Thursday, July 16, 2020
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A situation like this has not existed in New York City in over ten years: There are empty rental apartments. The reason for this: the corona pandemic. Many residents no longer recognize the city. But the crisis also offers the metropolis an opportunity.
There are lots of moving trucks on the streets of New York City right now. After the traumatic experiences at the beginning of the corona epidemic in the USA, in which New Yorkers sat day in and day out in apartments that were too small and were afraid of infection in their densely populated metropolis, many are now turning their backs on the city and moving into it Suburbs or in the country. There are now empty apartments everywhere in the center – and New York is once again on the brink of upheaval.
“I wasn’t ready to go yet,” said Nick Barnhorst, recalling his emotional state in February, when the coronavirus had not yet put New York in a state of emergency. The 41-year-old had lived in NYC for eleven years and loved the city. He didn’t want to move away to have more space for his growing family until at least a year. But then the events rolled over: Barnhorst’s wife became pregnant with their third child – and Sars-CoV-2 raged in New York. The realization hit Barnhorst like a blow: “Let’s get out of here, and as soon as possible.”
Next week Barnhorst and his family will move into a house in the affluent suburb of Marmaroneck. “I always thought that I would have to be dragged away here – but now I can’t be happy enough,” says the 41-year-old. He’s not the only one around him. A friend and his eight month pregnant wife fled New York for a weekend to relatives in Massachusetts in early March – and never came back to the Big Apple. The friend traded his condo for a home in suburban Westchester County.
Housing prices in suburbs are rising
“To be trapped in a small apartment with two children for four months and nothing that defines this city takes place anymore – that makes it easy to leave,” says Barnhorst. Finding a new place to stay wasn’t easy for him, however, because prices in New York’s suburbs have skyrocketed. A whopping 20 percent increase in price is not uncommon, says Richard Stanton, real estate agent in Montclair. A “real flood” of prospective buyers is coming to the small town in the neighboring state of New Jersey.
Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio often compare the Corona crisis with the situation after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which the city mastered with dignity. Dillon Kondor feels very differently. The “New York Pride” after 9/11 drew him to the city, says the guitarist, who has worked for Broadway musicals. But now everything that made New York a magnet – its restaurants, theaters and shops – has been paralyzed, says Kondor. And the crowds are no longer a source of inspiration for him, but a cause for concern.
This became clear to the musician when he was walking through Central Park with his wife in the spring and they met too many people without masks. On the way home, “one of us said: We have to get out of town”. In fact, the couple moved to Tarrytown in the Hudson Valley in June.
In the south of Manhattan, more than five percent of rental apartments are vacant – something like this has not happened in ten years. But the current exodus is also an opportunity for the city to renew itself, as is so often the case, says real estate agent Stanton. “Should prices fall in New York City, it would be a good opportunity for young people to move in there.”
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