Foreigners also rarely buy a home in New York. For example, the British, who are big fans of foreign real estate, prefer private homes in Florida, where they can spend the chilly British winters in warmth. Russians who have housing in Manhattan are those who often visit the United States for business or family and have free funds to invest in an unsinkable asset – American real estate. Many of them have a work visa or residence permit, and some even have American citizenship.
New York is a classic metropolis, a conglomerate of several cities. It consists of five "boroughs", that is, administrative units. These are Manhattan, the smallest of them, with an area of 35 square kilometers, as well as Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. But it is unlikely that a foreigner in his right mind would think of buying a house in the Bronx or Queens. And although Brooklyn is largely populated by immigrants from the former USSR, and housing there is incomparably cheaper than in Manhattan, but the standard of living and social environment leave much to be desired. You can go there in nostalgia for your homeland or for black bread with buckwheat, but this area is not relevant for those who live in Russia themselves. Therefore, the story of real estate in New York is limited to Manhattan.
Rectangular geography
Manhattan is the business center of America and, perhaps, the whole world, but there is a place not only for offices and banks, but also for housing. We usually think of Manhattan as a city of skyscrapers. Of course, it is, but housing is rarely located in high-rise buildings. Usually residential complexes have from 8 to 20 floors, although the most expensive penthouses are located at the top of real skyscrapers.
When choosing a home, you should look for either a quiet street or a fairly high floor – it's better not to be too close to busy traffic. It is impossible to find such luxury as large courtyards in Manhattan, the windows at best overlook the street, and at worst ... are located at a distance of 3-5 m from the windows of the neighboring house. The road network consists of 12 avenues running the entire length of the island. About 180 streets intersect them at right angles, which forms a grid of blocks. All streets are numbered, and at each intersection there is a sign with the number of intersected highways, so it is impossible to get lost. In many residential areas, traffic is relatively calm and there is a lot of greenery.
Manhattan's housing stock consists almost entirely of apartments located in apartment buildings, there are almost no private houses here. The areas of the island are very unequal. Manhattan is conventionally divided into three parts – Uptown (Uptown), Midtown (Midtown) and Downtown (Downtown). It is definitely not worth settling in national "corners" – Chinatown (China Town), Little Italy (Little Italia), etc. And in Harlem, where the African-American ghetto is located, it is not even worth traveling without knowledgeable people. Downtown is mostly home to offices, but there is little housing. The most attractive thing is on the banks of the Hudson River, in the Battery Park City area, where there is a beautiful promenade, expensive yachts are always parked, there are small parks, and the Statue of Liberty is visible at a glance.
But the best houses in Manhattan are those that have a view of the famous Central Park – a favorite vacation spot for citizens. Eighth and Fifth Avenues, which run along the park, are some of the most expensive streets in the world, but you can save money if you settle on one of the adjacent streets. The Upper East Side area, located to the east of the park, is one of the most attractive for buying a home.
Affordable housing? Utopia
Housing prices in Manhattan are biting. According to Manhattan Apartments Inc, today the typical price of a studio is $200,000–500,000, 1-bedroom apartments cost $550,000-900,000, 2-bedroom apartments range from $900,000 to $2 million. These prices are fair for cooperatives, whereas condominiums (condos) are 25-40% more expensive.
It should be clarified here that New York cooperatives in many ways resemble our HOA, and in condominiums the house is serviced through a management company. Cooperatives became widespread in the post-war period as a way for apartment owners to gain more control over the management of former apartment buildings. Cooperatives have great rights, for example, they can simply forbid the owners to sell you an apartment – as in the Moscow clubhouse. Also, very often there is a ban on renting out a purchased apartment. There are many more buildings managed on the principle of a cooperative in New York, whereas condos are more common in the suburbs.
From a legal point of view, buying a cooperative, you are not buying the property itself, but only a share in the cooperative that owns the building, whereas buying a condo, you pay money for the property itself. Although cooperatives are cheaper, they are worth buying only if you are going to live there permanently. In any case, before making a decision, you should carefully study the rules of the cooperative.
When buying an apartment, you need to provide for additional costs, although very insignificant. When buying an apartment in a cooperative, you need to pay a lawyer from $ 1,250, and for paperwork – from $ 400. But when selling such an apartment, you will have to fork out much more: the broker needs to pay about 6% (in America, only the seller pays the realtor), his lawyer – from $ 1,250, the lawyer of the cooperative – $ 550. Plus, when selling, you need to take into account several types of taxes: 1-3% for transferring a share to another owner, 1-1.4% city tax, 0.4% state tax, etc. Such arithmetic, coupled with a stagnant market, makes short-term speculative operations simply impossible.
Prices are almost not rising
The increase in housing prices in Manhattan last year was 6.1%. Obviously, a deposit in a Russian bank brings in more. There were, however, other times – before the 2001 terrorist attack, housing in the city rose in price by up to 37% per year. After the death of the twin Towers, the growth was only 2% per year. Now the situation is aggravated by the fact that a large-scale crisis has broken out in the American real estate market, which can drag down the entire economy, and not only the American one. The reason for the crisis is that after 2001, bankers began issuing a large number of so-called sub-prime loans, luring borrowers with small incomes into bonded lending conditions. Defaults on loans, the sale of houses at auctions and even a decrease in housing prices began.
New York looks good against this background. In 2006, the average price of an apartment in Manhattan took another milestone and reached, according to Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate, $1,295 million. The average price of 1 sq. ft has also risen to $ 1,031, which corresponds to $11,455 per 1 sq. m. There is a clear dependence – the fewer rooms in the apartment, the cheaper the unit area. So, in studios, the average price of 1 sq. m is $9544, whereas in three–bedroom apartments it is $21 111. Recall that we are not talking about elite facilities, but about average prices!
Meanwhile, since 2003, the number of sales has been steadily decreasing. Currently, approximately 8,500 objects are sold in Manhattan per year, while the number of objects put up for sale at the same time practically does not change and amounts to about 6,000.
Apartment exotics
The layout of American apartments is very different from Moscow apartments. Americans love large open spaces. There are usually no hallways or corridors. The entrance door is located directly in the living room, which is combined with the kitchen. But the bedrooms are usually not very large. Americans also do not like bulky cabinet furniture, instead there are always a lot of closets and built-in wardrobes in the apartment.
When choosing an apartment in Manhattan, you need to be prepared for an abundance of mysterious terms, many of which are used only in this city. If in ordinary studios only the bathroom and sometimes the kitchen are isolated, then the "alcove studios" (An alcove studio) also have a recess for the dining room or for the bed. "Convertible studios" (A convertible studio) allow, if desired, to separate the sleeping area with a mobile or stationary partition. One-bedroom apartments can vary greatly in size. A junior one-bedroom is either a large divided studio or an apartment in which one room is used both as a bedroom and as a living room. "Three rooms" (A three-room) is a type of apartment where, in addition to a bedroom and a living room, there is another room that is too small for a bedroom – this happens in old buildings.
"Flex 2" (Flex 2) allows you to turn an apartment with one large bedroom into an apartment... with two small bedrooms. "A wing apartment" – two full–fledged bedrooms and a common area too small for a living room, for example, a kitchen-dining room. The three-bedroom apartments range from "Convertible" (A convertible 3–bedroom) to "Classic 6" (A classic 6) - the latter in old elite buildings, where servants' quarters and a full-fledged living room were provided. There are also "lofts" (Loft) – a large open-plan room,often after the reconstruction of a commercial building; duplexes – apartments on two levels or with an imitation of the second level using a mezzanine; Triplex – the same thing, but on three levels; "Railroad Apartment" – adjacent rooms without a corridor, etc.
Only the stars are higher
A special type of housing is penthouses. Of course, this is the most expensive type of residential real estate, but there are no poor people among foreign buyers of real estate in New York. According to Jonathan Miller, president of the appraisal and consulting company Miller Samuel Inc., a penthouse is not just a dwelling, but a work of art that can literally and figuratively elevate its owner above all others.
Penthouses almost always have an open space, and as a rule it is very large – it can reach a third of the living area and often extends to several sides of the building. The penthouse itself can be a large apartment on the top floor with panoramic windows, and sometimes it looks more like a private house built on the roof of a skyscraper. Excellent view characteristics are always an important advantage of such objects. Often the penthouse has elements that are inaccessible to other residents, for example, a working fireplace.
In conclusion, it remains to say that living in New York is great, but very expensive and very difficult. Of course, it's nice when a concierge in a beautiful livery opens the door in front of you every day and smiles for free. But, for example, the fact of buying an apartment for several million dollars does not mean that there is a place in the underground garage, whereas an hour of parking in a nearby alley may well cost $ 15-20. Or what to do with the round-the-clock traffic under the windows?
However, if you are already tired of the noise of the metropolis in Moscow, but want to have a second home closer to the "capital of the world", then you can do quite the American thing and buy yourself a mansion in neighboring New Jersey, on the other side of the Hudson River. If you try hard, you can even find something with a view of the famous line of skyscrapers.
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