Bruce Sturman says NY Real Estate residential sales are trending to rental

NEW YORK - Oct. 8, 2013 - PRLog -- About 15,300 new rental units are under construction or planned in the next two years for Brooklyn, compared with just 1,700 planned condos, according to Bruce Sturman of The Maxal Group. Developers see rentals as a safer bet in a market where rents are climbing faster than in Manhattan and neighborhoods such as Bushwick, Greenpoint and Crown Heights are gentrifying, drawing professionals seeking more space and tree-lined streets.

The median apartment rent in Brooklyn, the most populous of New York’s five boroughs and once a refuge from Manhattan’s sky-high costs, was the highest in at least five years in August, rising 4.6 percent from a year earlier to $2,850, according to appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Douglas Elliman Real Estate. In Manhattan, rents gained 1.8 percent to a median of $3,150.
Manhattan’s Reverse

The condo units being built in Brooklyn today are smaller, lower-rise properties, as developers shy from large-scale towers that could take years to build and might be finished at a time when mortgage rates are higher and they are more difficult to sell.