Risky Business in Some Brooklyn Nabes?
This week New York magazine looks into its real estate crystal ball and sees all sorts of doom ‘n’ gloom on the horizon for Bed-Stuy, Bushwick and, to a lesser extent, Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Of all the neighborhoods profiled in the mag’s Neighborhood Watch feature, in fact, Bed-Stuy and Bushwick are pegged the riskiest. (They…
This week New York magazine looks into its real estate crystal ball and sees all sorts of doom ‘n’ gloom on the horizon for Bed-Stuy, Bushwick and, to a lesser extent, Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Of all the neighborhoods profiled in the mag’s Neighborhood Watch feature, in fact, Bed-Stuy and Bushwick are pegged the riskiest. (They receive a collective risk rating of 9 out of a possible 10.) According to the article, since the two areas are subprime hotbeds, there’s a good chance inventory is going to be flooding their markets–an assessment that jibes with the downturn in sales Bed-Stuy recently posted. In Williamsburg and Greenpoint, meanwhile, the supply of new construction may be outstripping demand. One local broker says Burg prices have sunk by about 10 percent lately. The article also makes the case that properties in Greenpoint, and areas of Williamsburg not within a stone’s throw of the Bedford L, are going to be less of a hot ticket as “creative types” find exotic mortgages harder to come by. These factors combine for a risk score of 7. (The rating for “established brownstone Brooklyn” is, unsurprisingly, a much rosier 2.5, based on the fact that areas like Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope attract affluent, stable buyers.) While Bed-Stuy and Bushwick are undoubtedly feeling more subprime fallout than other neighborhoods, it seems a little premature to predict that demand and prices in Williamsburg are about to take a serious nosedive. You agree with the pessimistic prognostications?
Neighborhood Watch [New York]
Big Slowdown Seen in Brooklyn’s Poorest Zones [Brownstoner]
Photo of Bed-Stuy houses by GKJarvis.
Of course people were and are speculating, 1:07. Nothing wrong with that. But they’re not always thinking of “flipping” which is selling in 2 years or less.
I was speculating on my last house. But I lived in it 8 years, not 8 months, and sold it for 3 times what I paid for it. Yes that was speculative. But it was not a “flip”.
I don’t buy the argument that most Brooklyn homeowners haven’t speculated and just wanted a place to live. You sign for a mortgage of $500K to $3M without remotely thinking about the near prospect of reselling for a profit? C’mon.
How does renting out units in you building to supplement income make you any different than an investor renting out condos?
The “flipper” way of buying a home became widespread only very recently. Before it died after the bubble ended. Yet magazines keep reporting on real estate like the only home buyers in the world are flippers. Bizarre.
Renovations alone are so expensive in NYC, that unless you are a contractor and can do the renos yourself, it’s not even possible to do a quick “flip” in a normal market, post-bubble. Time to return to normal reporting on normal markets, all you real estate journalists.
What up ‘The What’ @ 12:31! They don’t know about the Rothschild’s. You’re my hero.
I really think part of the problem lies in the fact that a lot of the same people that are now choosing to stay in New York instead of leave for the subrubs are a unique group of people that could do either and seem wishy-washy.
It’s the younger creative types, that for the most part want to make New York their home for the long run.
Then there are the 30 and 40 something couples with and without kids that could stay, or they could go.
This makes the real estate balance tricky because these suburban types that are now putting down roots in an urban area are the ones that seem to think of their homes as money making machines, instead of as homes for their families.
It’s disturbing to me, as someone who has little interest in living anyplace other than New York. I’ve been to many many cities, and I love this place.
I’m rambling, but does anyone see what I’m trying to say…?
The reduction in crime and the increased living standards in New York have lured and entire set of non city people that happen to like the amenities that this city now has to offer. It’s a whole new phenomenon.
Urbanism is the way of the future, but we are just now seeing it start to play out….
Thank you 12:37! Bed-Stuy is not so easily defined as most poeple outside the area would suggest.
NY Mag’s comments make no sense. They say Bed-Stuy is risky, but then comment that the bargains will be even bigger if/when prices drop. If that is true, others will swoop right in and buy the housing stock and prices will rise again, negating the price drop.
In general, this article only holds water if you treat homeownership as a game and not a long-term investment. If you are in it for the “thrill of the flip,” you must think Alan Greenspan still works for the Fed.
NY Mag is usually the first to make fun or write trashy articles about Park Slope, so no, I don’t particularly think it’s skewed as much as it could be.
The fact is that Park Slope IS still doing fine. Maybe it won’t be tomorrow, but today it is. Open houses this weekend were packed, there is very little on the market still and nice homes sell in a month.
I understand not liking some residents of a particular neighborhood, but I don’t understand the venom that some people shed at the mere mention of certain neighborhoods.
Brooklyn is home to so many terrific neighborhoods… it’s silly to pit one against the other… we’re all neighbors, and our differeing neighborhoods compliment
one another.
Right now everyone’s getting nervous about all the racket on the news etc… calm down.
cycles… get used to it… that’s life.
If you love your home, and you haven’t purchased “over your head” that’s what matters.
Every neighborhood gets rocked in the rough times, but the rough times pass.
Calm down kids.
the term artist and hipster are competely the same thing to 99% of the population.