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The Times isn’t the only publication that can spot a trend. We’ve noticed that The Gray Lady’s Real Estate section has lately featured an unofficial series on leaving Brooklyn (see this and this and this).

The ex-Brooklyn theme evolved in this weekend’s edition with a story about young families returning to Brooklyn after moving away.

We know that a few Brownstoner readers have become Brooklyn expats in the past couple of years. What would you miss most if you left Brooklyn? And would you ever boomerang back?

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Written by former Playgirl editor and Brooklyn parent Ronnie Koenig, the article profiles four families who once lived in Park Slope. Two of the families regularly trek from their New Jersey homes for a visit, and the other two moved back to live in Windsor Terrace.

Their reasons for leaving Brooklyn weren’t terribly surprising — space and schools. Neither were the things they missed — everything from Sahadi’s to the noise of the city, to the borough’s diversity.

What did surprise us? These figures:

  • From 2006 to 2013, 618,000 people moved out of Brooklyn while only 437,000 people moved in.
  • 18.1 percent of those who left Brooklyn moved elsewhere within the New York metro area, while 17.6 percent moved somewhere within the tristate area.
  • Median home prices for one- to three-family homes are comparable for Brooklyn ($747,000), Summit, N.J. ($797,500) and Ridgewood, N.J. ($700,000).

(The first two points are from an analysis of census data by sociologist Susan Weber-Storer; the home price information is from appraisal firm Miller Samuel and real estate trend-spotter Otteau Group.)

 

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The Times‘ unofficial Leaving Brooklyn series:

Brooklyn Expats Come Home [NYT]
Life After Brooklyn [NYT]
Priced out of Brooklyn? Try Manhattan [NYT]
Five Manhattan Alternatives to Pricey Brooklyn Neighborhoods [NYT]

Related Stories
Do Families Need to “Escape” From Brooklyn?
Hipsturbia: Brooklyn Breeders Move North
Can You Live Car-Free in the Hudson Valley and Catskills?


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. I left Brooklyn and live in Colombia where I can live off of the rental income alone. I miss good beer ( other half), biking, top notch gastropubs, and all of the concerts… However do not miss commuting and working. I would like to return someday… More people live in my house now then when I lived there, mostly new to Brooklyn.

  2. I can almost guarantee that most of those “boomerangers” who are running back in on weekends with their toddlers will stop doing that once they start living the true suburban lifestyle – shuttling their kids to soccer, ballet, little league, play dates, etc…. all weekend long.

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