New Yorkers move a lot. It’s part of our DNA. After all, nearly 70 percent of New York City residents are renters, meaning the majority of those living in the city are thinking about moving about once a year. And as it turns out, where we move can say a lot about what’s happening in the broader real estate market. We teamed up with the pros at Oz Moving – one of NYC’s largest moving companies – to see if their wealth of historical data could shed some light on how, where and why New Yorkers are moving. Here’s what we learned.
New Yorkers Stuck to Their Borough
One major finding is that New Yorkers stick to their borough and their budget when finding a new place to live[i]. While only 14 percent of Oz customers moved to a new borough in 2015, a whopping 86 percent moved within their current borough.
When people stayed in Manhattan, they favored the Downtown submarket most, moving to popular neighborhoods like Chelsea, the East Village, FiDi, Flatiron, Tribeca and the West Village. Midtown was also a popular destination for people staying in Manhattan, with Kips Bay and Murray Hill topping the list of common neighborhood destinations. Established neighborhoods in the Upper West Side were also common, like Lincoln Square and Morningside Heights.
Outside Manhattan, Brooklyn Was the Place to Be
When people did leave Manhattan, they didn’t stray too far from Downtown. The most popular submarkets to move to off the island were in Brooklyn. The family-friendly neighborhoods of Northwest Brooklyn, such as Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Dumbo and Fort Greene were by far the most popular. These were followed by North Brooklyn’s bustling Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods, and Park Slope was also a popular destination for Oz customers.
New Yorkers Moved to Less Expensive Neighborhoods
More than two-thirds of Oz movers (68 percent) relocated to a neighborhood with a less expensive median asking rent than their original neighborhood. This speaks to the ongoing hunt for affordable units as rents in Manhattan and Brooklyn continue to outpace income growth each year. While some moves are a matter of choice, others may be the result of renters being priced out of their current neighborhood.
If you want more tips on how to tackle a move, plus a handy affordability calculator, check out our Moving to NYC guide.
[i] StreetEasy worked with Oz Moving to determine where New York City residents moved to and from in 2015 based on all the moves in Oz’s database, at a borough, submarket and neighborhood level. This data was matched with StreetEasy neighborhood boundaries and median asking rents are based on StreetEasy 2015 listing data.
