Brooklyn is the place to be for college grads

A college grad grows in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn is the place to be for recent college grads according to Brick Underground – a real estate guide for those looking into listings in New York City. More than half of the top 10 list, compiled using an interactive apartment search tool powered by StreetEasy, labels some local Brooklyn nabes the place to be post-degree.

The list labeled Crown Heights as the number one best place to live for a recent college grad, citing its cultural diversity, subway accessibility, and restaurants and nightlife as the main reasons why. Bed-Stuy came in at number five, Clinton Hill at number six, Bushwick at seven, Sunset Park at eight, and Bay Ridge taking it home at number nine.

“It’s getting harder and harder to keep the secret of Bay Ridge under our hats these days,” said local resident and neighborhood activist Justin Brannan about why Bay Ridge made the list. “We’ve got that small town in a big city vibe that people can’t resist. We’ve got miles of parks and waterfront, safe streets, affordable rents, amazing restaurants, unique mom and pop shops. We’ve got the old, the new and everything in between. It’s no wonder newly minted college grads are Googling ‘Bay Ridge Apartments for Rent.’”

While three Manhattan neighborhoods – the East Village, Harlem and Washington Heights/Inwood – make the “10 Best Neighborhoods for College Grads in 2015” list, StreetEasy says “high rent” and the “constricted supply of rental units make Manhattan a particularly challenging rental market for recent grads.

“A few neighborhoods in particular jump out as grad-friendly,” according to StreetEasy’s research, “including: Crown Heights, Astoria, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Bushwick. In each of these markets, rental inventory is high and asking rents are low,” compared to the rest of the city.

According to Brick Underground, the list was compiled based on a five-point ranking scale, measuring factors like affordability, nightlife, length of commute, “cool factor” and safety.

“We’ve found that for people who are just graduating, it’s more about the commute than the space,” Phil Lang, co-founder of brokerage firm TripleMint told Brick Underground. “You don’t care about how big the bedroom is because you’re usually living at work. And people who are just starting work are very concerned about face time in the office and making sure they’re on call, especially in a very demanding field like finance.”

When calculating which data to include in its search engine, StreetEasy looked at the starting income for college grads of different professions, the maximum possible rent that a recent grad could afford while still paying student loans, taxes and other hefty New York City-related living expenses, and how having roommates would affect rental options.

“Our findings suggest that to afford rent in New York, recent college grads will likely need to move into areas far removed from Manhattan and double up – or even triple up – on roommates,” StreetEasy revealed.

 

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