Commercial Real Estate: Continued Growth in New York City and Beyond

The One Thing That Will Never Be Reproduced is Land

There is always a constant growth spurt somewhere in the world, where new opportunities arise and a boom in the area begins. Buildings go up, houses get built, shopping malls appear and the people flock to it if the area offers job opportunities. The trick is having the vision to see where that boom may take place, for those who look carefully enough it becomes pretty clear.

There are a few places in the world that real estate never tends to get old and is always in demand, one in particular is New York City, and believe it or not with all the congestion and buildings butted up against each other the growth spurt is continuing. It is not only in Manhattan but its through out the 5 boroughs, again if you look carefully you will see the areas that will be in play.

Manhattan has seen a flock of developers swarm around Harlem but for those that had vision they benefitted from the incentives that the state gave for them to roll the dice, now with the development boom in the area those incentives are all but gone. The Upper East and West side are always in demand but there are a few solid areas that are still in play but at the beginning stages and I’ll just reserve that information to share with my clients. Point is that opportunities are still there.

Brooklyn had the same type of effect and it all started with the waterfront properties and those closest to Manhattan, Williamsburg Brooklyn was targeted by developers early on because it is literally one stop away from Manhattan. The area attracted hipster residents who couldn’t afford the Lower East Side rates and now those original hipsters have been pushed out replaced by those that are more affluent. This is the process, the area gets developed and there is a big shift in the face of the neighborhood. This has spread to Greenpoint, Red Hook and other areas of Brooklyn YET there is so much more to come.

One area of Queens that has had somewhat of that effect is Long Island City or LIC, a name that the community board and city are considering changing to make it stand out and not have an association with Long Island itself, believe it or not. Queens sits on Long Island as does Brooklyn but neither of them are a part of Long Island, if that makes any sense. Anyhow the development of LIC is still taking shape although many high end condo and coop buildings were erected over the years. The trick is to attract more major businesses to come into the area, which brings us back to commercial real estate.

And finally The Bronx and Staten Island are feeling their way around but due to the distance from Manhattan, even a boat ride across the water may not spark the boost to come close to the Brooklyn or Queens boom.

The new Mayor of New York City is trying to put through a standard for developers of multifamily units that would force them to have a 50/30/20 division, meaning 50% of the residences will be at market value, 30% will be for middle income families and 20% will be specifically for low income families. So imagine having a luxury high rise building and you have to adhere to those standards, it wouldn’t be so exclusive anymore would it?

Though I understand the concept of people in the community not being priced out of the market, there should be a better way to handle it, so only time will tell what comes out of it.

Anyhow in short as you can see there is still much opportunity in an area such as New York City, commercial real estate is in play in many other cities but you need to have the vision to see it and getting there first is not always the most popular move but it can pay off in spades if the bet is correct.

I’m always open to connecting with other commercial real estate professionals, buyers and sellers globally so feel free to contact me.

Louis Velazquez

@louisvelazquez