“The closer you get to the J train, the lower the price is,” says Eva Daniels, principal of her namesake realty company. “More people want to be near the A, C line, and I think that’s a component of the price, how accessible public transportation is.” “People want to be able to walk to the train and get to work quickly,” says Furman Calhoun of Halstead Property. Since Bed-Stuy is so vast, transportation is a major issue. Though it has less attractive houses and is serviced only by the G train, it’s been optimistically dubbed by many brokers as “Clinton Hill East.” The most coveted area of Bed-Stuy is the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District – a dozen blocks of magnificent 19th-century homes – as well as brownstones on the southern portion of the nabe, close to the A train, which zaps commuters to Wall Street in about 15 minutes.Īlso heating up is the western section of the neighborhood. “Others are very beautiful, very desirable.” “Some blocks aren’t that desirable they lack strong block associations and aren’t well maintained,” he adds.
“It’s a tough call as to whether it’s overvalued, because it’s such a big area. “Bed-Stuy’s not undervalued,” says appraiser Neglia. However, the area still lacks many services, and – while certainly on the up-and-up – still boasts some of the toughest streets in the city. Whether or not the sellers will get this price remains to be seen. The price for all this inconvenience was a staggering $725,000. It was a distant walk to the G train – arguably the least accessible line in the city. In reality, we viewed a decrepit home with visible water damage, exposed wiring and a nonsensical layout. Among the many houses we visited, one was advertised as a three-family duplex with two two-bedroom apartments. Working undercover on a rainy Sunday afternoon, NYP Home attended open houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant. It’s just incredible.”īut has the neighborhood become overpriced? There are three or four abandoned properties just a block away, and they’re being gutted and renovated.
“There was a vacant building on my street now it’s being rented out. “I see the neighborhood changing every day,” he says. After nearly two years of searching (starting in Clinton Hill, Fort Greene and Prospect Heights) he closed on a two-family brownstone on Tomkins Avenue in September.Īt that time, Howard, 33, was able to purchase something “below $500,000.” But today, he notes, homes on his block are selling for nearly $700,000. Rawle Howard, a lawyer, is one among many newcomers to the nabe. The tidal wave of gentrification now reaches firmly into Bed-Stuy – best known, until recently, as “Do or Die” – bringing with it new faces, new construction and ceaseless renovation projects. By contrast, 1,454 were sold in the first half of 2004. Back in 1995, 362 houses were sold in the neighborhood, according to real-estate appraiser Dominick Neglia. Just how hot is the area? Look at the sheer volume of real-estate transactions. Recently, a two-family brownstone sold for $872,500 – a record for the neighborhood – and some homes currently on the market hover around the $1 million mark. Except that this particular open house was in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a neighborhood whose reputation has been transformed, seemingly overnight, from the hard streets of hip-hop lore to the last bastion of affordability in brownstone Brooklyn.Īffordability is relative, of course. It’s a familiar scene in Brooklyn’s classic neighborhoods, like Park Slope and Carroll Gardens. At a Brooklyn open house earlier this month, a dozen or so would-be buyers examined a brownstone for original details, discussing renovation possibilities and debating rental incomes for the upper-floor apartments.Īs a sign of the type of buyers the home attracted, a Saab – with Florida plates – sat double-parked outside.