Photo: dumbonyc/Flickr
With an estimated 70 percent of New York City residents renting their homes, it’s no wonder that New Yorkers seem to always be on the move. The online listing site StreetEasy teamed up with Oz Moving and Storage, one of the largest professional moving companies in the city, to determine where New Yorkers moved to, and why, in 2015.
It should come as no surprise that 68 percent of New Yorkers relocated to a cheaper neighborhood in 2015. That is to say, they moved to neighborhoods with a less expensive median asking rent. According to SpeakEasy, it “speaks to the ongoing hunt for affordable units as rents in Manhattan and Brooklyn continue to outpace income growth each year.”
It is not clear how many moves were by choice or if residents were priced out of their neighborhoods.
A whopping 86 percent of New Yorkers moved within their own borough in 2015, the study found. When moving within Manhattan, 38 percent of residents moved Downtown, to popular neighborhoods like Chelsea, The East Village and Tribeca.
Midtown also proved to be a popular moving destination for New Yorkers. Twenty-two percent relocated to Kips Bay and Murray Hill, both on Manhattan’s East Side.
When venturing out of Manhattan, 35 percent of New Yorkers moved to Brooklyn. Neighborhoods in Northwest Brooklyn like Brooklyn Heights, Dumbo and Fort Greene ranked as the most popular.
Unsurprisingly, ranking not far behind were the trendy markets of Williamsburg and Greenpoint in North Brooklyn. Gentrification in Greenpoint is often compared to what was seen a decade ago in Williamsburg.
You can view the entire StreetEasy report here.
