8 Factors Impacting NYC Real Estate Design Trends in 2016

What’s dictating NYC real estate design and trends now?
We recently covered some of the hot colors, furniture styles, and décor trends happening in NYC real estate this year, but what’s driving those trends? What is deciding what is built, and what is in demand?

1. Walkability
Love walking or not; walkability continues to be a popular factor. Developers and planners are putting more consideration into this factor when it comes to building, it is increasingly a highly marketable factor, and it’s even easier for renters, businesses, and buyers to figure out the walkability of a site or unit thanks to tools like Walk Score.

2. Sustainability
Sustainability regulations and how buildings now compete based on their level of sustainability is forcing new innovation in this area. This is now going beyond just being ‘green’ and LEED certifications to pushing the envelope in buildings becoming self-sufficient in terms of water, power, and in many cases food.

3. Affordable or Not
The US real estate market is being torn into two very opposite directions. One is the urgent and desperate need for affordability. High prices, and New York’s notoriously high property taxes are definitely helping to push more people outwards. At the same time many professionals and funds are flush with cash. For this group out of this world prices are a status symbol and a reward of itself. These diverging trends are only likely to fuel each other ahead. We’ll see more action in boroughs outside of Manhattan, as well as glitzier and more glamorous developments in Manhattan and Brooklyn’s hottest neighborhoods.

4. Lifestyle Design
The above trends aren’t just about money. In fact, they are much more about lifestyle design. That applies to the richest fund managers and the joy they reap from trumping their competitors with big deals, as well as to those looking for housing payments well below their means so that they can enjoy living more freely.

5. Foreign Buyers
There is really no such thing as a ‘foreign’ buyer in NYC. It’s a global metropolis. Still, Forbes recent slideshow ranking the top US cities for foreign buyers in 2016 still puts New York right up there. Expect to continue to see substantial amounts of capital coming from overseas, as well as the impact of international designers on home interiors.

6. Fashion
Europe’s most fashionable luxury brands are increasingly working their way into real estate. From brand name labeled interiors and furniture to entire condominiums named for brands like Armani, Fendi, and Porsche expect this trend to grow, and add a lot to price per square foot.

7. In Pursuit of Epicness
NYC is famous for its monumental buildings, but it can’t sleep on its past acclaim. Emaar Properties in Dubai just announced it is building another massive skyscraper that will surpass even the Burj Khalifa (currently the world’s tallest building). Someone has to come up with something even more special for the Big Apple.

​8. Availability
Of course one of the biggest challenges to development and real estate design in NY is availability. The space and zoning permission to do it. Savvy developers often buy up parcels quietly and piece them together before remarketing a project. If sellers catch on too early they pump their prices up beyond making sense. But it is being done by those with connections to off-market deals, who are tuned into what the leaders are doing with zoning changes and variances, and with the right teams.
Want to build, buy, or rent something amazing in NYC this year? Get in touch with your off-market NYC real estate experts The Ratner Team – we’d love to help!