $750,000. And for both apartments and houses, the number of closed sales increased significantly from the second to third quarter of 2012. Finally, the three most expensive streets of the neighborhood: East 4th Street, with a median sales price of $645,000 over 49 residential sales; East 5th Street, with a median sales price of $645,000 over 51 sales; and East 3rd Street, with a median sales price of $630,000 over 53 sales. Click through to see all the handy charts. And see all our market snapshots here. (more…)
10/22/2012 12:00 PM
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Market Check: Third Quarter Inventory Down, Prices up
Inventory is down in Brooklyn, and prices edged up, according to third-quarter market reports out today from Prudential Douglas Elliman and Corcoran. Listing inventory dropped 16.2% to 5,602 units from 6,688 units at this time last year, said Douglas Elliman. Corcoran said: (more…)
10/18/2012 9:30 AM
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The Outlook for National Retail Chains in Williamsburg
The Real Deal closely examined the factors promoting and retarding the expansion of national chains into Williamsburg in its September print issue, although it didn’t dig up any definite new names. “Pricey condos and rentals are now filling up with wealthy families, who in turn are attracting high-end retailers,” said the article. Increasing density, which is bringing more foot traffic to stores, and skyrocketing residential rents also appeal to national retailers. As has already been reported, Midtown Equities and other investors are developing the $40 million, 150,000-square foot complex at 242 Bedford Avenue between North 3rd and North 4th streets, which will open in 2014 with a Whole Foods, Citibank, New York Sports Club and luxury apartments. That deal, signed in March, has prompted other big retailers to eye Williamsburg, according to brokers. As has already been rumored, J.Crew and, now, “notable restaurants” are reportedly considering 247 Bedford Avenue, across the street. Williamsburg Cinema, the new movie theater going up at Driggs and Grand, will show mainstream films on its seven screens with 1,000 stadium seats, according to The Real Deal. Furniture stores are also looking into the area, claimed one broker, since all the new arrivals need to kit out their pads. But, a serious drawback is the lack of large spaces for big-box stores. Most retail footprints in the area measure 20 by 100 feet. Nonetheless, retail rents are rising on Bedford Avenue, from about $100 a square foot 18 months ago to $150 a square foot. Retail hotness is also drifting southward. “The South side is now starting to see the rapid restaurant and bar growth that first characterized North Williamsburg’s rise,” concluded The Real Deal.
Mainstream Brands Look for Foothold in Brooklyn’s Hippest Neighborhood [TRD]
Photo by nrvlowdown
09/05/2012 10:30 AM
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MNS: Double-Digit Rental Increases Over Past Year
Up, up, up. That’s the best way to describe the direction of rental prices for studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms in Brooklyn over the past year. Real estate firm MNS has crunched the numbers and found that on average rental rates were up over 10 percent in June over a year earlier. Two-bedrooms led the pack with an increase of 12.7 percent followed by studios at 10.4 percent and one-bedrooms at 9.7 percent. Dumbo was the most expensive in all three categories. You can click on the image above to make it larger.
07/19/2012 9:30 AM
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Q2 Market Reports Show Generally Bullish Trends
Prudential Douglas Elliman and The Corcoran Group both released their second quarter Brooklyn market reports today. The highlights: The number of sales is up, inventory is down. As for prices in the second quarter, they were up by pretty much every measure–average sales price, median sales price and price per square foot–versus the same quarter a year ago and the first quarter of 2012, according to Corcoran. Elliman showed similar, albeit less bullish, trends, with the exception of median sales price, which dipped less than 1 percent. The luxury market, which Elliman defines as starting at $999,000, outperformed the overall market by rising more than 5 percent year over year. Mortgage underwriting is still “irrationally tight,” said Elliman, but mortgage rates continue to fall to record lows. Corcoran’s numbers confirm anecdotal reports Bed Stuy is hot: An increase in sales of townhouses there caused the median price of townhouses Brooklyn-wide to drop year over year. Elliman shows a modest increase (1.3 percent) year-over-year in the average sales price of a 1-3 family home. “The standout is the brownstone market, a small niche, with only 3 percent of the Brooklyn market [share],” said Jonathan Miller, president of real estate analytics firm Miller Samuel and author of Elliman’s market report, in a story by The Real Deal. “But it is the highest-priced housing stock.” The 18 percent decline in inventory in the borough year-over-year is “firming up the market by stabilizing prices,” he added. The graph above, which can be enlarged by clicking on it, comes from the Corcoran report and shows historical sales and price per square foot changes since the third quarter of 2008.
The Elliman Report: Brooklyn Sales 2Q 2012
The Corcoran Group Q2 Report
In Q2, Brooklyn Inventory Down, Brownstones Commanding Higher Prices [TRD]
Chart by The Corcoran Group
07/19/2012 9:00 AM
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Market Snapshot: Bed Stuy
The good folks at Property Shark compiled data on how the real estate market has performed in Bed Stuy since the first quarter of 2005. Overall the results show that prices are slowly but surely on the rise following a more sluggish market in 2009 and 2010.
Condos and co-ops: The median sales price rose from just under $300K in 2005 to just under $400K in 2012. A drop in sales price occurred in the second quarter of 2007 (with median prices around $300K) and rose toward the end of 2008 (with median prices around $450K.)
Houses: The median sales price of houses was just under $500K in 2005, and the median price remains in that range in 2012. Prices were highest from the third quarter of 2006 ($650K) to the third quarter of 2007 ($670K), although the number of closings was steadily decreasing. Prices were on a slow decline from the third quarter of 2007 all the way to the fourth quarter of 2010. Since then, prices have been on the rise, leveling out at 119 closed homes at an average price of $496,221 in the first quarter of 2012.
Most Expensive Streets: The three most expensive streets in Bed Stuy from 2005 until the present are Stockton Street, with eight sales averaging $920K, Columbus Place, with nine sales averaging $779K, and Broadway, with five sales averaging $740,500. The most expensive Bed Stuy sale since 2005 was 293 Franklin Avenue, a two family which sold for $1.9 million in March 2007.
Highest/Lowest on the Market: The lowest priced unit on the market is a condo at 156 Macon Street, asking $133,850. The highest priced unit is 184 Lefferts Place, asking $1.9 million.
Click through for lots more charts and data… (more…)
07/12/2012 11:00 AM
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Something In The Water on Dean Street?
There’s lots of real estate action brewing on Dean Street these days. A sent in an email this week titled “Breaking $1 Million Barrier in Crown Heights North?” to draw our attention to two new Elliman listings on his block between Nostrand and New York–a gorgeous Queen Anne at 1259 Dean Street asking $1,300,000 and an attractive eight-family at 1243 Dean Street shooting for $1,200,000. Then we happened to notice a new FSBO asking $1,250,000 at 1171 Dean Street between Bedford and Nostrand, just across the street from 1174 Dean Street, which went into contract earlier this year just weeks after being listed for $1,195,000. Surprised–or is the rest of the world finally waking up to all this area has to offer?
06/15/2012 11:30 AM
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Brooklyn Brownstones Are Booming
In the Real Estate section this weekend, The Times memorialized something we all know has been happening over the past year: Brooklyn Brownstones are booming like never before.
Developers in New York City have had a lot of success luring buyers to high-end apartments with the latest dazzling amenity. Heat reflexology flooring, anyone? But the feature still most likely to draw people is not something new and shiny but old and reliable: good bones. Many buyers re-entering the real estate market after years on the sidelines are discovering what they’re after in brownstone Brooklyn. In neighborhoods including Fort Greene, Park Slope, Boerum Hill and Red Hook, brokers are besieged by buyers.
There’s a lot more to the strong demand than a hankering for crown moldings and parquet floors. “Brownstones signify stability,” said BHS broker Jill Seligson Braver. “Putting roots down in a neighborhood for the long haul.” Also helping is the shift that’s been underway for a decade now of Brooklyn being many people’s first choice rather than a fall-back for priced-out Manhattanites. Appraisal czar Jonathan Miller (who came up with the data for the graphic on the jump) also notes that there’s an increasing demand in general for larger spaces, something which brownstones clearly offer. Tack on the occasional celebrity purchase and the never-ending press coverage of Brooklyn as the land of the cool and you’ve got a perfect storm that’s translating into record-breaking prices all over the borough.
Brooklyn’s Gold Rush [NY Times]
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06/04/2012 9:00 AM
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Gen Y’ers Will Keep Brooklyn Real Estate Going Strong
Here’s some good news for those readers who already own a piece of the Brooklyn pie: There’s likely to be strong demand for your apartment or house for many years to come. When your kids leave for college in 5, 10 or 15 years, the likely buyer of your brownstone will be a member of Generation Y, those now-under-30 young adults currently occupying the lower rungs of the working world. According to a recent post on the Better Cities blog, this generation rejects the suburban lifestyles they were raised in. “Generation Y wants to be more connected and less isolated than previous generations”, writes Nathan Norris. “They manifest this desire in their full-on embrace of social media and their desire to live in places where they can be around others; i.e., the densest, most active, areas of cities.” Gen Y isn’t the only factor driving the secular trend: Others include an aging population, higher energy costs and public school reform. “Just as cities were not completely abandoned in the 20th century, suburbs will not be abandoned in the 21st century,” the article concludes. “But the shift in preferences is clearly underway, and this radical change will manifest itself in the nature of real estate development over the next 20 years.”
Gen Y Causing the Great Migration of the 21st Century [Better Cities]
04/13/2012 9:30 AM
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MNS: New Development Prices Up in 2011
The Local has nicely uploaded the MNS 4th Quarter 2011 New Development Market Report market report to Scribd. Here’s the summary:
In Brooklyn, 2011 has fared better than 2010, with a peak median sales price in the third quarter of $575K, and a strong finish in the fourth quarter with a high median sales price per foot of $622/SF. Year-over-Year Brooklyn New Development Condominium sales price per foot numbers are up 8% ($622/SF this quarter versus $574/SF in 4Q10), and median sales prices are up 15% ($542K this quarter versus $471K in 4Q10).
The report also notes that sales inventory dropped 36% and sales dollar volume was down 35% from the 3rd to 4th quarter. Brooklyn Heights had the highest average price per square foot of $944 in the fourth quarter (driven largely by big sales at One Brooklyn Bridge Park), with The Edge taking that prize among individual developments with a whopping average of $1,142. Prospect Heights saw a big fall in prices, but that was largely due to a temporary pause in marketing at On Prospect Park due to a broker change-over.
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02/09/2012 9:00 AM
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Mortgage Rates Hit Record Lows
From The Wall Street Journal:
Real-estate website Zillow Inc. (Z) said Tuesday its real-time rate on 30-year fixed mortgages fell to a new record low in the last week. Zillow said the 30-year fixed mortgage rate on its Mortgage Marketplace is at 3.66%, down from 3.72% a week earlier. The rate is the lowest since Mortgage Marketplace launched in April 2008, Zillow said. The company said the 30-year fixed mortgage rate peaked at 3.7% on Friday and steadily declined through the weekend, dropping to its current rate Tuesday morning. Erin Lantz, director of Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, said despite strong employment figures on Friday, the rate has remained historically low and has been hovering between 3.65% and 3.7% for the past week. “Although European headlines may drive more volatility in the coming week, we expect rates will stay near this range,” Lantz said.
02/08/2012 10:15 AM
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Is the Housing Bottom Here?
Has the housing market bottomed out? That’s what they’re saying over on the Calculated Risk. Noting that the data shows that new home sales hit a low in mid-2010 and have gone sideways since, the soothsayers at the economics blog predict that housing prices, a metric that hits a lot closer to home for buyers and sellers, will hit a low point next month and rebound from there. The writer cites three reasons for the optimism: (1) the national price-to-rent ratio (historical graph on the jump) is finally back to “normal” levels; (2) there’s been a large decline in listed inventory; (3) housing policy initiatives are likely to lessen the downward pressure of distressed sales. Of course, all real estate is local, so results may vary.
The Housing Bottom is Here [Calculated Risk]
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02/07/2012 10:00 AM
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‘Fragile Stability’ Seen in Fourth Quarter Market
The fourth quarter stats covering house and condo sales in Brooklyn have been released, and they’re showing a “fragile stability” at the close of 2011, according to Jonathan Miller, the president and CEO of appraisal firm Miller Samuel, which prepares the report for Prudential Douglas Elliman. Some of the numbers that jump out:
Prices down across the board: The median sales price was $454,383, which is down 11 percent from Q3 and 4 percent year over year; the average price was $529,640, down 13 percent from the third quarter and 8 percent from the same period in ’10.
Sales volume stronger than last year: There was a 6 percent increase in sales year over year, with 1,558 closings recorded. Still, that represents a 30 percent drop-off from the third quarter.
Brownstone Belt: There were 61 total sales of one- to three-families in Northwest Brooklyn, which is a big drop compared to Q4 2010 (down 25 percent) and Q3 2011 (down 31 percent). Prices were high on the houses that did actually sell, though: The median price was $1,150,000, which is a 16 percent increase year-over-year but a 23 percent decline from the prior quarter.
Co-ops: The total number of sales, 351, represented a 28 percent increase from the same period last year. The median sales price, $265,000, was down 16 percent from $315,000 in Q4 2010.
Condos: The median sales price was $476,580, which is down 8 percent from the same time in 2010. The total number of condo sales, 479, was basically unchanged from fourth quarter 2010.
Here’s more of Miller’s take on the market: “Brooklyn annual sales (all 4 quarters 2011 compared to 2010) are up 13.3% year over year. Big shift in mix at the end of the year as lower priced co-op sales responded to drop to record mortgage rate levels. Considering the weak economic conditions in the region, the market fared well. I call it fragile stability since general economic conditions remain somewhat uncertain.”
4Q11 Brooklyn Market Report [Elliman]
01/19/2012 9:00 AM
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Buying a Better Deal Than Renting in Most Cities
From an interesting article from CNNMoney today…
According to real estate web site Trulia, buying was cheaper than renting in 74% of the country’s 50 largest cities in July. In just 12% of the cities, including New York, Seattle and San Francisco, renting was cheaper. In the remaining 14% of cities, renting was less expensive but close to the cost of buying. In addition to a continuing decline in home prices, rock-bottom interest rates have added a lot of weight to the buy side of the scale. The overnight average rate for a 30-year fixed was just 4.19% on Monday, according to Bankrate.com. A 15-year fixed averaged just 3.43%. Add in the tax perks of home ownership and for those who can afford it (and who can actually qualify for a loan), it certainly is a buyer’s market.
Wish they’d break out Brooklyn from the rest of the city in these studies!
08/16/2011 10:12 AM
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New Townhouse Listings Slow to a Crawl
We know it’s summer and everything but the pipeline of new townhouse listings seems to have slowed to a crawl that feels more extreme than even the season can account for. Check out Corcoran’s Newest Listings Page: Only two of the 50 or so properties are townhouses, and they’re both in Park Slope. Over at Brown Harris Stevens, just three townhouses (only one of which is a classic beauty) have been listed in the last thirty days. And a look at StreetEasy’s list of townhouses from the last 30 days reveals only six houses in Brownstone neighborhoods priced over $1,500,000. Slim pickings! What’s going on? Can any brokers out there comment on how this is impacting the buy-side right now? What are your clients thinking?
07/20/2011 10:00 AM
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New York Still Faring Better Than Most Cities
We all know that real estate prices in New York City held up for longer and didn’t fall quite as far as they did in some other places around the country; and we know that the local market has some unique dynamics (co-op boards, landmarking, etc.) that serve to limit the downside in some of the more desirable neighborhoods in town. Still, it doesn’t hurt to check in with how the national market is doing. According to this graphic from The New York Times (compiled with data from the Case-Shiller Index), the 20-city index is hovering right around where it was back in May of 2003. Closer to home, the New York City (whose index includes the entire Metropolitan area) is one of only four cities that is holding at 2004 levels.
For Home Prices, It’s Back to at Least 2004 [NY Times]
07/05/2011 10:02 AM
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Elliman: Prices Up, Sales Down in 4th Quarter
Rounding out this morning’s three brokerage firm market reports is one from Prudential Douglas Elliman, the results of which are relatively consistent with the data revealed by Corcoran. The good news from Elliman is that median prices were up 6.2% over the prior year quarter (though they slipped 2.2% versus the third quarter); similarly, average sales prices increased 15.8% year-over-year and declined 1.9% from the prior quarter. Sales volume declined rather dramatically: The number of sales fell 29.9% to 1,468 in the prior year quarter and fell 21.9% in the third quarter; Elliman (or rather Miller Samuel, which prepared the report) attributes the big dip to the expiration of the Federal tax credit and a lack of fresh inventory. Particularly notable: Prices in Northwest Brooklyn rose by double-digit percentages year-over year while those in East Brooklyn declined by almost ten percent. Click here to see the entire report.
01/20/2011 9:02 AM
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williamsburg_guys
Jun 18, 2013 | 09:35 AM