Halstead Property last month became the first major Manhattan residential brokerage to open an office in Riverdale. The northwestern Bronx enclave is one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods and has seen something of a building boom. Halstead’s move capitalized on that growth, and it’s only a small leap to assume other big Manhattan-based brokerages are taking extra notice of Riverdale, too.
“We have a list of people interested in buying up here, either as investor units or they’re moving into the area as their primary residence,” said Vasco Da Silva, the director of sales for the office, who came from Halstead’s West Side location. “What we’re finding is that there’s an in- flux of a lot of singles and young couples coming into Riverdale, which is really creating a community ripe for real estate needs.”
The prices these newcomers will find in Riverdale could be a pleasant sticker shock. Other Halstead brokers have been referring prospective buyers to the Riverdale office because they’ve been priced out of the Manhattan market, Da Silva said. A three-bedroom in Riverdale can be had for between $599,000 and $725,000, he said, something unheard of only a short subway ride south.
Halstead’s retail storefront office at 3531 Johnson Avenue houses 20 agents who will be dipping toes in different counties. The firm announced that the new office and its agents will join the Westchester County Board of Realtors and the Westchester-Putnam MLS as well as the Bronx-Manhattan North Association of Realtors and the Bronx-Manhattan North MLS.
“Our market reach will be the entire Westchester area, and then also northern Manhattan, specifically Washington Heights and Inwood,” Da Silva told The Real Deal, “and then the whole of the Bronx, with the emphasis on Riverdale, obviously.”
Halstead is no stranger to forays north of Manhattan.
In June, it became the first big city-based firm to open an office in the Hudson Valley, in the city of Hudson about 120 miles north of Manhattan. Halstead also plans to open a Harlem office in early 2006 at 119th Street and Lenox Avenue.
Harlem, in fact, may be the best barometer for what may be in store for Riverdale. Halstead followed the Corcoran Group, Warburg Realty and Prudential Douglas Elliman into Harlem. All the firms opened offices in that neighborhood within about 12 months of each other, taking advantage of what’s become one of the busiest Manhattan areas for residential development and marketing.
In 2005 through September, according to the state Attorney General’s office, 249 condos were approved for sale in Riverdale; from 2002 through 2004, 87 were. More than 338 condos are in the pipeline for Riverdale, possibly drawing investors and joining the neighborhood’s formidable array of single-family houses, coming on the heels of zoning regulations that contain high-rise development.