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While NYC is still a *renters* town that is slowly changing as well.
Many new comers to Manhattan at least want to own, not rent their home. Also the younger generation even if they grew up here tend to lean towards homeownership if they can swing it versus renting.
With RS apartments especially *cheap* ones becoming more and more scarce apartments are moving more towards market rents. With demographics changing including the acceptance of gay marriage and families and international money flowing into Manhattan there simply is bound to be change in the housing market.
The problem for Manhattan is the shortage of rental housing that is affordable for households with average income ($70K to 200K). In many other parts of the USA such incomes would put a person or family solidly into "wealthy", but due to NY's high taxes and other costs they are often barely middle class.
What is happening also is that more and more families are making NYC in particular Manhattan their home. There just isn't enough "large" apartment stock especially at "affordable" rates in that borough so persons move. Friends from work that recently had a baby and were living in a one bedroom on UES recently purchased a house in Larchmont. Things just worked out cheaper than renting especially trying to find an "affordable" two bedroom apartment.
A gay friend of ours that wanted to remain in Chelsea had no choice but to purchase as rents for what he was looking for simply weren't a smart financial decision versus buying.
It isn't all bad for NYC real estate families/developers, as many of the big players are in Brooklyn and or Queens. But IMHO many under estimated the draw of those two outer boroughs. Brooklyn's real estate market in parts is much hotter than Manhattan. Indeed if you take out lower Manhattan (area below say Chelsea) things would be worse for that borough. Brooklyn and Queens are probably keeping large numbers of families/persons in NYC that otherwise would have fled to the suburbs.
Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx could have the best of both worlds. The subway system and everyday biking like a central city, commuter rail and automobile accessibility similar to a suburb, and more personal space than Manhattan with more developed usable public space than the suburbs. It's really all about taxes and schools. Imagine if the outerboros could attain good schools?
Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx could have the best of both worlds. The subway system and everyday biking like a central city, commuter rail and automobile accessibility similar to a suburb, and more personal space than Manhattan with more developed usable public space than the suburbs. It's really all about taxes and schools. Imagine if the outerboros could attain good schools?
Long as NYC public school system is mostly funded by local property taxes thing will be what they are at least on the elementary through middle school level. What you largely have now is a game of musical chairs where families move to areas with "good" schools or otherwise try tricks to get their children into same.
Despite all their grumbling NYC homeowners especially of 1-4 family homes pay far less property taxes than they would say in New Jersey, Westchester and Long Island, the results show in the school system.
Maybe for lower/central Manhattan. How much more can that place get gentrified.
Bowery, "ABC Land/Lower Eastside", China Town, etc... Basically from East Houston Street going to the river. Oh there is plenty left still down there.
Problem is the high cost of land. Those that own property down there have waited years if not decades for their taste and aren't going to be denied.
It does help like Sixth Avenue in Chelsea/Flower District that many of the properties down there are commercially zoned and not residential. Never thought when one was attending parties at the Puck Building in the 1980's that it would become luxury residential housing, but yet...
Was born and raised in NYC, and have been going into Manhattan since late teen years and living here since after college, and far as one is concerned much if not most of Manhattan <Harlem has "gentrified" already. The last real hold out would be the Lower Eastside and now that NYC has given the green light to a huge project down there it is only a matter of time. Indeed property values have started to inch up in the areas surrounding the new project as owners seek to finally cash in.
Don't care where you go, UWS, UES, Yorkville, Tribeca, Chelsea, etc.... you can see the affects of higher housing costs on both residential and business. Small shops/businesses are closing. Ever increasing rents/housing costs are forcing the middle class out of Manhattan. What there is left of it probably is in no small part due to RS.
Is gentrification total? No, not in all areas but the parts of Manhattan that arean't are barely holding on.
You look at the Meatpacking District, West Village. Once a solid working class area with perhaps pockets of wealth. Now it is a wealthy area with pockets of working/middle class. Seems to me even the gays that still live down there want the "poor" out. *LOL*
Working class and poor gays were largely forced out of the West Village, with the exception of some old rent stabilized people. As for the small businesses, a number of famous bars and clubs have indeed closed in Manhattan due to higher rent prices. Places like Max Fish were forced to leave Manhattan for Brooklyn. A number of gay bars, bodegas, and other shops are all gone. Some simply can't pay the rent when its time to renew their lease. Sometimes the entire block is redeveloped and that takes care of all small businesses there.
Obviously most of Manhattan south of 96th Street is a very different place. The West Side of Manhattan from the Village up to Hells Kitchen is a whole different place. Around 34th Street you have the Hudson Yards redevelopment bringing in new offices and new development.
It isn't all bad for NYC real estate families/developers, as many of the big players are in Brooklyn and or Queens. But IMHO many under estimated the draw of those two outer boroughs. Brooklyn's real estate market in parts is much hotter than Manhattan. Indeed if you take out lower Manhattan (area below say Chelsea) things would be worse for that borough. Brooklyn and Queens are probably keeping large numbers of families/persons in NYC that otherwise would have fled to the suburbs.
You can even buy single family homes complete with a front and back yard in big parts of Queens and Brooklyn, so I agree with you there. You can even do gardening.
Co ops are pretty strict about who they allow to stay in them, so that probably helps keep in middle class/upper middle class people who don't want to deal with the riff raff that floods many apartment buildings.
Working class and poor gays were largely forced out of the West Village, with the exception of some old rent stabilized people. As for the small businesses, a number of famous bars and clubs have indeed closed in Manhattan due to higher rent prices. Places like Max Fish were forced to leave Manhattan for Brooklyn. A number of gay bars, bodegas, and other shops are all gone. Some simply can't pay the rent when its time to renew their lease. Sometimes the entire block is redeveloped and that takes care of all small businesses there.
Obviously most of Manhattan south of 96th Street is a very different place. The West Side of Manhattan from the Village up to Hells Kitchen is a whole different place. Around 34th Street you have the Hudson Yards redevelopment bringing in new offices and new development.
Chelsea is now so chic Barney's is moving *BACK*! *LOL*
Remember Max's Fish and so many other places that have gone or changed down in the Village/Chelsea. Can remember when there used to be a petrol station on Seventh Avenue a few blocks from the firehouse.
Have a few older gay friends that live down in The Village/Chelsea and yes if it wasn't for RS they would be gone. These were solid middle class persons (actors, dancers, teachers, professors, business owners, etc..) but they now find themselves like their straight "older" counterparts often aliens in an area they have called home for decades.
Working class and poor gays were largely forced out of the West Village, with the exception of some old rent stabilized people. As for the small businesses, a number of famous bars and clubs have indeed closed in Manhattan due to higher rent prices. Places like Max Fish were forced to leave Manhattan for Brooklyn. A number of gay bars, bodegas, and other shops are all gone. Some simply can't pay the rent when its time to renew their lease. Sometimes the entire block is redeveloped and that takes care of all small businesses there.
Obviously most of Manhattan south of 96th Street is a very different place. The West Side of Manhattan from the Village up to Hells Kitchen is a whole different place. Around 34th Street you have the Hudson Yards redevelopment bringing in new offices and new development.
Sadly we cannot ignore the ravages of the HIV/Aids epidemic on parts of NYC real estate. Gay men from the Village to UWS and all over the City of all income groups were dropping like flies for awhile there. While NYS and NYC did pass some legal protections for "non-family" members so "partners" could keep say a RS apartment, it often was too little or too late. Persons against same-sex marriage ought to speak to those that lived through those times, it wasn't pretty.
Think now with "equality" and such the need for a gay "area" has probably lessened. Lord knows Jackson Heights and or Astoria today seems like the Village or Chelsea of old.
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