Brooklyn still booming despite rise in price

February 12, 2015 Meaghan McGoldrick

BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/file photos

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Leaving Brooklyn? Fuggedaboutit.

While the city’s most populous borough is becoming more and more expensive to live in (RealtyTrac issued a report in December, 2014, identifying Brooklyn as the least affordable housing market in the United States), experts say that, in the coming years, owning or renting a home in beautiful BK is one of the best moves you can make.

“In my 40-year career in commercial real estate, I have never seen a more active market than we currently have,” said Co-Founder of CPEX Real Estate Tim King.

According to MNS Year End Market Reports for 2014, the Brooklyn rental market is continuing to grow at astonishing rates with overall rents jumping 4.5 percent since the previous year from $2,562 to $2,676 (per month).

Additionally, MNS reports, Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO and Downtown Brooklyn have continued to see stable growth while neighborhoods away from the waterfront are also making strides.

In terms of trends, MNS calls Williamsburg, the Atlantic Yards triangle where Fort Greene, Prospect Heights and Park Slope meet and Downtown Brooklyn three hot-spots to keep an eye on this year.

“It’s inevitable that every cycle ends and things slow down, or have major bumps in the road,” said King, “but there is so much activity and so much momentum in Brooklyn that, even if there should be a significant hiccup in the marketplace, in general, Brooklyn will continue to thrive.”

In terms of sales, Prudential Douglas Elliman reports, the median sales price for housing in Brooklyn has increased for the ninth consecutive quarter while the average and median sales prices year to date have both set new record highs.

And while the number of sales slipped 3.1 percent (to 1,697), the median sales price increased 2.6 percent to $585,000 and the average sales price jumped 9.9 percent to $756,569.

King said that, while numbers like these are certainly important, first-time Brooklyn buyers must remember to buy out of “comfort” and not prospective value.

“Hopefully if someone buys a house to live in, it will over time increase in value,” he noted, “but that shouldn’t be the reason they buy.”

When asked what neighborhood he would recommend to a set of first-timers, King said simply, “I don’t think there’s any place in Brooklyn that would be a bad place.”