REBNY Report: Brooklyn Real Estate Still Rockin'
A mid-year report from the Real Estate Board of New York shows that Brooklyn real estate prices remain very strong, despite a broad market slowdown around the country. On top of that, some Brooklyn nabes are doing better than Manhattan. The average sales price for one- and two-family Brooklyn houses for the first half of…
A mid-year report from the Real Estate Board of New York shows that Brooklyn real estate prices remain very strong, despite a broad market slowdown around the country. On top of that, some Brooklyn nabes are doing better than Manhattan. The average sales price for one- and two-family Brooklyn houses for the first half of ’06 was $586,000 – a 15.6 percent jump from the $507,000 seen in the same period last year – while prices for Brooklyn co-ops and condos also continued to increase. The average apartment sold for $491,000 in the first six months of this year – up 4 percent from $472,000 for the same period last year. “Brooklyn’s always had its unique characteristics and has been a first choice of many buyers, but now more and more people are moving to Brooklyn from Manhattan because prices are cheaper and it’s a great option,” said Michael Slattery, REBNY’s senior vice president.
Brooklyn’s Real Estate Bucks Market [NY Post]
Photo by davidfg
For the record to the various Anons, I don’t like it when people “rip apart” houses on this site either. I think it is irresposible. And my comment about someone hoving a chip on their shoulder is not “code”. It is my opinion. The odd logic that evil rich yuppies who are priced out of Brookly Heights are using brownstoner forums as a way to bring down prices in marginal nabes so they can swoop in an steal poor peoples houses is silly.
That said, I am not a fan of super critical bashing of homes and nabes and classes of people on this site. It gets tiresome. I liked the typekey thing, it kept the discourse civil and more on point.
Interesting that REBNY hasn’t released its data on its site, rebny.com
The last report it did in june was a spin too, with prices mentioned but not a word about inventory (which it had mentioned without fail in prior reports)
Anecdotally, I’ve noticed nothing but flat to declining prices for houses, coops and condos in Brooklyn -and an utter end to bidding wars. It could be that the median price is going up because the only folks that can afford to buy are very rich, thus skewing the numbers higher.
I really learn from the architecture, planning and development debate on Brownstoner. But the debate on class structures and market prices leaves me cold. The yuppies have always been damn good neighbors.
Prices go up, prices go down, wealthier people have the market advantage in both situations because they have greater access to captital. But a monkey with access to capital can make money in a rising real estate market. A lot of people pat themselves on the back for being so shrewd because their property has appreciated.
I lived in Cobble Hill until about 1978. I rented. Everyone I knew rented, my family had a rent controlled thing. I didn’t. The rents went up too fast for my blood when the yuppies started moving in (that was 28 years ago). I moved out, raised my kids, eventually bought a piece of property that grew in value, sold it and moved back to Carrol Gardens. I couldn’t afford the rent in 1978 but I can afford to buy now. My income is much higher of course, so is my wife’s, but most of my down payment came from the wild appreciation in a very non-yuppie, ethnic and civil service neighborhood in the outer reachs of Brooklyn.
There is a French concept known as the “bon prix” or good price. A bon prix is any price that a buyer and seller agree on, thats the price. Only by actually concluding a sale is the bon prix established. Dropping an asking price is nothing, asking for a lot is nothing.
I have an uncle on one of the really great blocks in Cobble Hill who has owned his building “since the year of the flood”. Last year he put it on the market for 1.6 complete with the collectors item Italian-American linoleum and panelling he put on the building in the 1950s. He was offered 2.2 but his wife couldn’t leave the house where her mother lived and died so he backed out. He is getting a little older now and has a cheap joint in FLA. He is talking about putting it back on the market, I don’t think he will see anything close to that 2.2 again. Does that mean the yuppies took advantage of him? I don’t think so. The 1.6 would have been about 1.5 profit.
People should not either break their arms patting themselves on the back or feel guilty for out-foxing the old neighbors. Prices are going up until they go down.
Value is a different thing than price. The neighborhood is still valuable, close to Manhattan, good food, high stoops, mass transit connection (there used to be lots of churches and not so many bars). None of those values are going to change whether the bon prix rises or falls.
I’m personally rooting for prices to fall. Watch when they do, all the geniuses won’t know what to do. Even those with liquid assets will be frozen in place in expectation of a lower price tomorrow. It is easy to know what to do when you expect prices to go higher eternally.
For me the real issue is rent. My tenant pays $1600 but I could get more right now. As long as the rent price keeps going up I’m cool because, like the other guy said I’m not going anywhere. If I was all leveraged or wanted to leverage more it would be different.
Hope I contributed to the debate and didn’t go on too long for you guys.
You know I was going back and forth with lp earlier, and we had our disagreements. But I gotta side with lp on this one some of you folks are crazy. Wool over people’s eyes?!? Huh? Gentrifiers getting cannibalized, wtf? The market has ran up too fast too soon so it’s going to correct itself. As far people getting robbed blind I don’t think so. Plus BK 2006 is waayyyyy different than BK 1986 or 1996. I still will not walk a few blocks late at night, but it is a much better place to live.
seriously though – I thought that part ( garfield north of 7 th ave) was historically designated. To each their own I get it, but if you ever have walked by the pepto house they sloppily and apparently again with no consideration to their neighbors splattered a fair bit of paint on the immediate house’s stoop. Fine if you want to be an A hole and paint your house like a mental patient with fingerpaints but at least keep it on your own property.
There outa be a law against gentrifying, boring, materialistic exotic-loan-taking out, wool-pulling-over-eyes yuppies. They spend all their money on exotic cheeses and expensive vacations so they dont have any money left to buy real estate, so they muscle in on cool neighborhoods in Brooklyn and cheat the poor people out of their brownstones. Or maybe they’re ripping down the community center to build their ugly concrete block shitbox condos with stainless steel appliances. Either way, damn them.
CNN ranks New York City 24 out of 25 counties with the best incomes. Guess what San Jose and San francisco are #1 and #2 and guess where those house prices are going. Down, Down, Down. So much for we are wealthy and have the Stock market Idea. Brooklyn and New York city will get really hurt by this market.
The market post-2003 has always been overpriced but it didn’t become newsworthy until the cheapskate yuppies began to complain.
Where do I get my fodder…they rip apart perfectly good homes on a daily basis on this site just because they’re bored at work. How does the saying go …’Idle Hands Are The Devil’s Tools’.
On any given day, the comments posted on this blog are so overwhelmingly negative that I’d hate to think that any of these critics might one day become a neighbor of mine. Better for them to stay on the big island.
They seem to believe that they’re the arbiter of good taste when they probably don’t even have a pot to piss in.
They’re creating a frankenstein that might come back and bite them in the a_s years from now when they try to sell their townhouse or condo. Hope their shitbox becomes the house of the day and gets the same treatment that they doled out years earlier.
Here’s a novel idea…why not let the market work itself out on its own. If the house is junk, it won’t sell.
I was just waiting…for that chip on the shoulder comment.
How original!
Don’t you think the new century requires new code words or terminologies.
How did you ever get so far ahead in life…you obviously don’t seem to think for yourself.