It was just a couple weeks ago that the Bensonhurst Bean was talking about how neighborhoods in Southwest Brooklyn were cursed with the “up-and-coming” label. Turns out they were on the right track, because the MNS Rent Report that looked at October rent prices found that with a 9.3% increase in average rent from October 2013 to October 2014, Bay Ridge had the highest overall rent jump in Brooklyn.
It makes sense, since beyond being nice places to live, once real estate gets its fangs into a neighborhood (like say Crown Heights) and sucks it dry, there’s only so much more “up-and-coming” the neighborhood can do before it’s a sad husk. So, real estate moves on, and here we are talking about Bay Ridge’s rent increase. The numbers themselves aren’t out of control, with studios going from $1,157/month to $1,389 /month, 1-bedrooms going from $1,524/month to $1,606/month and 2-bedrooms going from $2,165/month to $2,303/month. So, keep an eye on that and see if it gets any worse any quicker.
Elsewhere, studios in Bed-Stuy and Bushwick went up 10.66% and 13.19% respectively since last month and will now cost you $1,693/month and $1,775/month, making studios there more expensive than 1-bedrooms in Bay Ridge. Also, rent in Greenpoint dropped 11.7% over the past year, no doubt driven in part by residents’ knowledge that Jen from Greenpointers would be leaving town eventually.