Brooklyn real estate keeps soaring

Brooklyn real estate keeps soaring as both sales and rental markets end 2013 on a high note  - NY Daily News

Brooklyn's totally out of your league now.
The hot borough continued to show signs of strength at the end of 2013 in both the sales and rental markets, according to multiple reports released on Wednesday.
The median price of a Brooklyn home reached $570,110 in the fourth quarter, up 11.2% and marking an 11-year high, according to Douglas Elliman. Sales surged 21.2% to 1,752.

At the same time, the median rent in North and Northwest Brooklyn rent rose about 1% in December to $2,660, and rents in certain must-have Brooklyn neighborhoods soared to new heights.
Bushwick led the way, with the average rent in the neighborhood jumping 8.2% in December to $2,005, according to a report from residential real estate firm MNS.
"If you have to pick the strongest housing market in New York City, rental or sales, Brooklyn seems to have both," Jonathan Miller, CEO of appraisal firm Miller Samuel, which compiles the Douglas Elliman reports, told the Daily News.

Supply in Brooklyn is scarce, creating frustration for buyers and renters, brokers said. Sales inventory dropped nearly 28% in the fourth quarter.
"We've had bidding wars on rentals," said Michael Guerra, managing director of Douglas Elliman's Brooklyn division.
"We have people anxious to buy in Brooklyn, but they haven't found something that matches their criteria."
Demand is strong across the board. "Sunset Park, Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, you name it," Guerra said. "Bedford-Stuyvesant is unbelievably hot now."
"Brooklyn has emerged as one of the best rental markets in the country," added MNS CEO Andrew Barrocas.

Brooklyn is chugging ahead as Manhattan's notoriously expensive rental market is easing. The median rent in Manhattan fell 1.6% to $3,100, according to Douglas Elliman.
The gap between Manhattan and Brooklyn is now just $440 - it has been hovering from about $300 to $450 since the fall. Back in 2008, the gap was closer to $1,100.
"Prices are down and inventory is up, so all in all now's a great time to be in the market for a new apartment," in Manhattan, said Citi Habitats president Gary Malin.

pfurman@nydailynews.com

Manhattan and Brooklyn are much poorer than you think. So how can anyone afford to live there?

New York City census data: Manhattan and Brooklyn are much poorer than you think.

(Excerpt)
Measured by median income, Manhattan and (especially) Brooklyn are much poorer than you think. Manhattan’s median annual household income is $66,739, while Brooklyn’s is a mere $44,850. Its less fashionable neighbor, Queens, outearns Brooklyn at $54,373 per year. New York City’s most suburban borough, Staten Island, is also its richest, with a median household income of $70,295, while the suburban counties surrounding New York are all richer than any of the boroughs. Meanwhile, the cost of living is astronomical in Manhattan, where the median monthly rent is $3,100; it’s $2,800 in the gentrifying northwestern quadrant of Brooklyn. So how can so many relatively low-income people still live in these areas? The answer has to do with the peculiarities of New York’s housing stock, demographics, and history. Here are the main seven factors.

De Blasio's French Lessons by Nicole Gelinas

De Blasio's French Lessons by Nicole Gelinas - City Journal
Gotham’s new mayor sounds like François Hollande, and he risks similar results.

Brooklyn native Janet Yellen named new Federal Reserve chair

Janet Yellen, our new Federal Reserve chair or chairperson, was born in Brooklyn and went to Fort Hamilton High School.  Some media has opted out of deciding her new title saying that she will head the Federal Reserve.

Read the rest of her story here.

A Developer Is Mourned and Vilified in Brooklyn.

A Developer Is Mourned and Vilified in Brooklyn - NYTimes.com

(Excerpt)
“He was a person who was always giving, he was a community person,” added Mr. Schlesinger, who was a neighbor of Mr. Stark’s for several years. “It didn’t matter which organization, where you belonged.” Though the ultra-Orthodox Jewish population of south Williamsburg is divided between two Satmar sub-sects, the Aroynem and Zaloynim, Mr. Stark gave generously to both groups, Mr. Schlesinger said.

But the developer, who often went by Max, had become a lightning rod for fuming tenants and neighborhood activists across north Brooklyn, where Mr. Stark had owned more than a dozen residential properties. Such dealings landed Mr. Stark on the cover of The New York Post on Sunday, with the headline “Who didn’t want him dead?”

Brooklyn: The place to be, if you can find the space

Brooklyn: The place to be, if you can find the space | Crain's New York Business

Corporate heavyweights and fast-growing startups are searching for commercial space, and turning up empty.

Chase, Verizon, MakerBot and other boldfaced Brooklyn employers find themselves in a quandary.
Spurred by cheap and roomy offices or visions of waterfront warehouses within biking distance for their youthful workforces, corporate heavyweights and fast-growing startups alike are casting about Brooklyn in search of commercial space. And they're turning up empty.
"We're in a crisis mode," said Christopher Havens, a commercial real estate broker with AptsandLofts.com. "Everything's in shortage, from townhouses on down."
The search for office space in the borough is likely to be a major plotline in the story of its economic health in 2014. There are more than 100 tenants in the market in Dumbo—already bursting at the seams with 500-plus tech companies—and downtown Brooklyn that can't find space, Mr. Havens said, adding that it is the tightest office market since World War II.

Brooklyn Man Charged With Hate Crimes for 7 'Knockout' Attacks on Jewish Women

Brooklyn Man Charged With Hate Crimes for 7 'Knockout' Attacks on Jewish Women

By JTA
Published January 05, 2014
A Brooklyn, N.Y. man was arrested and charged for his involvement in seven so-called knockout game attacks.
Barry Baldwin, 35, was charged with six counts of assault as a hate crime, six counts of aggravated harassment as a hate crime, and other crimes, including menacing and endangering the welfare of a child for the attacks that occurred between Nov. 9 and late December in Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York police said Saturday, according to New York media.
Baldwin was arrested on Dec. 28 by the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force.
The victims were all Jewish women, ages 20 to 78. One of the women was holding a small child, who she fell on top of during the attack.
“This arrest is welcome news to all of us, but I continue to urge caution. No one in our community should live in fear, but prudence is always advisable,” New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind said in a statement.
In the so-called knockout game, attackers try to knock out someone with one punch. Other incidents of knockout attacks have occurred in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., as well as other U.S. states, according to reports.
A Long Island man was arrested in mid-December in connection with four other knockout attacks that date back as far as April.

Vintage Film of Brooklyn Trolleys Circa 1930s