Original Report: Apartment Shortage Reaches Crisis Level

By BoroPark24 Staff

The word "shortage" or "crisis" isn't new in the Boro Park dictionary when it comes to talking about local apartments, but as per this investigative report by BoroPark24, the crisis has reached a level that Boro Park has never experienced before.

BoroPark24 spoke with a number of parents who are marrying off children in the coming month. Each confirmed the challenging shortage and expressed how hard they have worked over many months to find suitable apartments for their newlyweds with no tangible results.

"We already realized we had no choice but to give in on many of the pre-conditions we stood strongly by for our previous children when they got married," one set of parents shared with BoroPark24. "We have been forced to search for apartments for our newest couple on an entirely different level than what we were looking for until now. Even with us giving up on so many of what we previously viewed as necessities for our daughter to have in a home, we have still been unable to find anywhere for the new couple to live. As it looks now, our couple will be living in a hotel after the wedding until an apartment can be found".

"We searched the whole neighborhood," another parent shared with BoroPark24. "We were even willing to venture further away from the heart of Boro Park while still remaining within a 20-minute walk from the center, but to no avail. In the end, we had no choice but to take a furnished apartment in a tiny basement, so below standard from anything we imagined. Even though no one - not us, not the mechatanim, and not the chosson and kallah were happy with the arrangments, we didn't have any other choice if we wanted to find a place for our new couple to live. In the meantime, we are all still searching for anything better so they can move out of there as soon as possible."

In speaking with real estate brokers to hear another side, BoroPark24 only heard more of the same story.

"I know couples that moved into the Park House Hotel on 12th Avenue after failing in their search for an apartment," Heimishe Agent real estate brokers told BoroPark24. "I don't remember such a crisis in all my years being in this line."

"To be honest, sales aren't down," the agent continued. "Although there isn't the rush to buy properties quite as much as before, it's not totally down like the rental world, which is at a dead end."

Another well-known real estate brokerage company, Ospro Realty, shared something similar with BoroPark24, saying, "We have been in this line for many years, but we have never reached such a point where people who were willing to rethink their priorities still could not find any apartment at all."

A third real estate broker, who wished to remain anonymous, shared with us that she knows of a couple who moved into a Hachnusas Orchim apartment as they found no other option, and another couple who is living in their parent's basement in a guest apartment, something completely unheard of until today.

The reasonable explanation for this painful reality is the phenomenal growth of the Boro Park population coupled with the slower pace of those choosing to move out. While just two to five years ago, thousands of families moved out to new or established neighborhoods every year, in the last year, with mortgage rates at an all-time high and with only a limited number of houses for sale, people aren't moving out.  

If the three-bedroom apartments don't become available, then the one- and two-bedroom residents won't have a new place to move into. The painful result is that this leaves chossons and kallahs with nowhere to go.