Yes, Crown Heights is in the midsts of a rapid transformation. Yes, the northwest area, once a "veritable no man's land of warehouses, factories and auto shops" is Brooklyn's newest hot spot. Yes, things are getting more expensive there. But just how expensive? "Both condo prices and land prices have about doubled in the last two years," says the Times of the neighborhood that's poised to welcome some 1,250 units in two-dozen residential projects in the coming years.
While the price increase may be true of condo and land prices, rents haven't quite caught up to the same level: Crown Heights resident and the blogger behind "I Love Franklin Avenue" Nick Juravich told the Times that when he was looking for a one-bedroom pad in 2008, most apartments were renting for about $1,500. Now, according to StreetEasy, the median price for a one-bedroom in the neighborhood is $1,925.
The neighborhood is still dominated by and poised to receive mostly new rental buildings, but a swell in planned condos gives away the second wave of more affluent gentrifiers on their way into the neighborhood. Boaz Gilad told the Times that most of the buyers in the neighborhood that development company Brookland Capital deals with are "people in their late 20s and early 30s who live in the neighborhood already, paying, say, $2,400 a month in a free-market building" and wouldn't mind paying an additional $200 or so a month to own an asset, and families who may have wanted to buy in neighborhoods like Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, but because of budget constraints, landed in a townhouse in Crown Heights at half the cost. Anyone hoping to score a deal in Crown Heights better act fast, especially if the Times continues to write about the neighborhood they seem to regard as this somewhat unknown, possibly dangerous, but definitely gentrifying place.
· Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Gets Its Turn [NYT]
· Mapping Crown Heights' Crazy Residential Building Boom [Curbed]
· All Crown Heights coverage [Curbed]
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