Our Search for a Single-Family Home in Brooklyn

:: When looking for a new home or condo in Brooklyn, there are a lot of questions you have to ask yourself to help you decide which home is right for you.  However, when it comes time to break out the checkbook, how will you decide how much you are willing to pay for something that doesn’t have a clear dollar value assigned to it?  For instance, it is easy to say that you would pay another $20,000 for a home with a pool, because you could just as easily buy a home without a pool and spend $20,000 to have one installed.  But what would you pay to be one minute closer to Manhattan?

To do this, I listed out all the neighborhoods in Brooklyn and found the average price per square foot for a home or condo in that neighborhood.  From there, I took three questions that I thought were pretty important, but difficult to put a number to and tried to find as much about them for each neighborhood as I could.  Namely:

• How far away is it from Manhattan by subway?
• How safe is the neighborhood?
• How affluent is the neighborhood?

It turns out that these questions are just as straight forward to answer as valuing the cost of having a pool.   Here is what you do:

1. Start at $415 per square foot
2. Subtract $3.50 for every minute it takes to get to Times Sq
3. Subtract $2.50 for every rape or murder reported
4. Add $3 for every $1,000 of average household income

As an example, let’s assume that you want to live within 30 minutes of Times Square by subway.  And while you don’t necessarily support it, you are ok with living in a neighborhood that had 20 reported cases of rape or murder per 100,000 residents (for reference, Brooklyn Heights had about 8, Bed-Stuy had 45, and Cypress Hill had 85).  Lastly, let’s say that you make $40,000, but want to find a rich husband and therefore want to live in an area that has an average household income of at least $60,000.  

1. Start at $415 per square foot
2. Subtract $3.50 * 30 minute commute time = $75
3. Subtract $2.50 * 20 rapes or murders = $50
4. Add back $3 * $60K average household income = $180

Nobody ever said that Brooklyn was cheap (average price per square foot is $334), but to find that special someone, you are looking at paying $470 per square foot.  Of course, it is your choice how many square feet you want to spring for, but at least now you can go in prepared.

Thanks to Trulia, NYC.gov, Google Maps and the Census for all the data and to TopLeftPixel for the picture!  For you number junkies, you can check out my regression analysis.

Stay classy, America!