Clinton Hill Rents Tick Down While Fort Greene Rents Continue Upwards

Heather Chin -
Image courtesy of MNS Real Estate.

Rising real estate prices have reportedly gone up so much in neighboring Bedford-Stuyvesant that it can’t go any higher, according to a report in the New York Daily News that quotes brokers and others in the real estate business as saying that rents are stabilizing and “prices in Bed-Stuy have just gone too far — and the economics for investors no longer pencil out.”

What does that mean for homeowners and renters next door in Clinton Hill? At the moment, not much.

“Probably some upward pressure will continue since the drivers [of rising rental prices] are tight credit and rising employment in New York City,” said Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller Samuel, which compiles reports of trends from Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

Indeed, although the latest Elliman Report shows that although rents “dipped slightly” for the first time in five months in Brooklyn, Curbed wrote that Miller “sees this as a high plateau where prices are about to edge higher or remain flat.”

Neighborhood-by-neighborhood data from MNS Real Estate also bears this out somewhat, with Clinton Hill studio rates increasing both since January (up 1.24 percent) and since this time last year (up from $1,883 to $2,102 per month).

However, Clinton Hill one-bedrooms saw the greatest decrease in the borough by 6.71 percent since January and pretty much stayed the same since last year, going from an average of $2,360 to $2,346. And while two-bedroom rents increased 5.74 percent since January, it slipped from $3,245 to $3,082 since last February.

Fort Greene renters have it a bit worse, with average rents for two-bedroom units actually seeing the largest increase (13.2 percent) in the borough, compared to January’s rates. From January to February, studio rents went up 5.77 percent, one-bedrooms went up 1.26 percent, and two-bedrooms jumped 13.19 percent “due in part to the new addition of 232 Adelphi Street to the market.”

Over the past year, monthly studio rents have actually gone down a bit from $2,500, although remaining steep at around $2,300. One-bedroom rents actually went up from $2,765 to $2,863, and two-bedrooms actually crossed the $4,000-per-month threshold for the first time, going from $3,716 to $4,163.