It should come as no surprise that rents and sale prices are still rising in the parts of Brooklyn closest to Manhattan, as four residential market reports out today show. MSN’s report on Brooklyn rental prices said that select hot spots in Brooklyn — Dumbo and Williamsburg — are actually more expensive than some areas of Manhattan — specifically, the Financial District, the Upper East Side east of Third Avenue, and Harlem, as DNAinfo reported today. Rents averaged $2,701 for a studio, $3,133 for a one-bedroom and $4,002 for a 2-bedroom in Williamsburg in 2012, according to MSN. In Dumbo, it was $2,853 for a studio, $3,712 for a one-bedroom and $4,985 for a two-bedroom. Meanwhile, sale prices of condos and townhouses in the half of Brooklyn closest to Manhattan continue to rise, according to Brown Harris Stevens. While the firm did not give overall averages, preferring to focus on specific neighborhoods and types of housing, nonetheless the general trend was increases of about 6 percent to 11 percent per square foot. Some snapshots of the market: Condo prices in the area comprising Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Columbia Street Waterfront, Dumbo and Red Hook averaged $829 per square foot in the second half of 2012, an increase of 10 percent vs. a year earlier. In Boerum Hill, Clinton Hill and Fort Greene, the average condo price per square foot is $619, or 11 percent higher than it was a year earlier. The median price of apartments in Park Slope and Prospect Heights rose to $650,000, an increase of 18 percent year over year (mostly due to high-end sales in new developments). Over in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, the average price per square foot for condos rose 6 percent in one year to $728. Douglas Elliman’s snapshot of the fourth quarter for 2012 showed a similar picture. The median sales price increased 12.8 percent to $512,500, while the average sales price went up 15.9 percent to $613,650. However, the number of sales declined 7.3 percent to 1,445, indicating low inventory. Corcoran broke out condos and co-ops separately from townhouses, finding that the number of sales of the latter increased 17 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 vs. a year earlier. The average sale price increased 18 percent, to more than $600,000. As for single-family townhouses, there were three times the number of sales in the fourth quarter vs. the same quarter in 2011, and the average sale price was more than $1.9 million, said Corcoran. A fifth report, from TerraCRG, also showed commercial property sales were up in both volume and dollar value for the year. “The Brooklyn commercial real estate market boomed in 2012,” said the report summary. “We have verified a total of 1,621 commercial sales with a total consideration of $4.38 billion, double the dollar volume of 2011 and approximately a 40 percent increase in the total number of sales.”
Brooklyn Rents So High They’re Forcing Residents to Manhattan [DNAinfo]
Prices and Sales up in Brooklyn Q4 but May Mask Stall [TRD]


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