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I'm wondering what the definition of family sized luxury units are in Yorksville. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm thinking 3-5 bedrooms with a washer/dryer, dishwasher, granite counter tops, wood floors, crown molding, french doors, sound proofing, elevator, doorman, fitness center and a possible outdoor space. If a 2 bedroom is going for $2,300 then these are in the $4500 - $7000 range? Which means they're looking for families with an income of $200K+. These are likely locals be it DINKs, possibly empty nesters and people who don't live there most of the time and have more than one home. It may not pay off now but by the time that portion of the SAS is finished in a year and a half it will. Most of the tenants will be out and the remodel completed.
Trouble with the suburbs is that for the peace and quiet you pay with CARS, CARS, CARS, GASOLINE, GOASOLINE, GASOLINE, TRAFFIC JAM, TRAFFIC JAM, TRAFFIC JAM, ACCIDENTS ACCIDENTS ACCIDENTS.
Car insurance is a pain, the dead battery in the morning is a pain the guy who scraped your fender during the night and didn't stop is a pain.
And then there's the joy of hearing: "You need a new roof," "Your septic system is shot."
You got two whole days off this weekend? First order of business: the lawn needs mowing and the leaves need raking and bagging.
The automobile culture is dying and that's why people are flocking to the cities and overcrowding them with expensive apartments. The demographic pattern has reversed: where previously an in-towner made his money and moved to the suburbs, now it is the guy who just lost his job or was priced out of the city housing market who moves "to the suburbs."
The guy who "made it" is looking for a lovely "New York apartment in the sky" like George Jefferson. <His apartment was 85th and Third.>
Nirvana for many who work hard in the top business markets in this country is NOT having to drive an hour or two to and from work every day. Work is torture enough without piling up at the Lincoln Tunnel every day and crawling out Route 3.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SeventhFloor
Say it again
I have a car (paid off) and I'm happy to have it - but I do not want to be 100% dependent on it. I love having options.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rubygreta
Oh come on, stop with the generalizations.
I'm a 5 minute drive to the train station, and a 30-minute train ride to Grand Central. Everything I need (grocery stores, pharmacy, restaurants, clothing stores, bakeries, etc.) are within 1 mile.
My car is paid off and I don't need collision and comprehensive insurance.
I drive 10,000 miles a year and get 30 miles/gallon. 333 gallons x $3.85 = $1,282
I mow my own lawn. It takes 30 minutes. I also mulch my leaves, so their is no "leafing an bagging."
I got a new roof in 1999 for $7,500. Over 30 years it's $250/year.
A 3-bedroom coop in Manhattan runs over $2,000,000, with maintenance of over $3,000/month. Think most people can afford that?
And what I don't have is having to get in an elevator with people I don't want to see, no noise above me or to the side of me, no worries about the neighbors downstairs, no traffic noise, and most importantly, the ability to hop into my car, drive to wherever the hell I want to drive to (I love driving to the country), and return to my driveway where I'm five steps from my front door.
I really don't mean to put down city living. To each his own. The problem is that there are so many city people who would rather "die" than live in the suburbs. It's not that bad.
Also, in support of Ruby Greta's response:
For one who is self-employed and works out of his or her home (say, in the outer boroughs or in the suburbs), he or she isn't compelled or obligated to commute each day into Manhattan or elsewhere in the city and punch a time clock. He or she can go into the city IF AND WHEN he or she otherwise chooses to and otherwise tends to stay in his or her home area.
And if one also chooses to live in an urbanized suburb built for walkability (or at least "reasonable walkability"), he or she does not even necessarily have to use a car to fulfill their day-to-day needs but can rather walk to many things. And there is otherwise mass transit in varied suburbs to fall back on as well. I mean if one lives in Yonkers or New Rochelle or White Plains or New Hyde Park or Rockville Centre or Long Beach or Hicksville or Mineola or Garden City or Westbury or East Meadow or Huntington Village or Babylon Village and other such urbanized suburbs (for instance), one can walk to so much and leave their car at home . . . and they otherwise have buses and 24/7/365 MTA or LIRR train service nearby.
And one doesn't necessarily have to have a large home or large property. They can live in a quite small home that is relatively low-maintenance (detached or attached) and have little property to maintain. For that matter, their property can be such whereby they hardly have any yard or even driveway to take care of at all (i.e., a cousin of mine owns a detached small single-family home in a wholly residential private home section of Port Washington, a wholly walkable town where ALL his day-to-day needs can be met by walking to everything, including the LIRR station 4-5 blocks away . . . and his property has a built-in garage out front but only a very small front yard and very narrow side lawns all with no trees or bushes but just flat grass and a quite modest back yard with a few trees that is all very easy for even one person to keep maintained). And you can be reasonably sure that such persons living in such municipalities and jurisdictions do not have to deal on a day-to-day basis or hardly ever at all with all of society's assorted miscreants, malcontents, lowlifes, misfits, and other maladjusted persons like those who live in the city. And then for those persons don't even work regularly in the city but work out of their home or work in the local vicinity instead (or are retired, for that matter), then that is even more of an assurance of the likelihood of them having peace, quiet, tranquility, and privacy in their day-to-day lives.
Perhaps the C-D Moderators may deem that, if we go too long with this sub-discussion, we might be told that we are taking this thread somewhat off-topic. The OP's specific focus was "how Manhattan housing costs have just gotten so utterly unreasonable", so I suppose we should have the focus be on those who DO want to remain a Manhattan resident.
Last edited by SeventhFloor; 05-19-2014 at 12:15 AM..
I know it's not fashionable anymore, but I'll take my house in the suburbs on a 60 x 100 lot over living just about anywhere in Manhattan any day. Nice place to visit, but there's something to be said about peace and quiet and privacy.
I'm a 5 minute drive to the train station, and a 30-minute train ride to Grand Central. Everything I need (grocery stores, pharmacy, restaurants, clothing stores, bakeries, etc.) are within 1 mile.
My car is paid off and I don't need collision and comprehensive insurance.
I drive 10,000 miles a year and get 30 miles/gallon. 333 gallons x $3.85 = $1,282
I mow my own lawn. It takes 30 minutes. I also mulch my leaves, so their is no "leafing an bagging."
I got a new roof in 1999 for $7,500. Over 30 years it's $250/year.
A 3-bedroom coop in Manhattan runs over $2,000,000, with maintenance of over $3,000/month. Think most people can afford that?
And what I don't have is having to get in an elevator with people I don't want to see, no noise above me or to the side of me, no worries about the neighbors downstairs, no traffic noise, and most importantly, the ability to hop into my car, drive to wherever the hell I want to drive to (I love driving to the country), and return to my driveway where I'm five steps from my front door.
I really don't mean to put down city living. To each his own. The problem is that there are so many city people who would rather "die" than live in the suburbs. It's not that bad.
Nothing is wrong with city or suburban living. However, city people who would rather die than live in the suburbs are typically rents who cannot afford to buy a car or a home. If you actually look at posts on this forum overall, many "city" dwellers have landlords who never make repairs, noisy/crazy/thug neighbors, etc. For many of these people it's hard to move ,and if they move into a new apartment they'll get similar.
I also notice that city people who can afford it often have country homes and often send their kids to universities in suburban and rural areas (of the Ivy League, only Columbia and U Penn are in cities).
Basically, the people who put down suburbs are doing so because of sour grapes (I know you heard the story about the Fox and the sour grapes).
Back on topic, I think one reason why Manhattan rentals are through the roof is because they are not meant for people to live there indefinitely. Manhattan has a huge transient populations. Students, doctors doing their residencies, lawyers working their first job, young people coming on a variety of internships, business people that need to be there for only part of the time, actors who come over when a movie is being filmed, etc.
Manhattan landlords would rather rent out to people who are going to pay a lot of money and be in NYC short term as opposed to renting out to working class and middle class people who are trying to build their lives in NYC. In short, the landlords are going for what brings them the most money and could careless that most people can't afford such rents.
So things will continue to be as high as the market will bear.
Trouble with the suburbs is that for the peace and quiet you pay with CARS, CARS, CARS, GASOLINE, GOASOLINE, GASOLINE, TRAFFIC JAM, TRAFFIC JAM, TRAFFIC JAM, ACCIDENTS ACCIDENTS ACCIDENTS.
Car insurance is a pain, the dead battery in the morning is a pain the guy who scraped your fender during the night and didn't stop is a pain.
And then there's the joy of hearing: "You need a new roof," "Your septic system is shot."
You got two whole days off this weekend? First order of business: the lawn needs mowing and the leaves need raking and bagging.
The automobile culture is dying and that's why people are flocking to the cities and overcrowding them with expensive apartments. The demographic pattern has reversed: where previously an in-towner made his money and moved to the suburbs, now it is the guy who just lost his job or was priced out of the city housing market who moves "to the suburbs."
The guy who "made it" is looking for a lovely "New York apartment in the sky" like George Jefferson. <His apartment was 85th and Third.>
Nirvana for many who work hard in the top business markets in this country is NOT having to drive an hour or two to and from work every day. Work is torture enough without piling up at the Lincoln Tunnel every day and crawling out Route 3.
While Bloomberg has his upper east side apartment, he has a house in Long Island, a place in London, a house in Florida, a house in Colorado, and a house in Florida. While mayor, he spent his weekends in Bermuda at his home there, away from it all.
De Niro and Martha Stewart also live on country estates, though they also have Manhattan residences.
Since real estate in Manhattan is only going to go home, a lot of wealthy people use Manhattan real estate as a safe investment. Unlike stocks that could disappear if the company goes under, the real estate will be there even if a freak incident made the real estate market go down (and it would eventually go back up). So you have to factor in the investment factor.
And if one also chooses to live in an urbanized suburb built for walkability (or at least "reasonable walkability"), he or she does not even necessarily have to use a car to fulfill their day-to-day needs but can rather walk to many things. And there is otherwise mass transit in varied suburbs to fall back on as well. I mean if one lives in Yonkers or New Rochelle or White Plains or New Hyde Park or Rockville Centre or Long Beach or Hicksville or Mineola or Garden City or Westbury or East Meadow or Huntington Village or Babylon Village and other such urbanized suburbs (for instance), one can walk to so much and leave their car at home . . . and they otherwise have buses and 24/7/365 MTA or LIRR train service nearby.
Off topic here, but I think Huntington has the best downtown on Long Island, and I would bet is in the Top 5 in the NY Metropolitan Area. And for those who like both types of shopping, the Walt Whitman mall is just a couple of miles away.
And some of these downtowns, like White Plains, have full-fledged supermarkets. You can live in an apartment without a car.
Off topic here, but I think Huntington has the best downtown on Long Island, and I would bet is in the Top 5 in the NY Metropolitan Area. And for those who like both types of shopping, the Walt Whitman mall is just a couple of miles away.
And some of these downtowns, like White Plains, have full-fledged supermarkets. You can live in an apartment without a car.
You can live in ALL those self-mentioned locales (and many more locales not mentioned by myself) without necessarily owning a car . . . or you can still own a car but hardly use it for day-to-day use except for an optional short hop or on special occasions. Such out-of-NYC jurisdictions as I mentioned (and many more not-mentioned jurisdictions) are built for walkability and convenient living. They are what we can perhaps call "urbanized suburbs".
Say it again
I have a car (paid off) and I'm happy to have it - but I do not want to be 100% dependent on it. I love having options.
I concur with the highlighted quote of yours above. That is, if I were to choose to live in the suburbs or even the outlying areas of the outer boroughs of NYC, it would only be in areas that were also walkable enough for day-to-day needs and were served by mass transit (and that includes train service, not just buses alone). I would not want to be 100% dependent on a car . . . and then also other persons without a car at their avail would still be able to visit me wholly by using public transit or by walking or biking.
BACK ON TOPIC:
To the OP: The nature of the extremely high cost of Manhattan real estate is that, as some others have mentioned, Manhattan is not just a place that locals want to live in but also a huge population of foreign nationals and USA transplants to compete with . . . and many of those folks have plenty of money behind them and so are able & willing to pay top dollar. Remember that our world has nearly 8 billion people to-date (and reported to be climbing higher & higher over time) and many of the monied peoples and interests in this world have quite significant monetary wealth behind them and many of them want to have a base-of-operations in New York City (and particularly Manhattan). And the USA transplants who wish to also be here and yet don't necessarily have great wealth are willing to live with however many other persons in the same living unit and together they will all pay top dollar for their apartment or condo or co-op or townhouse/brownstone in Manhattan. So this is what all of us middle class and working class locals (who also do not want to share our homes with strangers or relatives) are competing against. We who have lower limits to our income and assets and wish to live in our own apartment or home rather than sharing our living spaces with strangers or relatives are competing with so many of these other people who are foreign nationals or USA transplants who come to NYC with much money behind them and/or a willingness to pool together their monies with strangers or relatives to pay very high prices to live in Manhattan. Remember, these other folks are drawn from a worldwide population of billions of people. We are not just competing with local middle class and working class people but with a worldwide population of highly-monied persons and interests. THAT is the essential nature of WHY real estate in Manhattan is so unreasonable. These other highly-monied persons and interests appeal to the capitalistic incentive (i.e., simple and pure greed) of the real estate owners and landlords to get the maximum-possible regular income for their properties and they go for it and don't care about fostering a city that can reasonably accommodate persons of varied income levels.
These real estate owners and landlords are just "looking out for number 1" . . . themselves.
I was just reading how these family sized luxury units are designed to give the feeling of suburbanized housing with the space and amenities while living in the urban environment.
Another thing I noticed while comparison shopping in this area that was confusing for me, but I did eventually have to ask about on here, was that there is a tendency to rebrand this entire area UES all the way up to 120th St. On rental and real estate sites Yorkville seemed to be a rarely used term and more designated to a historical marker status on maps than anything else because the demographics have changed due to long established communities migrating elsewhere or abandoning it.
However, some realtors were still calling East Harlem what it is but I was seeing a trend that the lower part of East Harlem was getting this rebranding across multiple websites. I suspect as this area further develops the usage of Yorkville and Spanish Harlem may disappear except among a historical context as they're pushing to revitalize the area with redevelopment in the image of more like the up and coming UES. It's not just the newness of the developments that are attractive but the advancement of technology in the SAS and the experience that's bringing to the area.
Another reason I can see this area being targeted is because there's a demand for it, and it may be easier to relocate the demographic that lacks the resources to do much else about it. There's not much of a fight because there is a consensus the area needs it and it's happening like it or not. I got the sense the old established Yorkville population was mostly already moved out as well as the Spanish Harlem population migrating to better opportunities. All that seems to be left are the people in the projects who are dependent on the system and they've seen it's somewhat manageable in other more developed parts of the city. The rest currently residing there may have to pick up and move to the outer boroughs and commute, or take advantage of the 80/20 if they can, or relocate and move else where.
I also checked into the areas of Harlem that we could afford but that quickly became overwhelming with negative feedback so I eliminated it and narrowed my focus. When I was reading the threads on the various areas of Harlem there were complaints of transplants living in the remodeled apartments of a building across from a project where locals that lived in the same building paid much less than the transplants and they were extremely hostile to newcomers in the building and the neighborhood. They gathered in doorways, on front steps and side walks and gave the newcomers a difficult time coming and going to their own home in the building. Crime was a bigger issue in these neighborhoods as well as access to amenities. So I know it's true that even if you're an "urban pioneer" in these areas it's likely you'll come across and have to deal with the hood from the neighborhood on a daily basis. That these elements are still there and thriving and that there is more of a degree of backlash to outsiders that's very territorial vs. the abandonment feeling of the once established communities of Spanish Harlem and Yorkville. At one time it had the reputation of being the worst part of Harlem and it may still be in much of it but in the lower part of that it's changing. I'm not sure what they'll do about the rest.
Also from reading on here I got the sense that in the greater Harlem area there seemed to be much more of a sense of an established AA community with resources to do something about urban renewal that may displace locals. This community also seemed combined with the remnants of the local Spanish population. Together they're more vocal and organized and there are many more of them. However, the educated/professionals among them did voice that they would welcome the development in the area and the increased resources and infrastructure built up, but not at the price of their sense of community, especially in the historical context of their AA communities. They fear it being wiped out with the urban renewal expansions and they weren't ready for that to happen without a fight. They wanted Harlem to retain it's sense of identity and cultural heritage as part of the city's history. I think a compromise can be reached here with the agreement to keep the historical landmarks and respect to their communities. I read that to some degree there's already pockets of these types of development agreements along 125th St and elsewhere but it has a ways to go.
The SAS tunnel barreling through to 125th St. is going to change much of all that. They may delay Phase II until they have even more support and a master plan for the surrounding area, or they may knock it out and get it over and done with and let the chips fall where they may. Right now the area up to 96th has the full support of investors. I can see the advantages of delaying Phase II to give more time for master planning and negotiations with communities and neighborhoods with regards to development in the surrounding areas. It's going to take time to move that many people around too. Also there may be more support by investors to focus on increasing existing infrastructure in the lower part of the plans of the SAS which is servicing the more developed boroughs that are already half gentrified and ready for it. They may come back to Phase II when they see the South Bronx and Harlem half done and about ready. I'm not sure those in the "new UES" can wait for that however. So I can see that investors there may be eager to push for Phase II to happen sooner rather than wait later, but good things come to those that wait right? Give the natives time to settle in from the waves it's caused vs. rip the band-aide off quickly and it will sting less. I wonder what the path of least resistance will be.
Briefly glancing a the governmental side of it I understand and see that this is partly the vision and legacy of a billionaire businessman. Bloomberg's vision and rhetoric about people choosing to move to the city are being echoed in this thread. Often with the change of administrations and policies there's a delay because of hitches in the process.
Briefly looking at de Blasio's he may be the man to stomach Phase II of the SAS. His background in city council for the already establish areas of Brooklyn shows he knows what a model of that looks like, and he witnessed or was involved in to some degree the gentrification of surrounding areas in the borough. He also has a background as Regional Director of Housing and Urban Development in NY and NJ under Bill Clinton in 1997. Plus a history of advocating for the people of the same demographic that resides in Upper Manhattan. Add to that the Urban Fellows program he did and he knows how to grease the wheels of government and get what he wants. All this combined he may just be the guy to get Phase II done. Bill Clinton did symbolically mark 125th St. and Lexington years ago as where he wanted to continue his legacy when he set up office there. His Wife is also a former Senator of NYC never mind Secretary of State. Plus Bill Clinton swore de Blasio into office this year. These kinds of connections go a long way into deep pockets. But what do I know? I'm not a real estate expert. Where are the RE people on this site anyways?
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