Brooklyn homeowners hold on to their homes longer than any other borough, according to a new study.
Real estate company Point2 released the findings from 2022, which show that Brooklynites who bought a single family home stayed in them for roughly 11.8 years, a .7 increase from 2019.
Interestingly, Brooklynites bucked the trend of their fellow New Yorkers, who tended to hang onto larger real estate purchases longer than smaller ones.
“At city level, the larger the home, the more time owners spent in it before selling,” a Point2 spokesperson said. “But this rule doesn’t really apply to Brooklyn owners: They spent the least amount of time in the largest homes, or homes larger than 5,000 square feet, 6.6 years.”
In Kings County, locals remained in homes between 2,000 and 3,000 square feet for a median tenure of 11 years, more than any other sized home.
Andra Hopulele, an author of the study , accredits the long-term residency to various familial and personal needs, including relocating for a job, partner or family member.
“However, even less ‘significant’ factors might be equally compelling: The desire to move to a better location, lack of satisfaction with the current home, changing family needs, regrets about a home that turned out to be an impulse buy,” Hopulele said. “At the end of the day, residents’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their home and their home’s location are the main factors.”
With interest rates rising during the pandemic, potential home owners were “pushed aside” from making purchases while current owners were inclined to “stand down” despite the high demand for one-to-three family homes in Brooklyn.
“The daunting prospect of paying much higher mortgage rates forced many buyers to stand down, and many owners to hold on to their home and their much lower mortgages. Owners may be holding on to their homes because the current climate of uncertainty is making them more risk-averse,” Hopulele told Brooklyn Paper in a statement.
Families are more likely to stay in the home they purchased with a 30-year, fixed rate mortgage rather than upsize, a recurrent event called “the golden handcuffs.”
This has caused Brooklyn dwellers to spend “progressively more time” in their homes in 2022 compared to pre-pandemic numbers, going from a median tenure of 7.1 years in 2019 to a median of 8.1 years in 2022.
Still, according to Point2, New York City homeowners are still a long way off from reaching tenures as long as other American cities.
