Brooklyn Prices Closing in on Manhattan's

It’s becoming a familiar headline: Median rents and sale prices in Brooklyn are fast approaching those in Manhattan, even in its most desirable neighborhoods such as the West Village. But it’s not that simple. The Real Deal took a closer look at the situation neighborhood by neighborhood, and found a new behavior: Home hunters now consider similar areas in both boroughs at once, rather than restricting themselves to one borough or the other. So, for example, someone might search in the Lower East Side, East Village and Williamsburg — or the Upper West Side and Park Slope. Rents and sale prices are rising more quickly in Brooklyn than Manhattan — in fact, in some areas of Manhattan, such as Murray Hill, prices have yet to recover from the bust. The median rental price for a one-bedroom apartment in “prime” Brooklyn in March was $2,560, an 11.3 percent gain vs. a year earlier; the equivalent apartment was $3,195 in Manhattan, a gain of only 6.7 percent vs. the year before. As for sales, the median asking price for a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn Heights rose 37.8 percent in five years to $792,500; the median price in the West Village increased only 4.34 percent to $895,000. And while prices are pretty similar for one-bedroom apartments in similar neighborhoods, buyers at the high end still find their millions of dollars buy a whole lot more house in Brooklyn. Buyers in the lowest 20 percent of the market paid about 30 percent more for Manhattan properties than in Brooklyn. In the top 20 percent of the market, buyers paid 58 percent more in Manhattan, according to data from Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers. “The price differential for a beautiful floor-through two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn Heights versus the West Village is not particularly significant,” said Corcoran broker Lindsay Barton Barrett. But the cost difference “between townhouses in Brooklyn Heights and townhouses in the West Village is significant.”
Brooklyn’s Fast-Climbing Home Prices Nearly as Expensive as Manhattan’s [TRD]