This Is Not the First Bear Market in Brooklyn Real Estate
A reader sent along the link to this Times article about another down market in Brooklyn real estate–only, this one took place 131 years ago. Endlessly entertaining. A few excerpts from the piece titled “Lower Rents in Brooklyn: Last Year’s Prices Reduced”: A residence in Central Brooklyn, which comprises the two eligible neighborhoods known as…
A reader sent along the link to this Times article about another down market in Brooklyn real estate–only, this one took place 131 years ago. Endlessly entertaining. A few excerpts from the piece titled “Lower Rents in Brooklyn: Last Year’s Prices Reduced”:
A residence in Central Brooklyn, which comprises the two eligible neighborhoods known as the “Heights” and the “Hill,” and through which runs the principal thoroughfare, Fulton-avenue, is, of course, more desirable than one in the other districts. There is a great demand in this part of Brooklyn for small houses, and as there are not more than enough to supply the demand, there will be slight reductions in there rents this year. In the lower part of Brooklyn, houses which rented last year for sums ranging from $200 to $700 will generally be let for the same figures this year. But on all other houses there will be very considerable reductions, and owners of houses which have been rented for more than $1,000 will have to make reductions amounting to 25 per cent., or even more, if they want tenants.
There’s some other great bits about pricing in Clinton Hill and Brooklyn Heights: $2,000 a year for a house at the corner of Remsen and Joralemon while a house at Dekalb and Adelphi went for $1,000 and those on Prospect Place and Park Place went for between $700 to $1,000. In the last paragraph, they finally get around to the sales market:
Many new houses have been erected in Brooklyn during the last year, but mostly in the newer neighborhoods. These are now in the market for sale, and, as has already been said, many persons are looking about for houses to buy, but as yet very few sales have been made. All the Brooklyn real estate agents do not believe, with the one already mentioned, that bottom prices have been reached. One of them with whom a Times reporter talked emphatically said that he believed affairs would get worse rather than better. Prices now asked for houses and lots, he said were lower than last year’s prices, and he could see no prospect of improvement.
Lower Rents in Brooklyn [NYT Archives]
This is a great time to mention: Big fire sale in the West Village! Brooklyn more appealing!
I went to the hair salon yesterday and the colorist told me she is moving from her rental in Boerum Hill to a rental in the West Village this weekend. And I was like….um, how did you get a rental in the West Village?
She said there are crazy bargains in the West Village right now. She went to a broker and saw a bunch of places. She signed for a very tiny studio renting for $1300, supposedly reduced from $1800. She said some places were offering the first month’s rent free. She said places were going quickly.
I said why? Did everyone living in a studio apartment in the West Village lose their job? She said everyone is moving to Brooklyn.
She said she hopes she doesn’t regret the move. She says shops, restaurants, and nightlife are better in Brooklyn.
FWIW I live in a house built by W.A.A. Brown in 1899. Browne built the first large-scale development of spec rowhouses in Lefferts Manor, on Midwood I in 1898 [4 stories, priced at $11,000] and three stories [$7,250],on Midwood II, in 1899 and 1900. He maintained an office on Flatbush Avenue for years, trying to sell them. I have a 1901 ad that sounds kind of desperate–something like today’s condo builders–“Brooklyn Office open Sundays and Holidays all day. Evenings until 9.”
The houses did eventually sell and other developers successfully built lots more houses here, but they didn’t start until about 1909.
Shillstoner,
“The Hill,” in the late 19th Century was today’s Clinton Hill AND Ft. Greene. The new money lived there; the old money in Brooklyn Heights.
I did not read all the comments, s forgive me if this ahs been stated already…
Don’t you think that “The Hill” refers to Cobble hill, not Clinton?
Does that mean Red Hook in no longer the in part of Brooklyn? Ikea is going to become a soup kitchen for all the unemployed looking for free food. Anyone know what the prices of the lemonstones is doing in Carroll Gardens?
Interesting discussion. DIBS, nice post on 1873. There’s a detailed discussion of the panic and Wall Street’s role and the panic’s aftermath in the book “Our Crowd.”
Regarding RE speculation in Brooklyn during the period, I know from our title history (early South Slope frame) that there appears to have been lots of speculation throughout 1850s-70s. Our property went back and forth among the same two or three owners during that period.
I was born here too, but that begs the question: as if North Americans, Central Americans and South Americans are not true Americans? Bxgrl, you’ll still find
(or I still find) baker’s dozens at the old mom-and-pops, and I think many bagel shops (though I rarely find myself in one). More likely that the mom-and-pops will throw one in for regulars, but not advertise the baker’s dozen.
I think you could have gotten a bakers dozen of those controversial cookies we were discussing back around the time of the Inauguration.
Ok- I also want to add the being born in the Bronx still means I was born in this country too.
Vinca- do they still do bakers dozens anymore?