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120 NORTH PEARL STREET Port Chester, NY
NORTH PEARL STREET - LOOKING NORTH
Millennials Spark Apartment Boom
County real estate developers aim to combat Westchester’s youth drain.
Trending
By Dave Donelson
What happened to all the young folks?
A confluence of demo- graphic trends, lifestyle changes, and economic real- ities has squeezed the coun- ty’s population of young people in the critical career- and family-starting stage, causing many of them to leave Westchester for cheaper, hipper pas- tures. From 1990 to 2010, US Census data for Westchester shows a 21 per- cent decline in the 25- to 34-year-old age group. Some of this is attributable to the aging of the baby boomers, but nationally the decline was only 5 per- cent. Our Millennials are definitely leaving, and a key reason is that they have a tough time finding a place to live that isn’t their parents’ basements.
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Martin Ginsburg, perhaps the county’s most successful multifam- ily residential developer, points out the cold, hard truth. “We just didn’t provide anything for Millennials in Westchester. There are a substantial number of them in New York City because it has an environment there that appeals to them. The same in Stamford.”
Local Millennials seem to agree.
“Buying a house isn’t even a con- sideration right now,” says Robbie Scott, a 25-year-old research opera- tions manager at a local equity re- search firm. “I’d like to [buy a house] in the next 10 to 15 years, but the trends in Westchester are working against me. A lot of people in my age group would rather pay rent than
“Anybody who doesn’t take [Millennials] into account is missing an important part of the market.”
New developments like 120 North Pearl Street in Port Chester are geared toward Millennial renters.
a mortgage. The cost of living here makes it difficult for younger people to save.” Scott recently moved into an apartment at One City Place in White Plains with his girlfriend, who works in Manhattan.
Aimee Hirsch, a Millennial copy editor who recently found an apart- ment in Ossining after an exhaust- ing search, points out another big money problem for her age group: “My boyfriend and I both have stu- dent loans, so that doesn’t leave a lot of [financial] wiggle room. We just don’t have a lot of savings.” She adds, “If you have to have the first and last month’s rent, security de- posit, and a broker’s fee on top, it’s almost impossible.”
Developers like Ginsburg have seized this opportunity to build thousands of new rental apartments with the Millennial market in mind. “Anybody who doesn’t take [Millennials] into account is missing an important part of the market,” he says. “I think they are 35 to 40 percent of the apartment market in Westchester.”
Ginsburg has three projects, totaling 584 total units, coming to fruition in the03-2c8o-20u14nty this year: Harbor Square in Ossining, River Tides in Yonkers, and The Lofts in Hastings-on-Hudson. While rents across the developments start as low as $1,495 for a studio and range up to $5,400 for two bedrooms, he’s providing a wealth of amenities— concierge service, swimming pools, fitness centers, club rooms, yoga studios, spas—to match the lifestyles of his prospective Millennial (and other) tenants.
While keeping Westchester’s Mil- lennials here is one goal of these de- velopers, attracting them from New York City is another opportunity. “In White Plains, we’re getting a lot of people from Brooklyn and Queens who are getting priced out of those markets,” says Houlihan Lawrence broker Gino Bello. “Their rents shot up to $4,000 to $5,000 per month, whereas here we hover around $2,500 to $3,500.” He adds that it’s not that big of a lifestyle adjustment, either. “White Plains gives them that urban feeling, where they have res- taurants, shopping, and 24-hour city life.” Ultimately, he adds, “The num- ber-one factor for all renters is being close to the train.”
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