IMMMATURE discussion about neighborhoods

Flushing

Red hook, bushwick, east williamsburg

And I still stand by my call that mid-town east, likely from 20th all the way to the 60s, will surprise to the upside in the next cycle, but for families.

eastern bergen county nj, u cant move the hudson oh and gaysians equals double threat.. clean sidewalks and java literate

Wayne, NJ

Bayone

https://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/23425-the-market-now?comment_id=358581

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/24440

mitown east is a good bet

>mitown east is a good bet

maybe you can get a street where the double decker tourist buses runs through

Wait I stand corrected ME. And, only because there is a new Whole Foods opening today.

South Norwalk (SoNo); Alexender Av & Bruckner (Bronx); Kensington;

There is no up and coming new neighborhood. A flat to declining market means sticking with established areas. But if you are no longer working and need to commute to work or plan to sell, then it's all about Rockland county along the Hudson.

But watch out for the frummies.

About every 6 weeks NYMag writes and rehashes this topic. Google it. Has several interesting suggestions.

eliz, why? who needs NYMag's opinion, when they are so obviously in bed with the real estate industry?

virtually every topic discussed here is discussed elsewhere, or has been discussed here before. why not just shut down the talk function?

RS, you are so full of shit. Your knowledge of real estate is pitiful. During flat to declining markets people decide to search elsewhere to see what they can find when the landlord doesn't play ball fairly. And if you don't think the rental market correlates at all to the sales market, you've been taking some seriously mind-altering drugs.

Actually, I've read that the Bronx is really coming on. But that is so outside my lifetime reality that I'll probably personally miss that transformation.

>Actually, I've read that the Bronx is really coming on.

Link?

up and cummers?

damn, HB, I'll try. but not tonight. I'm tired.

grand concourse, no less. i really hope it wasn't NY Mag.

the NYT article within the past month or so? Not the one about the Bronx River.

yorkville rallies around the waste transfer station and it becomes a modern symbol for green living.

Go Marco
Go Marco

please just stay in the suburbs.

about ready...because...if the OP reads, s/he can decide whats the right decision for themselves. We all know whats going to happen here--i'll say 157th st because I live there. Someone else will say LIC cause they live there and so on...

http://nymag.com/realestate/neighborhoods/2010/65362/

The West 150s
Chosen by: Julia Vitullo-Martin, director of the Center for Urban Innovation at the Regional Plan Association.
Vitullo-Martin suggests investing in neighborhoods “with original housing stock built for the wealthy,” like Washington Heights—where the prices of spacious prewars have dipped in the past year. Unlike many up-and-coming outer-borough areas, this part of town has superb subway access, and retail shopping, though not fancy, is “diverse and active.”

West Harlem
Chosen by: Pam Liebman, president and CEO, the Corcoran Group.
It’s “a true New York neighborhood,” says Liebman, adding that it’s near three parks and has great transit. The early-2000s brownstone boom deposited lots of shops and restaurants on the main avenues, and the varied housing stock—condos, rentals, houses—brings in all sorts of residents. “People are calling specifically to live there,” she says.

Morningside Heights
Chosen by: Sofia Song, director of research, StreetEasy.com.
This area has always been underappreciated, despite its fluid relationship with the Upper West Side. Median prices in the first three months of 2010 are off 24.3 percent from two years ago, even as prices just to the south have held steady. That’s a disparity that won’t last, Song suggests, given the neighborhoods’ similar physical makeup.

Southern Yorkville
Chosen by:
Melissa Cohn, president of Manhattan Mortgage.
Though the Upper East Side has prospered, its eastern fringe “hasn’t been popular in years,” Cohn admits. But the Second Avenue subway is tunneling through, and condo projects are going up. If you can face a half-decade of noise and dust, it may pay off. And even now, it has “services that you need, supermarkets, parks. And it’s still convenient to schools.”

Flushing
Chosen by: Neal Sroka, president, Douglas Elliman Worldwide Consulting.
Sroka says that buyers (including investors from China and Korea) who ignored the outer boroughs in the past are being drawn in by Flushing’s neighborhoody coziness, and hotels and mixed-use developments are coming soon. “People are looking there not only as a low-cost alternative but as a place [where] they feel comfortable,” he explains.

Far West Midtown
Chosen by: Jed Walentas, vice-president, Two Trees Management.
“If actions speak louder than words, we’ve got lots of our money parked on West 53rd Street,” says Walentas, whose partner and father, David, all but created Dumbo. (Two Trees is developing the block from West 53rd to 54th, between Tenth and Eleventh.) The rehabbed waterfront “has really been a catalyst,” he adds. “It’s going to become a desirable place to live, to work, to conduct business.”

The Garment District
Chosen by: Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of retail leasing and sales, Prudential Douglas Elliman.
Oddly, fashion retailers used to avoid this area because it lacked foot traffic. Now, says Consolo, they’re signing leases for storefronts there, especially west of Penn Station. That’s often a clue to where real-estate buyers will follow, and a smattering of new condos and lofts are ready to house them.

The Financial District
Chosen by: Noah Rosenblatt, founder, UrbanDigs.com.
Despite (or because of) developers’ hard sell, Rosenblatt used to warn people off the financial district. No more: Prices have corrected from the mad levels of 2007, he says, and the post-9/11 rebuild is actually under way. Noting billions of dollars in infrastructure and a lot of unsold inventory, he feels “more bullish.”

Bushwick
Chosen by: Jim Wacht, president of Sierra Realty Corporation.
Bushwick and Red Hook were widely discussed as up-and-comers when the economy crashed, and Wacht says that Bushwick is the better bet because of its superior transit access. “There’s a critical mass of kids,” he says, adding that “it has that gritty feel that Dumbo and Soho once had.” And we all know what happened to those areas.

Prospect Heights
Chosen by: Jonathan Butler, founder of Brownstoner.com.
If Butler were in the market, he says he’d be looking here. “It’s got some Park Slope in it but a little Williamsburg, too”—that is, brownstone warmth plus some bite. “You can’t read a magazine or a blog without seeing another bar or restaurant opening on Vanderbilt and Washington Avenues,” says Butler. His tip: stick to streets not directly affected by Atlantic Yards.

southern yorkville...woot woot

Actually, eliz, no. I chose three neighborhoods I have never lived in. The opinions expressed in new York magazine may or may not be more accurate/insightful. For all our dysfunctionality, this board has a lot of people posting who, collectively, know a shitload about NYC real estate

aboutready....i almost think you're ready to go into the Mature Dicussion abour Real Estate thread...

As far as the article I posted - the neighborhoods were picked by people like Noah and other agents who post here. So, you know, seemed appropriate.

I still have a gut feel about the Bronx. Maybe not in 2014 but sometime soon. Those buildings on the Grand Concourse are just begging for revitalization as luxury housing at lower cost than one has to pay in "luxury neighborhoods" and areas such as Kingsbridge have a solid working class base to evolve from. And if Bushwick, which was a code word for urban anarchy in the 1970s and 80s can gentrify, why can't some of the South Bronx become hip?

Funny. It's not that I think there's no value to such an article. But I think many people in the business have their own biases. I'm fairly skeptical of all sources, but I like the color that is provided here. It takes very little time to discern that, for example, matt's opinions are as dated as his grandmother's Formica.

I have high hopes for the Bronx, but its whole history (almost all areas, anyway) is one of fits and starts of construction at the tail end of big building booms (as evidenced by the charming hodge-podge of building types in nearly every neighborhood). I'm partial to the waterfront areas out east near the bridges. And University Heights (NYU's main campus) and other places around there.

I wonder if many of NY Magazine's guest guessers know enough about the neighborhoods they're reviewing. For example, in the case of delightful Sofia Song's advocacy for Hamilton Heights, that neighborhood has an enclave of lovely little townhouses, but sooner or later you have to go to disgusting Broadway, and flanking that Avenue is a huge number of stealth housing projects -- tenements that will be trapped for decades in low-income housing programs of various kinds. The street-life won't drop off very fast, and thus the shopping scene won't change all that much either.

Alan...Chipped Cup, Harlem Public...all along Boradway. The ripped down McDonalds on Broadway and 158th replaced for the more subtle McCafe. The new TD Bank, the new Planet Fitness. In the last 18 months I have seen a lot of activity on the 145-160th stretch of Broadway. Most likely driven by the new scool opening on 157/Amsterdam and the Columbia expansion. As I always suggest - take a stroll up. The change has been amazing, particularly in the street life. Mostly because the teens no longer can live with/mooch off of grandma (who sold to move down south or died) so the freeloading has moved elsewhere.

I drive through there from time to time. Two yuppie things open, three yuppie things close. Above 155th, it's not Hamilton Heights or Harlem. There's a huge hospital there to float a certain number of restaurants, especially at lunchtime, which Hamilton Heights doesn't have.

Columbia's expansion won't do much for the streets immediately adjacent to it, because Broadway sits under an elevated train there. Most likely any retail rejuvenation caused by the expansion will be on Broadway south of 125th St. The Columbia community will continue to turn its back on the area north.

And, as I said, Hamilton Heights / West Harlem are riddled with stealth housing projects. So little opportunity for students to move in there, and no opportunity for wholesale change.

What makes you think grandma owned any housing? What makes you think the problem was freeloading off of grandma at all? Why do you think a new school would lead to rejuvenation? People generally strive to live away from the noise that schools generate. What could be less subtle than a McCafe?

I do like Victoria/Guadalupana for takeout (usually torta milanesa de pollo con chipotle -- REAL chipotle), but I keep an eye on my car while I'm waiting. Fortunately, they have a pizza-window so that's easy.

Your eagerness to displace the population (move down south or die) is disturbing.

It's not my eagerness, it's a reality. I know this why? Beccause in my building EVERY (yes, EVERY) sale has been because 1) the share holder (usually grandma) died and the family chose to sell and split profits OR grandma took the place she purchased for $7500 (yes, $7500) in the 80's...took her 500k and is now chilling out down south. That thing callled local knowledge comes in handy. And all the grandchildren who lived in the apartments filter away. It's not what I want, it's what is going on. Trust me, if I got what I wanted the west 150s would have killer wine bars, maybe a card store, a whole foods, etc...

I'm not idealizing the neighborhood, I am merely refuting your uninformed assumptions. You have an odd agenda against the nieghborhood and I am not sure why. Hey, I don't like yorkville. Do you see me on here making shit uup about it? No. Why? Because 1) I am not a local and 2) trashing it doesn't really make even a minor difference to my RE bottom line.

As far as your stealth housing projects depressing RE values...um, ever been the west chelsea or the LES? Would you say the LES has been depressed by the projects?

I'll attach a map so you can bone up on what you're pretending to know a lot about:
http://gis.nyc.gov/nycha/im/wmp.do;jsessionid=1CECDB6819E3321DFD935B7A29C0C612?

True NYCHA housing projects are less of a problem, because they have their own police force, and the surrounding regular precincts keep a close watch on their residents in the surrounding areas. Not so stealth projects.

Your building is a relative anomaly. I gather it's a larger building. It had more educated tenants all along. The majority of smaller buildings that were put under HDFC slavishly follow the dictates of the evil UHAB, and greatly limit gentrification (or even non-criminal financial operations). But what predominates in Hamilton Heights is the newer wave of HDFCs, which essentially lock the building and its residents in permanent poverty. Gentrification is an impossibility in those buildings. When the 35-year lockup is coming to an end, UHAB will trick them into taking out huge mortgages for capital projects, with attended tax breaks -- and those tax breaks will lock the buildings up for another 35 years.

You live in an island -- get used to it.

No man is an island.

Oh Alan, bless your heart. You do fight the good fight even though you make crap up. Suddenly housing projects aren't a problem. And my building is suddenly unique. And now these "new" HDFCs are going to crush gentrification. I see. You do know that the city is dying to not have HDFCs, right? They are a tax drain. In fact, in 2015 a lot of the HDFCs will cease to have income restrictions because the city wants to get some money back out of these buildings they have given massive breaks to. And UHAB is not "evil"...it's realtively harmless. And, really, do you think Columbia U would be expaning so aggressively into the area if it was as blighted as you claim?

About the only true thing you've said is pointing out manhattan is an island. Hence why gentrification is going on and inevitable.

Bosh! Hart is an island -- populated entirely by dead poor people.

A very broad tax base would be a nice thing, and you're not the first to say so. However, I'm not aware of any City initiative to take HDFCs out of program. What I see is Boston Bloomberg's attempt to sweep huge parts of the City under "affordable housing" -- but without building any (or very few, anyway). So good luck with that one.

Columbia successfully argued in court that the site on which they're building is blighted!!! But they didn't make any such arguments about the surrounding area, and neither am I. Poor people who hang out on the street 24/7 and litter with abandon are not blight. Crumbling, disused buildings are blight. There are none of those. Not even the large agglomeration of NYCHA projects on the other side of Broadway from the new campus.

Except in areas with ginormous concentrations of NYCHA housing projects, which West Harlem & western Washington Heights don't contain, projects are relatively problem-free these days regarding resident and visitor crime. They still suffer greatly from NYCHA administrator crime of a thousand stripes.

The problems -- gangs, drug dealing, violence -- now reside in the harder-to-police non-NYCHA buildings. NYCHA police have the right to ask people in the hallways, stairs, elevators and grounds to show proof of residence.

Well played, Alan!

Please please please don't make me haul out the already-cited-1000 times article that shows Washington Heights to have lower crime stats than some of the "best" areas of nyc.

Oh yeah...Bloomberg is a real Socialist and is all for helping the lower-middle class. I won't waste my time with that insanity.

And, did you happen to notice what NYU did to the surrounding area? Schools--->amenities-->young people-->families, etc... Look at the property values in Monringside Heights...Columbia played a huge part in this. Just as they're playing a huge part in breathing life into some formerly blighted areas. As far as crumbling buildings, I see some in East Harlem but not so many anymore. Again, the city is nailing the owners of these buildings with ghastly fines until they sell, tear them down, or restore them to code. And if there are no known owners the city takes ownership. That's why there is now a school at the top of my block and not the abandoned parking lot.

"Please please please don't make me haul out the already-cited-1000 times article that shows Washington Heights to have lower crime stats than some of the "best" areas of nyc."

I will!

nyc crime stats are hardly objective.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/nyregion/new-york-police-department-manipulates-crime-reports-study-finds.html

....except maybe murder

Are you serious? Columbia moved to Morningside Heights in the late 1890s. It went into deep decline -- VERY deep decline from the 1960s to the late 1980s. Not to mention the part of Harlem east of Morningside Heights, or the Amsterdam sidestreets south of 110th. Universities don't really have the impact you might think on the surrounding areas. Look at West Philly around Penn, no success in improving that area (beyond a couple of blocks) despite massive attempts.

NYU had no positive impact on the Village -- most would argue that it has caused deterioration of the quality of life there -- and it only began creeping into the East Village after it had been quite thoroughly gentrified.

As for crime statistics, those don't actually reflect crimes. They reflect REPORTED crimes. All those corner boys throughout your neighborhood, up and down Broadway? They're not just very social types who enjoy sipping lemonade with their youthful neighbors.

The key to understanding Boston Bloomberg is to know that he has no soul, and a set of firmly entrenched personality disorders. Key among those is a craven need to be accepted by the older-money wealthy establishment of New York. So when they come knocking on his door demanding that he take part in their charity missions, he yields. And when they demand quality of life in their areas, he yields immediately.

You'll notice lots of noisy ice cream trucks in your neighborhood, with no enforcement of the (deliberately) unenforceable laws regarding their noisy operation. Have you ever seen an ice cream truck exercising its lawful 3 minutes of noise at a time while moving through the Silk Stocking District? No, they're silent. And that's just for the doormen! Residents are all summering in Long Island City.

At least, they're supposed to reflect reported crimes, before the manipulation.

Why is columbiacounty so focused on manipulated statistics?

Oh jesus Alan, ice cream trucks now?? You're reduced to that? Actually. That rule is strickly enforced. When you drive through find one with the music playing and I promise within moments an old woman with a cane will be knocking on the hood of his truck bitching.

As far as the 80 - virtually every area of NYC went into deep decline. Crack really screwed NYC, along with a few massive banking issues. Anyone else grow up here? I recall never going onto 14th St. and most "prime" areas were awful So Alan, again ridiculous example. You seem smart so I expect you to do better. All you seem to do is move your arguement when presented with the other side of the debate.

Seriously, take off your foil hat. You should just say it: upper manhattan has too many brown people for me so therefore it must be unsafe/gross/neglected.

And for you Jason: http://www.dnainfo.com/crime-safety-report

Much as I have enjoyed this, the children do need to wind down for bed.

so you remain convinced that police stats are meaningful despite the obvious problems?

Brighton Beach and Coney Island. Eleventh Avenue in the 30s. As hip people have to search further and further for decay and chaos, they discover Freemont, Long Island.

You mean Freeport?

Betsy, I too grew up here. With the Jets and the Sharks.

By the 1980s most of Manhattan -- very definitely including virtually all of 14th Street -- was basically fine, a bit seedy and rife with things like prostitution. Most "prime" areas were not awful. Morningside Heights (RSD excepted) was bad, and the area to the south of it was worse. Crack was bad, but didn't begin the decline of the neighborhoods it affected. You're correct in that it had a particularly harsh effect on Washington Heights, though.

That happened beginning in the 1960s, or 1950s or earlier in some cases. You can search the NYT for articles about riots in the West 80s in the very early 1960s, and about Lincoln Center and all its slum clearance being used as a way to stop the blight. Why, I first learned to count on hot summer nights when my family took walks to get ice cream cones ... we counted the prostitutes we saw on Broadway on each particular night. You'll also find NYT articles about Carnegie Hill going to seed, such that in the early 1960s a concerted effort was made to stabilize it. On and on.

The ice cream truck example was just a window into the psychopathology of Boston Bloomberg. But if ice cream trucks near you don't abuse the unenforceable laws, it means you must live in that tiny few-blocks enclave (Audubon Park?) that never went into much of a decline. I'm glad your children can sleep at bedtime. Rest assured that outside of that enclave, the trucks are nightmarishly loud.

I love how columbiacounty, after his disgraced career and destroyed personal life, is focused on manipulated statistics that he's not benefiting from.

That's nice.

More fiction.

Perfect

Alan! Yes, that's it. I wasn't sure if Tremont was the name of that town in Nassau or the main street of the great new yuppie neighborhoods of the next century, in the center of the Bronx. I mixed 'em up. I'm disappointed that no one has suggested Mott Haven as the next hot area. I remember Ms. Corcoran pretending in some article that she was "always looking for buildings to buy in the area." OMG

100-110th street east of madison.

Freeport has Venetian charm, it's true.

Let's make this more interesting.,

Which neighborhood will see the biggest decline as NYC slumps back into recession

what does that mean that NYC would be in a recession?

columbia country--all i can rely on, in addition to the stats, is that for 6 years I've ave walked the stressts with two toddlers, and a dog, and now have an infant and have never felt even remotely odd. The most self conscious I feel is when someone has to hep me up the subway stairs with my stroller. So, yes, I feel the police stats are convincing.

As I have always said, what saddens me most in my area is the domestic crime. Most of the stats (verified by community meetings) happen to people known to them...not to the random population.

And, whats been ignored is the price equation. I challenge anyone to tell me where you can get as much sq footage for price with the same safety statistics. Which, as noted, are not at all out of line with
"prime" manhattan.

columbiacounty has an agenda. Not sure why you'd engage him.

"I challenge anyone to tell me where you can get as much sq footag for price with the same safety statistics."

That's easy. Staten Island.

i have no doubt that eliz.... likes and enjoys her home. And I have no doubt that she has more square footage per dollar than many other parts of manhattan.

crime stats are a small part of overall quality of life. as alan has pointed out, crime stats only reflect reported crime and do nothing to explain the experience of walking the streets. and, as the nytimes has pointed out, the police have admitted to regularly downplaying these stats.

Is that your concession speech?

ridgewood. you heard it here first.

"Look at West Philly around Penn, no success in improving that area (beyond a couple of blocks) despite massive attempts."

Or even New Haven around Yale.

What economy is in New Haven without Yale?

Heck, what do people do in Philadelphia anyway besides eat hoagies and Pat's and Ginos?

North Philly...no improvment

Insurance in New Haven ... insurance fraud in Philly.

What are everyones immature feelings about generally areas where tunnels/bridges spill out? Several of these are still marginal no matter how great RE is doing now. East 57th-62. West 30s. East 30s. The traffic will never go away and the areas stay not walkable.
I conveniently leave out Tribeca but not sure if its popularity is more for the great spaces than the feeling of community.

My immature feelings are that East 57th-62nd is a good area even with that bridge. West 30s less so. Williamsburg, bridge doesn't matter much. LIC is not discussed by polite streeteasiers at the dinner table except in iambic pentameter, so let's just pretend the Midtown Tunnell doesn't spill out there. Someone asked which hot new areas get uncool because of the tanking economy. I can't think of any. Kewlness is so hard to quantify.

So if Congress can't break the impasse over the budget and the economy dips back into a recession as the CBO predicts, which neighborhood would see the biggest decline... Midtown east?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-22/u-s-budget-deficit-to-reach-1-1-trillion-this-year-cbo-says.html

Bueller ....... Bueller .. ..... ..... ...... .... Bueller

you just confirmed it.

columbiacounty, how do you decide between the cc account and the JH account?

Hb, any idea what was confirmed?

columbiacounty has a widespread reputation for deceit. So unless the confirmation is from a third party, it's not really confirmed.

wow

i agree about ridgewood cityrat. it has some very nice one family housing stock and is safe and amenity filled (not cool or fancy, but service-able). it's so easy to get to bushwich or williamsburg. families that have moved out that way from greenpoint or williamsburg are still able to have kids come back to williamsburg for schools/community which i see a lot of. it's a good neighborhood to buy a house and have a car, and still have access to subways and stuff to do.

i do like bushwick too for real deals if buying a house. it's fun for singles no doubt although know an increasing amount of families that have moved there. the artists scene is booming for both studios and galleries.

Aboutready, how about the link you promised:

aboutready
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Actually, I've read that the Bronx is really coming on. But that is so outside my lifetime reality that I'll probably personally miss that transformation.

aboutready
about 8 months ago
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damn, HB, I'll try. but not tonight. I'm tired.
grand concourse, no less. i really hope it wasn't NY Mag.

SE, why?