Manhattan real estate may still be skyrocketing, but Brooklyn came back to earth a bit at the end of 2007 – although it still saw gains in the housing market.
Overall, the high-ticket areas stretching from Park Slope to Brooklyn Heights saw average prices shoot up 8 percent in the final quarter of last year – from $613,000 to $661,000 – compared to the same stretch in 2006, according to stats put out by one of the city’s largest brokerage firms. But that paled in comparison to Manhattan’s superheated fourth-quarter gains of as high as 34 percent in average price.
“This was the year that Brooklyn showed its maturity,” said Pamela Liebman, CEO of the Corcoran Group. “These areas had been seen as emerging markets and it was almost like a boom mentality. But this year they have already emerged and it cooled off.”
Traditionally seen as a pressure valve for the red-hot market across the river in Manhattan, Brooklyn has come into its own in recent years and has become very much its own market, Liebman said. “It’s really become a first choice. People used to go there when they couldn’t afford Manhattan, but now people look there first. Some young people wouldn’t dream of living on the Upper East Side but would kill to live in Williamsburg,” she said.
Comparisons to the sky-high increases seen in Manhattan hold little water, Liebman said.
“In Manhattan there is still a huge amount of foreign buyers that you don’t have in Brooklyn, and you have a great wealth concentration there that you just don’t have anywhere else,” she said.
Still, there has been steady growth in Brooklyn despite the steep downturn in a national housing market shaken by the subprime loan crisis. But not all the statistics were trending upwards, according to Corcoran’s report.
While cooperative apartments saw a median price gain of 6 percent, condos gained only 3 percent overall.
For example, Brooklyn Heights saw an 11 percent boost in the median sales price of co-ops to $495,000, while at the same time experiencing a 13 percent dip in the condominium market to $695,0000. At the same time, one-family townhouse prices raced up 35 percent to a median of $5 million.
In nearby Boerum Hill, the median sale price for co-ops went up an impressive 29 percent to $612,000, while condos dipped 5 percent to $639,000.
Other areas saw much more modest growth.
The median sales price of co-ops in Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens gained just 3 percent in the final three months of last year. But the condo market saw a healthy 10 percent jump and prices for a one-family townhouse shot up 30 percent. Fort Greene/Clinton Hill co-ops made a modest 5 percent gain in median price and condominiums experienced a 4 percent bump. Single-family townhouses, however, shot up an eye-popping 48 percent.