Pam Liebman: Brooklyn Doing Better Than the Rest
Consoling words from Corcoran CEO Pam Liebman at the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable on Tuesday: “Brooklyn on a performance basis is holding up better than any of our other markets. Price and volume drops have been less than Manhattan…Brooklyn caters more to value buyers…It’s not a second choice anymore.” Another gem from the same session:…
Consoling words from Corcoran CEO Pam Liebman at the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable on Tuesday: “Brooklyn on a performance basis is holding up better than any of our other markets. Price and volume drops have been less than Manhattan…Brooklyn caters more to value buyers…It’s not a second choice anymore.” Another gem from the same session: “Anything marketed on bells and whistles is not doing well.”
Lechacal, I agree with you on approach, but want to point out that the lunacy that struck Manhattan prices *did* strike prime Brooklyn, which in many instances tripled in 10 years or less. By that metric, I think brownstone Brooklyn might be *more* vulnerable to big price drops, not less (and thus counter to the “prime will hold” argument). That is, there may be other parts of Brooklyn where value seekers were looking, but prime Brooklyn was not such a great value in the last few years. I don’t buy the argument that it changed so much and that’s what what justified huge price increases – I’ve lived here a long time now and it simply did NOT change that much in the last 10 years – better yes, but not 3x the price better. The prices way overshot the mark on the way up, and I would not be surprised for them to overshoot on the way down either, but we are no way near a bottom (prices have barely begun their decline given stubborn persistence of seller denial).
We all agree prices are going down in Brooklyn and I think we all agree they will continue to do so for some period of time. I think the disagreement is only about how much more prices will go down. Some of the more dire predictions seem to be intended to have a psychological effect (as if what you say here has any effect whatsoever on the market) rather than reflecting an objective analysis. I think I offer the latter.
As I have said many times, the market just doesn’t care what any of us on this board have to say, so there really isn’t much sense in doing a hard sell on your point of view. The market is going where it is going and time will be an impartial judge.
Agree with Swade. Brooklyn won’t be (and hasn’t been) immune, and it will be in some kind of lockstep with Manhattan.
However, the degree of decline will depend on property type, nabe, and most of all, how the stock market does for the second half of 2009.
I’m with Smudge and Snarkslope and ROTW — awestruck by the persistence of denial among posters here. It is completely nonsensical to assert that the Brooklyn real estate market is somehow going to have a “soft landing” while Manhattan craters. Just stop for one second and think about that claim. Amazing!
I have family in Pelham Manor. It’s not for me, but it’s very nice as far as suburbs go.
Lechacal – houses tend to be much larger in the northern suburbs. Until recently developers were popping up 5,000-square-foot monsters that have now lost a ton of their value. They are just flat-out stupidly too big for a family of four that rarely entertains, and too expensive to heat, maintain and furnish. Most houses in Larchmont Manor are less than 3,000 square feet. And its only one mile or less to the train station, the grocery store, restaurants and your kid’s friend’s house, not ten miles. You only need one car, and you don’t need an SUV to get around in the winter.
The price of gas is not particularly relevant to someone who commutes to work by metro north.
And heating oil costs the same in larchmont manor as it does in northern westchester.
Etson – drive around Larchmont Manor (the area between the Boston Post Road and Long Island Sound). It cannot get any nicer. Train is 30 minutes to Grand Central.
And people have not forgotten $4.50 gas and $5.00 heating oil. The big house in the Northern Westchester boonies is dead, dead, dead.
Long westchester for the following reasons. This is about Manhattan vs. Westchester. Forget about brooklyn for now.
The rise of Manhattan real estate is closely tied to how comfortable middle class families are with living there. Living in Manhattan, you are pooling your tax dollars and sharing your fate with a huge number of people. And as long as the tide is rising and the streets are clean and safe and there is good subway service and you can send your kids to public school, a middle class life in Manhattan can be more rewarding and exciting than one in the suburbs. But when the tide goes out and that huge collective starts coming apart, suddenly it doesn’t make so much sense to have your fate tied to so many things that are beyond your control. When crime is up and schools are on the decline and services are deteriorating, suddenly it makes sense for middle class people to buy into a smaller collective. Suddenly it sounds so much better to share the tax burden and pay for public school and police services only with other people who have middle class jobs and pay their taxes. Suddenly the boredom of suburban life sounds better than reading about murders on your block.
Thus long westchester and short manhattan.