Cashing Out, December 30, 2007 (link below) THERE is a well-worn path between New York City and the surrounding suburbs.
People are discovering that with Manhattan's high apartment prices, they can cash out and get much more for their money outside the city, where the inventory is growing and the prices are falling. Some buyers, not quite ready for picket-fence lives, are even finding pockets of urbanism that didn't exist outside the city a few years ago. "You can negotiate better in the suburbs because their market is at best flat, and there's a lot of inventory. The prices of the city haven't gone down. They keep going back up." Manhattan real estate prices are showing few signs of slipping. The numbers stand in stark contrast to those of the suburban market. Even in coveted suburbs like Darien, Conn., the number of houses under contract dropped by 23 percent in November compared with the year before. New Jersey sellers face even more problems: statewide, house prices have dropped by about 1 percent a month in the last several months, said the president of the Otteau Appraisal Group in East Brunswick. Buyers are finding luxurious condos in the suburbs that they could not afford in Manhattan. They want a house within a 10-minute walk from a train station .They're confident that the market will only continue to work in their favor. ========================================================= But here's the rub for us: They're "looking for safer streets, better schools." Full article here: Cashing Out of New York City - New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/realestate/30cov.html?pagewanted=all> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/realestate/30cov.html?pagewanted=all <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/realestate/30cov.html?pagewanted=all>
