“When I first moved to Brooklyn, you had to beg your friends to get their passports stamped to come here,” jokes Jay Molishever, a licensed broker at Citi Habitats. “Now it is well known this is where the creative people live. Brooklyn is what New York used to be—a city of neighborhoods and human-scaled living.”
Once the cheap alternative to Manhattan, Brooklyn has become known for its rich identity rooted in the arts and culture.
“Now, Brooklyn is a choice and a lifestyle,” says Eric Sidman, a broker at Town. “The value proposition that once existed is almost gone and people are now moving to Brooklyn because they want to.” Ten years ago, Sidman explains, Brooklyn was considerably cheaper than Manhattan and a two-bedroom in Williamsburg would go for the price of a one-bedroom in Manhattan. But the western neighborhoods in Brooklyn, especially those along the water, have become highly desirable and now scale the ranks of Manhattan’s expensive neighborhoods with prices equaling, and in the case of Dumbo surpassing, its counterparts across the river.