Bed-Stuy: 'Experiencing a Little Bit of a Depression'?
The New York Times took a look at Bedford-Stuyvesant this weekend as an area once considered one of the roughest in the city, but one with a rich cultural history where you can now smell gentrification in the air, mainly via the fragrance of higher-end retail. More interesting than the article’s notes on gentrification is…
The New York Times took a look at Bedford-Stuyvesant this weekend as an area once considered one of the roughest in the city, but one with a rich cultural history where you can now smell gentrification in the air, mainly via the fragrance of higher-end retail. More interesting than the article’s notes on gentrification is how it touches on current home values in Bed-Stuy: “‘We’re actually experiencing a little bit of a depression,’ said Tanya Blackwood, owner of Location Location Location, a real estate agency. ‘We’re back to where people are undervaluing houses—it’s just bananas.’ The neighborhood’s size makes it difficult to narrow down a price range for houses, but livable two-families generally start around $600,000, said Keith Mack of the Corcoran Group. A house in great shape, he said, might fetch $875,000. (Houses in the historic district still command a little more, but there are very few listed.) A perusal of Web sites like PropertyShark.com shows houses trading at or below $600,000. ‘I could’ve given you a general price point a year ago,’ said Lakeisha Edwards, a broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman. ‘But it’s now really property by property; in between those are so many short sales and foreclosures.'” Agree?
History, With Hipper Retailing in Bed-Suy [NY Times]
Photos by nvrlowdown
DIBS, I noticed the “sanitizing” comment and it didn’t sit right with me.
I thought the article was fine, but I had forgotten about the way the Times fluffs things up. Gosh, so they must really hate Bed Stuy if they’re being this realistic.
“We’re back to where people are undervaluing houses…”
No, sweetie. We’re VALUING houses. And to do so, we have to go bungee jumping. Weeeeeee!
Sniff sniff. I smell fear.
***Bid half off peak comps***
hi herki, I should’ve been clearer in my original comment. I meant that pricing declines are steeper, not necessarily quality of life declines. From the various people on the board, we can see that Bed Stuy has a lot of great things to offer and seems like a nice place to live. I have to get to Saraghina before it gets any more online reviews. 🙂
I cant remember them ever being even a little negative on where they are writing about. Can you name an area where they were this negative? Why did they bother
MM – I thought of you while I was reading it yesterday – that they’d’ve been well advised to have you consult on the piece if not write the entire article.
fair enough CG_ups but over the past 2 years, while things have slowed down significantly, Bed-Stuy’s quality of life has far from declined. Things are still opening up, albeit slower perhaps than if we were still swept up in a RE frenzy. As far as I’m concerned the slowdown is a benefit in that the people moving to the ‘hood (and they still are, just not in droves) are doing so because they genuinely like the community and want to be there.
To bedstuy 11216
I definitely came away from that article with an acute sense that the market is real soft in Bed Stuy. Usually these are fluff pieces where the writer sees no flaws, however, the mention of the drop in prices and the quotes were definitely more negative than normally the case and seemed to highlight that Bed Stuy is suffering more tham most.
I totally agree with bedstuy11216. I read this yesterday and thought it was a bit better than the wide eyed fluff that usually accompanies NYT articles about Bed Stuy. The article talked about the positive aspects of Lewis Ave, the affordability (relatively) of houses, and the important and overlooked fact that Bed Stuy is extremely large and can’t be codified or boiled down to one statistic or price range, or one anything else.
I figured Brownstoner would run with this story, I am disappointed jscheff went with this angle on it. This is the third disappointing take on central Brooklyn nabes – Italian girl condo today, Crown Heights Art Scene last week, and this. Ignorance is not bliss.
I think the issue is that neighborhoods that are in the process of gentrifying tend to take a harder hit when housing declines versus the less dramatic slide is neighborhoods that are more established in terms of pricing.