The Housing Comeback - How City Life Has Changed
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - All this week, WCBS 880 is looking at what's happening in the housing market and the progress that's being made.
Today, Ginny Kosola reports on how life in the city has changed.
Melissa Kleiner Cohen, a salesperson for Douglas Elliman, said she's seeing more families deciding to live in the city.
The Housing Comeback - How City Life Has Changed
"Where both parents are working, they both need to be close to their job and if they have to two or three children, even if they have a nanny who's watching them, they want to be close to where their children are," she told Kosola.
"We thought this area felt more homey and kid-friendly," said Ania, who has a young daughter and lives in a condominium at West 70th Street and Riverside Boulevard. "They have a park right there, and then down by the water, they have activities for children every once in a while. They have baseball fields."
Some of these families eventually plan to move to the suburbs, but they plan to keep the condo and rent it out, Cohen said.
"We see folks saying 'Well, my kids are young now, but once they go to college, my husband and I will be back in the city,'" she said.
Like around the country, some owners in Manhattan have been reluctant to sell, Cohen said. That creates competition for listings, but Cohen said the latest surveys indicate inventory is improving.
But some people have been finding a home with a view not from Manhattan, but of Manhattan.
"That view - I've looked at it for four years straight and it never ceases to mesmerize me," said Scott Walsh, director of sales and market research for developer TF Cornerstone.
Manhattan looks spectacular from the Brooklyn/Queens waterfront.
Behind the Pepsi-Cola sign in Long Island City, people are settling in with families.
"We started to get new supermarkets, the Duane Reade, and additional restaurants. There's hotels. There's nightlife," Walsh said, adding there are parks, a new school being built, and there's plenty of space.
"The majority of the building - two and three-bedroom apartments, some duplexes, a few with large outdoor spaces," he said.
He said it answers the need of young professionals with families who want to live near work.
"It's definitely not a lifestyle where you have five bikes and a huge garage and you're storing a river raft, but it is a place where parents, I think, have more time to spend with their children," he said.
Walsh said things definitely slowed down during the financial crisis, but since 2012 they have been improving.
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