Brooklyn developers aren’t keeping up with the condo demand

Q4 unit filings were well below the number of apartments sold during any quarter in past year

1587 19th Street in Midwood (Credit: Google Maps)
1587 19th Street in Midwood (Credit: Google Maps)

Homebuyers in Brooklyn are snapping up condominiums faster than developers are filing for new ones. In 2016, the number of new residential condo units planned for the borough fell to 1,848, a 34 percent decrease relative to 2015, while the number of condo sales increased each quarter.

In January, keeping with the trend, there were 13 condo offerings with a total of 171 residential units filed with the New York State Attorney General’s Office. That’s above the average of 160 new units per month in 2016, but well below the number of closed sales.

In the fourth quarter of 2016, 492 new condo units in Brooklyn were proposed. But during that same period, 791 condo units sold, leaving a fairly substantial gap. The number of condo sales in the fourth quarter represents a 6.5 percent increase from the third quarter, and a 44 percent increase from the previous year, according to a report by Douglas Elliman.

The condo offerings filed in January were spread throughout Brooklyn, with two in Borough Park, two in Bedford-Stuyvesant, two in Greenpoint, and several more dotted throughout South and East Brooklyn.

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The largest of the condo filings proposed was an 84-unit residential condo in Midwood, at 1587 East 19th Street. The developers, a group of investors led by Xin Xiang Lin, had previously filed plans for an eight-story building spanning 84,242 square feet with the Department of Buildings. That application was approved in 2015.

Abraham Wieder is the developer behind two neighboring condo filings in Borough Park with 15 units between them. Department of Buildings filings show a proposed five-unit building at 4809 14th Avenue and a 10-unit building at 4815 14th Avenue.

In filings in the rest of the city, 88 new units were proposed in two condo filings in Queens, while in Manhattan, there were six new condo filings with 214 new residential units. A total of 535 units in Manhattan were proposed in the fourth quarter of 2016.

(To see a chart illustrating eight years of Brooklyn’s submitted condo filings, click here.)