Today's Detroit is Tomorrow's NYC - What Are Your Plans For When The Housing Market Craters? (Auburn: apartments, credit)
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A lot of people in Elmhurst or Flushing rent, and a lot of renters have been living there a long term and are rent stabilized. Even a lot of homeowners purchased quite some time go, when prices were cheaper so they may very well be LOW INCOME. Market rate prices can be high in neighborhoods that still have a lot of poverty, like Harlem and the Lower East Side. Even Jackson Heights and Corona didn't become quite as bad some parts of gentrified Brooklyn (Williamsburg was a busted up former industrial area), but they are far from wealthy or even middle class. I'd say Central Queens is very much working class (not including Forest Hills or Rego Park, they really do have more middle class people).
Having a lot of low income people (assuming this is true about Flushing) is beside the point. Real estate in these areas have been selling at escalated prices for decades. Rego Park townhouses 7 years ago were selling for 750K even if you argue that there are low income people in Rego Park. You will not get a townhouse or detached home in Elmhurst for less than 600K.
That's why these areas won't gentrify like Brooklyn. There are pockets of low income people but the landlords who own the property are rich. How can hipsters buy into a neighborhood where townhouses are selling for 800K - 1M? That's not going to happen. They will buy in Bedstuy where they used to get brownstones for 400K.
Having a lot of low income people (assuming this is true about Flushing) is beside the point. Real estate in these areas have been selling at escalated prices for decades. Rego Park townhouses 7 years ago were selling for 750K even if you argue that there are low income people in Rego Park. You will not get a townhouse or detached home in Elmhurst for less than 600K.
That's why these areas won't gentrify like Brooklyn. There are pockets of low income people but the landlords who own the property are rich. How can hipsters buy into a neighborhood where townhouses are selling for 800K - 1M? That's not going to happen. They will buy in Bedstuy where they used to get brownstones for 400K.
I could say landlords in Wakefield are rich (in some cases of Section 8 tenants, LOL). I'm sure it causes a lot to buy a building full of Section 8 people as well. I know in Central Queens a lot of the houses are full of immigrants, as in 50 people to a house (some houses have gotten busted by the city for this). I lived on 72nd Street in Jackson Heights. I was friends with some of the immigrant kids who lived with multiple people in a BASEMENT apartment. The house may very well have been worth a lot of money, but that does not make 72nd Street a wealthy block. You have similar things all over Central Queens.
If I came into a lot of money, I would never buy a home in Central Queens because of that. Too many former single family homes have been illegally converted into rentals. I hope you like paying $700k to live next to 30 people.
You even see people asking for help for these types of situations on this forum. Someone who bought a home had a hard time paying the bills and illegally rented out the basement to a woman who turned out to be a con artist and she screwed them over and is now suing them for the rent back/illegal rental.
That's the screwy thing about NYC, everyone tries to pretend their neighborhood is well off when most of them really ARE NOT!
I could say landlords in Wakefield are rich (in some cases of Section 8 tenants, LOL). I'm sure it causes a lot to buy a building full of Section 8 people as well. I know in Central Queens a lot of the houses are full of immigrants, as in 50 people to a house (some houses have gotten busted by the city for this). I lived on 72nd Street in Jackson Heights. I was friends with some of the immigrant kids who lived with multiple people in a BASEMENT apartment. The house may very well have been worth a lot of money, but that does not make 72nd Street a wealthy block. You have similar things all over Central Queens.
If I came into a lot of money, I would never buy a home in Central Queens because of that. Too many former single family homes have been illegally converted into rentals. I hope you like paying $700k to live next to 30 people.
You even see people asking for help for these types of situations on this forum. Someone who bought a home had a hard time paying the bills and illegally rented out the basement to a woman who turned out to be a con artist and she screwed them over and is now suing them for the rent back/illegal rental.
That's the screwy thing about NYC, everyone tries to pretend their neighborhood is well off when most of them really ARE NOT!
I'm not talking about buildings. I'm talking about houses, which are by and large owner inhabited. Here is a listing in Elmhurst:
It's a house that still needs fixing up but it's listed for $679K. What more a house that's in good condition? In Flushing, the listings are even more expensive:
Your analogy with Wakefield does not apply. Are the homes and apartments in Wakefield listing and selling for the same prices? Of course not. Wakefield houses sell for much lower than what you would get in Elmhurst and Flushing (both have held their values over decades), which is why hipsters can't move in. They can no longer afford homes at those prices.
In Florida for instance over built and over inflated properties? Whole condo buildings empty? No document loans or 103% financing. No question the job market is dismal now and has been for the last 6 years. What about homes under water? That is a real problem in large areas in the country compared to Chicago or NYC. It's nuts but even in a downtrodden real estate market large areas of NYC were still very expensive compared to rest of America.
Florida was a major bubble market. Upstate NY was not. Neither was Dallas or Kansas City. My point isn't that these areas are as expensive as NYC or Chicago because they never were, but that like NYC and Chicago, their real estate markets didn't crash. There is NOT a vast real estate wasteland filled with defunct condo developments and half-built subdivisions in most parts of the country except for NYC and Chicago because the excesses found in the bubble markets like Florida, California, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and touristy areas like Myrtle Beach never took place in Idaho Falls, ID or Wichita,KS or Portland, ME.
The devastation in the housing market as portrayed in the national media is not a national phenomenon, but a local/regional one. Because the collapse of the real estate bubble markets triggered the credit crisis and subsequent recession and the bubble markets were among the most "fashionable" metros, too many media "analysts" assumed the devastation was much more widespread than it was because they never bothered to look at "fashionable" metros that weren't also bubble markets including NYC, Chicago, Denver, Portland, and Seattle.
It's a house that still needs fixing up but it's listed for $679K. What more a house that's in good condition? In Flushing, the listings are even more expensive:
Number one, most of the housing units in Elmhurst are APARTMENTS, not SINGLE FAMILY HOMES.
Number 2, many of the single family homes in Elmhurst are rented out to multiple immigrants.
I still have family and friends in the area, and I'm still regularly in the area. Go down Broadway in the center of Elmhurst and you will see ALL apartments (rent stabilized). Ugly apartments at all. Full of WORKING CLASS people. No single family homes. Some of the side streets have single family homes.
And many of them are rented out to immigrants.
Stop trying to LIE and say Elmhurst is a well off neighborhood, or that most of its units are single family homes. Completely not true.
Number one, most of the housing units in Elmhurst are APARTMENTS, not SINGLE FAMILY HOMES.
Number 2, many of the single family homes in Elmhurst are rented out to multiple immigrants.
I still have family and friends in the area, and I'm still regularly in the area. Go down Broadway in the center of Elmhurst and you will see ALL apartments (rent stabilized). Ugly apartments at all. Full of WORKING CLASS people. No single family homes. Some of the side streets have single family homes.
And many of them are rented out to immigrants.
Stop trying to LIE and say Elmhurst is a well off neighborhood, or that most of its units are single family homes. Completely not true.
Regarding single families living in single family homes in Elmhurst, maybe what you are saying is true for the part north of Queens blvd, but the part south of Queens blvd bordering Maspeth and Middle Village, not so much the case.
I think someone needs to re check their definition for working class. Corona is a working class neighborhood, far rockaway and carnasie are working class neighborhoods. East new York is a working class neighborhood. Just because Elmhurst is full of immigrants, with no white people, doesn'tb make It a working class neighborhood. Check out rents and real estate prices, they are higher than all the other neighborhoods I mentioned, in some cases much higher. Elmhurst is lower middle class.
I think someone needs to re check their definition for working class. Corona is a working class neighborhood, far rockaway and carnasie are working class neighborhoods. East new York is a working class neighborhood. Just because Elmhurst is full of immigrants, with no white people, doesn'tb make It a working class neighborhood. Check out rents and real estate prices, they are higher than all the other neighborhoods I mentioned, in some cases much higher. Elmhurst is lower middle class.
No, working class. A lot of WORKING CLASS people double up with roommates, live with families, etc. Rents do not make an area "Middle Class". The Elmhurst/Jackson Heights neighborhood is my ORIGINAL NEIGHBORHOOD. I know it well. Its far from middle class, and market rate rents also don't cover the number of people who have been living there for years and who are rent stabilized.
And as noted, a lot of market rate rents are paid for by having lots of roommates or relatives in a place. Since when is having to live with lots of other people "Middle Class"?
Regarding single families living in single family homes in Elmhurst, maybe what you are saying is true for the part north of Queens blvd, but the part south of Queens blvd bordering Maspeth and Middle Village, not so much the case.
Its definitely true for Elmhurst North of Queens Boulevard and for the parts of Elmhurst bordering Jackson Heights, Woodside, and Corona. Multiple families and people living in what used to be single family homes.
Its definitely true for Elmhurst North of Queens Boulevard and for the parts of Elmhurst bordering Jackson Heights, Woodside, and Corona. Multiple families and people living in what used to be single family homes.
I agree, was just stating that it is not the case for all of Elmhurst. Actually, the area between the LIE and Elliot ave used to be considered Elmhurst, now it seems to be part of Middle Village (based off of the change in the zip code boundaries).
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