Where Are the Cheap Rents Now?

Regular readers of this blog will not be especially surprised to read in The New York Times that gentrification is pushing further into Brooklyn.

The subway commute to Manhattan is longer, and organic markets and stylish boutiques are fewer. But those are the trade-offs as the search for more affordable real estate in Brooklyn pushes deeper into neighborhoods that for some New Yorkers still evoke images of burned-out buildings, riots and poverty. Many Brooklynites, priced out of Williamsburg, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens and Park Slope, are heading farther in. They are turning to neighborhoods like Sunset Park, Crown Heights, Bushwick and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, bringing a willingness and an ability to pay more for housing than the waves of residents who came before them. Brokers and developers say the cross-Brooklyn migration has picked up in recent years, as recent college graduates, artists and families, mostly white, seek new affordable neighborhoods.

It’s all pretty accurate, although we’re surprised Bed Stuy wasn’t included. (Maybe because the Times already wrote about that in 2011.) Some may quibble (indeed, Gothamist has) that this has been going on a long time. It certainly has, and we think it’s jumped to another level in the last six months or so. Witness the mainstreaming of Williamsburg (Madonna dined at Antica Pesa!), the rise of once-affordable rent prices in Crown Heights and Bushwick, and bidding wars over Bed Stuy townhouses. The article cites rising prices in brownstone Brooklyn, and notes that Williamsburg is now more expensive than Gramercy Park. Unfortunately, readers may not find many bargains left in the emerging neighborhoods cited by the Times, where gentrification is already well under way. Why, just last week, we were asking where people will move to next.
Brooklyn’s New Gentrification Frontiers [NY Times]
Photo of Roberta’s in Bushwick by A. Williams via Google Earth