Despite seeing the sharpest price declines in the borough, brownstone Brooklyn remained markedly more expensive than even the trendy neighborhoods to the north, according to a second-quarter sales report released Thursday by Prudential Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel (PDF). In fact, that area of the borough retains a striking similarity to Manhattan’s housing prices.
In northwest Brooklyn, including Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, and Downtown, the average home sold for $674,063, a 17.9 percent annual decline. In north Brooklyn, including Williamsburg and Greenpoint, the average sales price was $561,596—a 0.4 percent quarterly increase, though down nearly 16 percent from the year before.
The difference was most notable in the upper end of the market: Northwest Brooklyn’s top quintile dropped 15.8 percent annually, but still averaged $1,200,000; north Brooklyn’s figures in the top quintile fell by 15.7 percent annually and averaged $840,445.
The portion of the market that the report classifies as “brownstone Brooklyn”—one-to-three family homes in the northwest neighborhoods—averaged $1,100,792, an 18 percent decline. In this segment, the numbers suggest a residential market not too different from Manhattan’s, where the average price, despite drops, hovers somewhere above $1.3 million.
Of course, despite lower prices, Williamsburg and Greenpoint did edge out the brownstones in price per square foot—$423 versus $408—confirming unsurprisingly that if you wear skinny jeans, you probably don’t take up that much space.
Brooklyn’s luxury market (the top 10 percent of all co-op, condo, and one-to-three-family house sales) saw an average sales price of $1,189,499, a 15 percent annual drop.
mfischer@observer.com
