This week, New York City real estate site Brick Underground teamed up with Streeteasy to evaluate changes in rental prices along the L line, from Bedford Avenue to Broadway Junction, to determine how the impending L train shutdown and generally stagnant prices have affected Williamsburg and Bushwick.
The results, which compare May 2015 and May 2016 rental rates within a five block radius of each station, indicate that the Williamsburg rental market is cooling down. The Bedford stop in particular saw an 11.4 percent drop in median rent from 2015 to 2016—though the rental price per square foot went up by 10 percent (in other words, the prices are falling, but so are the sizes of the apartments, now that developers are squeezing in as many units as possible into spaces which likely cost them more money than the neighborhood’s previous batch of developments).
The Jefferson Street L station’s rent prices went up by just .9 percent— but rental price per square foot went up by 6.1 percent to $38, which is still $17 less than Bedford—so Bushwick rental prices are not getting any higher, but the available units are not getting any bigger, either.
