Jessica Cohen of Prudential Douglas Elliman

From the January issue: When Core’s Kirk Rundhaug started marketing 32 Clinton Street, a four-unit boutique condo in a far-flung corner of the Lower East Side, he was somewhat surprised at who showed up at his open houses. In addition to the young hipsters generally associated with the edgy neighborhood, Rundhaug fielded inquiries from empty nesters from the suburbs of New Jersey and Connecticut. “They were Lower East Side people when they lived in New York,” he said of one 60-something Westchester couple who are eyeing a two-bedroom unit. “They want to come back.” Manhattan’s population of people aged 65 and older is expected to surge nearly 60 percent by 2030 as the baby boom generation ages. And while boomers had largely disappeared from the city’s real estate market in the wake of the financial crisis, brokers say this all-important demographic is now becoming active again. With prices no longer in free fall, many of the city’s boomers are now putting their sprawling apartments and townhouses on the market as they look to downsize to one- and two-bedroom homes. Meanwhile, suburban empty nesters are also reentering the market with an eye toward eventually retiring in the city, exchanging large, labor-intensive houses for apartments rich in services. [more]