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Hi all - I'm contemplating relocating to Brooklyn Heights, preferably a part of it that is not too far from subway stations, and had a few questions. I've been around the neighborhood dozens of times over the years, but not since the pandemic started.
(1) How much traffic was there along Cadman Plaza West, before the pandemic? I know Brooklyn Bridge Blvd and sometimes Cadman Plaza East can be busy because of the traffic to the bridge, just curious if it ends up getting busy on Cadman Plaza West as well - we're mindful of potential street and road noise.
(2) There's a STEM library branch of the Brooklyn Public Library that is being built. Could this lead to other neighborhood improvements and thus property values?
(3) Are there specific parts of Brooklyn Heights that we should be careful about living in?
(4) How difficult is it to have a child admitted to P.S. 8? Where can I learn more about admissions process?
Hi all - I'm contemplating relocating to Brooklyn Heights, preferably a part of it that is not too far from subway stations, and had a few questions. I've been around the neighborhood dozens of times over the years, but not since the pandemic started.
(1) How much traffic was there along Cadman Plaza West, before the pandemic? I know Brooklyn Bridge Blvd and sometimes Cadman Plaza East can be busy because of the traffic to the bridge, just curious if it ends up getting busy on Cadman Plaza West as well - we're mindful of potential street and road noise.
(2) There's a STEM library branch of the Brooklyn Public Library that is being built. Could this lead to other neighborhood improvements and thus property values?
(3) Are there specific parts of Brooklyn Heights that we should be careful about living in?
(4) How difficult is it to have a child admitted to P.S. 8? Where can I learn more about admissions process?
Thanks in advance for your perspectives!
You obviously be a transplant. There is no part of Brooklyn Heights that's terrible because it's expensive. It's always been an upper middle to upper class area of Brooklyn, and many people from Manhattan that either wanted more space and or a short commute into the City lived there. My old boss lived there for years before I convinced him to move to Bay Ridge, where he still lives today.
Hi all, thanks for your responses. To clarify the positioning and backdrop of my question, it's not that I think property values in Brooklyn Heights are low -- I recognize that it's anything but that -- rather, I worry that the residential real estate market has leg down as we are still in the early innings of understanding the lasting ramifications of the pandemic on NYC. There are a number of other threads on city-data where people are debating this topic. In fact, it's exactly the reality that Brooklyn Heights had gentrified many decades ago that a lot of optimism is already priced in. Properties in that area (as well as Downtown Brooklyn) haven't budged much off the historic highs in 2017 despite a pretty meaningful influx of new residential construction in recent years.
Perhaps my concerns about valuations and scenario analysis are misplaced, and I welcome any feedback to the contrary.
Hi all, thanks for your responses. To clarify the positioning and backdrop of my question, it's not that I think property values in Brooklyn Heights are low -- I recognize that it's anything but that -- rather, I worry that the residential real estate market has leg down as we are still in the early innings of understanding the lasting ramifications of the pandemic on NYC. There are a number of other threads on city-data where people are debating this topic. In fact, it's exactly the reality that Brooklyn Heights had gentrified many decades ago that a lot of optimism is already priced in. Properties in that area (as well as Downtown Brooklyn) haven't budged much off the historic highs in 2017 despite a pretty meaningful influx of new residential construction in recent years.
Perhaps my concerns about valuations and scenario analysis are misplaced, and I welcome any feedback to the contrary.
What are you talking about? Gentrified? Brooklyn Heights NEVER gentrified. I don't know where you're from, but you're acting like Brooklyn Heights was some ghetto that got cleaned up and turned around. It has ALWAYS been an expensive neighborhood. ALWAYS. The word you're looking for is property appreciation, and no, you are not going to have crazy spikes in the price when a neighborhood has been stable for so long, as is the case with Brooklyn Heights. Most of it is in the historical district, which further means that the neighborhood will remain stable. Developers won't be able to come in and just tear down a bunch of historical brownstones or other buildings and build some tacky garbage.
Thanks pierrepont7731 for that reply. By "gentrification," I wasn't referring to a situation where it was a "ghetto that got cleaned up and turned around" as you suggested, but had in mind something the way Wikipedia described it, namely "a process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and businesses." I also came across during one of my visits in the neighborhood a plaque outside one of the historic homes -- built in the 1820's, I believe -- that referred to Brooklyn Heights as "New York's first suburb." So, definitely I was not suggesting that the neighborhood has been anything but nice, at least for as long as I've been on this earth!
Interestingly, Wikipedia (for what it's worth) also details the history of Brooklyn Heights as follows: "By the mid-1950s, a new generation of property owners had begun moving into the Heights, pioneering the "Brownstone Revival" by buying and renovating pre-Civil War period houses, which became part of the preservationist movement which culminated in the passage in 1965 of the Landmarks Preservation Law.[21] In 1965, community groups which later became the Brooklyn Heights Association, succeeded in having the neighborhood designated the Brooklyn Heights Historic District by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, the first such district in the city. This was followed in the following decades by the further gentrification of the neighborhood into a firmly middle-class area, which became "one of New York City's most pleasant and attractive neighborhoods."[5]"
I appreciate your perspectives, and agree that the nature of my inquiry was around property appreciation and how different neighborhoods in Brooklyn are evolving today.
If you think you will buy a $7 million brownstone today and sell it for $14 million in 3-5 years... I doubt that.
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