Choosing the Suburbs Over Brooklyn
Are would-be Brooklynites flocking to the suburbs? The cover story in yesterday’s real estate section of the Times looks at how relatively cheap home prices in the suburbs are luring New Yorkers who find they can get way more bang for their buck in parts of Westchester, Connecticut and Jersey than in the city. While…
Are would-be Brooklynites flocking to the suburbs? The cover story in yesterday’s real estate section of the Times looks at how relatively cheap home prices in the suburbs are luring New Yorkers who find they can get way more bang for their buck in parts of Westchester, Connecticut and Jersey than in the city. While the article mostly focuses on the widening price gap between Manhattan and suburban properties, it notes that some people who would’ve bought in Brooklyn are also finding the suburbs cheaper:
Ludovic and Fabienne Ledein, who live and work as jewelry designers in Dumbo, visited nearly a dozen lofts in Dumbo, Red Hook and Williamsburg looking for something to buy for less than $600,000. They needed enough space to work at home and to put up friends and relatives from Europe. But what they wanted cost more than twice what they could afford…They found their answer in Westchester County, in New Rochelle. For about $600,000, they bought 1,350 square feet in the newly renovated Knickerbocker Lofts, a converted factory downtown that was built 117 years ago.
Any readers contemplating a similar move?
Cashing Out of New York City [NY Times]
Photo by uicukie.
Taxes will always go up in suburbs and thatis Just throwing your money away. Plus i could never imagine my kids growing up out of the City that would be very weird because there whole lives would be spent trying to move back to the city. Wow not for me Suburbs stay away.
i think some people are missing the point.
for some people, it’s not a “choice” between selling their property in Brooklyn and moving to the suburbs. for some, they are getting to the age where they are having children, have a need for more space than their 1 BR rental, and absolutely CANNOT AFFORD to buy something bigger in Brooklyn.
that’s the crux of this article.
everyone is getting up in arms over the “soul-deadening” suburbs, but for many people it is choice, it is simply reality.
they have been priced out of Brooklyn.
believe it or not, there are people who want a house to raise their kids but their price range is in the $300K-450K range, not the $650K-inifinity range.
for them, the choice is a painful but obvious one.
i got lucky and bought my first condo at 25 which i was able to trade into a house after years of double digit real estate gains. but for my friends who were either renting or simply too young to get in while the getting was good, i am now watching them reluctantly look for houses in NJ.
i was very fortunate, but i don’t sit here and judge them for not having that good fortune. if money was not an issue, they would stay in Brooklyn. but that is not reality.
it really is amazing how judgmental some people are on this site. as if everyone who doesn’t live in NYC has no teeth and drives a pickup with a gunrack.
The Article sums it up like this. Can’t Afford NYC you must move.
There are some gorgeous historic properties in Hudson and Claverack NY repped by one particular realtor up there that I’ve had my eye on just for fun. They have sat unsold for months. MONTHS. As for towns closer to NYC, just look how long most houses have been listed. Long long time. Any suggestion that droves of New Yorker are fleeing for the suburbs is a total lie. Love how the NY Times didn’t even bother to show actual numbers to support the claim there is increased interest in the suburbs. If somebody looked into it, it would be the same numbers as the last few years, at the most. If not fewer people leaving the city for the suburbs. In fact now that I think of it, I remember a recent NY Times article that created a lot of buzz that specifically said there were fewer and fewer whites moving to the suburbs but more black people were choosing the suburbs. YET, this article only featured white people. How interesting. Basically proof this article was fake and fed by RE agents.
Thank goodness we don’t and will probably never have kids!
Aside from that though, I would like to move to a sustainable co-housing community in New England.
1:41 It is a fact – not reaching- that Wyandanch has the worst school district in the state and that as a previous poster already stated, NYC has several of the best in the state and 5 in the top 50 in the nation. Your Longiiiislan’ broods can not even compete with the likes of Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, Benjamin Banneker, Brooklyn College Prep, Laguardia, Midwood, etc… and those are just few of the schools doing exceptionally well against the odds. As far as worrying about not having metal detectors in NJ, your child should worry. When was the last time that a student walked into an urban school with an assault rifle and killed his teachers and peers? This seems to happen most frequently in the suburbs where if you are labeled an outcast you do not have any alternatives as far as schooling goes. The city has numerous alternative schools for children who are gay/lesbian and transgender to schools for children who come from homeless families. In the burbs you’d just be assed out. Also drug use is falling among city kids but on the rise in the burbs. Boredom I guess.
That’s right, it’s all about the square footage whether you like it or not. You are looking for a reason to be happy with your million dollar closet 2:50. I have no problem bragging about my recently purchased 4200sq.ft.house sitting on 1.2acres. My family has plenty to do.. that is, on the days that you urban folks are not around causing traffic jams heading to our malls. Besides, we are minutes from the city..which makes it a great place to visit. But we don’t wanna live there.
everyone is moving to out of the country.
I have been teaching in the NYC school system for 7 years. I also grew up in long island! I would never want my kids to go to school in Long Island! There are so many things kids learn by being in a school that is infused with interesting, talented, peers and teachers. Families who buy houses in LI and send their kids to those schools, let’s say in “Port Washington” or “Great Neck” are basically buying into an all white school. Personally I think people are afraid of sending their children to schools with a minority population, in NYC. So they buy a house in a “perfectly” segregated community and live happily ever after. Ha….
I agree with 11:43. The suburbs (long Island) … deadens the soul! Nicely said!
By the way, in the school where I teach I can take my students to Lincoln Center to go see ballet and the NY Historical Society on a field trip. Can your children do that in the burbs?