纽约市L线地铁取消停运计划，利好沿线房地产市场

随着一场交通“灾难”得以避免，纽约市的一小块地段看来又成了黄金地段。不过谁会从此事中受益，是房东、租客、买房者还是企业，却是一个值得争论的问题。

2012年，往返于曼哈顿和布鲁克林的L线地铁在飓风“桑迪”肆虐期间被洪水灌入，造成了线路设施受损。为了对受损路段进行维修，纽约州政府原计划于2019年4月27日起对L线地铁实施停运维修。不过纽约州州长安德鲁·库默在上周四出人意料地宣布，L线地铁原定的停运整修计划将暂不实施，L线地铁未来15个月内仍将继续运营，至少是部分时间运营。

纽约房地产公司理想地产集团（Ideal Properties Group）的常务董事亚历山大·斯帕诺维奇告诉《财富》杂志：“L线地铁停运计划被取消是一个喜人的消息，预计它将导致威廉斯堡地区的房屋租售行为有所增加。另外，有些人受地铁停运影响，本打算搬离这一区域一两年，但现在他们可能会回心转意，继续住在这里。”

在过去十年多时间里，布鲁克林的威廉斯堡社区和绿点社区的租金逐年大幅上涨。随着这里的高层公寓一栋栋拔地而起，各大连锁商超纷纷进驻，很多年轻人当上了房东，还有很多科技、金融行业的从业者在此购房，这里也成了孵化城市“新中产”的温床。

随着L线地铁停运维修的消息传出，当地企业和居民对失去这条交通“生命线”深感忧虑。为了将房子租出去，不少房东也推出了种种激励政策，有的提出可以免收一个月的房租，有的提供了网约车优惠。还有些业主干脆想离开这个社区。虽然L线地铁取消停运的消息令不少地铁通勤族松了一口气，但并不是所有人都对库莫的声明感到满意，而L线地铁也留下了不少仍未解决的问题。

RIPCO房地产公司布鲁克林办事处的零售经纪业务总经理贾森·彭宁顿表示：“上周四的新闻肯定会提升上述所有业务类别的信心水平，因为他们知道，顾客出行不便的问题将会得以缓解。”不过彭宁顿也指出，受夜间和周末施工的影响，L线地铁的运营班次肯定会有很大变化。这对于那些比较依赖游客和城市其他区域居民的本地企业及餐馆来说也依然是个问题。

霍斯德地产公司（Halstead）的经纪人华纳·刘易斯指出，在上周四的声明发布之前，当地的房地产市场一直在下跌。“很多开发商把房子从市场上撤了下来，然后重新定一个更低的价格。房东们在租金上让步也很大，个人卖家也只有降价才能把房卖出去。”

威廉斯堡社区的居民、建筑设计公司梅斯伯格集团（Meshberg Group）的创始人及负责人亚当·梅斯伯格也认为，当地房地产市场最近日趋疲软。但他认为情况可能会很快就会好转。

他表示：“有一个客户今天打电话过来，说他们打算以低于市场价的价格出租一套房子，租期两年。不过就在签订合同之前的几分钟，他们听到了这个消息。然后他们就改了主意，不想再以低价出租了。”

斯帕诺维奇认为，L线地铁取消停运，无论对房东和租客都是好事。最明显的一点就是租客和买房者不用再担心通勤受到严重干扰。而房东和卖房者也能像以前一样正常交易了。

布鲁克林的MNS房地产公司的CEO安德鲁·巴洛克斯表示：“每个人都以为房主从中获益最多，但其实这个消息对租房者和购房者也带来了重大利好。居民可以让他们的孩子在城市里上学，自己也可以上班。当然，房主也获得了利益。这并不是非黑即白的。”

对于一些想抢低租金房的租客来说，留给他们的机会窗口已经很窄了。

斯帕诺维奇表示：“纽约的冬季气温总是会对房价产生影响——无论是对卖房价格还是租金，今年也不例外。下一步，价格很可能会向上调整。等到过几个月天气变暖了，它的刺激效应可能就会有所减弱。”

刘易斯指出，L线地铁取消停运计划的影响会立即在租房市场上表现出来。“各种让步会逐渐减少，市场上的潜在租客会增加。这也是威廉斯堡的房东们在2019年最希望得到的一份大礼。”

这条至关重要的交通线也有助于提振周边的房地产市场，特别是北边近在咫尺的长岛市，亚马逊公司刚刚宣布计划在那里建设一个新总部。另据近日最新发布的数据，纽约皇后区公寓的搜索量和询盘量几乎立即出现了飙升。L线地铁的继续运营，意味着从威廉斯堡可以直达谷歌在曼哈顿西侧的基地。而谷歌最近也打算在南边不远处沿哈德逊河建一个新园区。

纽约长岛经纪公司Modern Spaces的创始人及CEO埃里克·贝纳姆表示，有些地段盼着L线地铁停运，就是为了将人流吸引到他们的社区和楼盘。现在这些地段自己也必须变得更有竞争力才行。

斯帕诺维奇认为，未来亚马逊新建的长岛总部的员工中，将有相当一部分选择住在绿点和威廉斯堡社区，以及曼哈顿的中城东区，和皇后区长岛市北部的阿斯托利亚。

“亚马逊选择长岛市作为总部所在地，这也是一种本地化的市场力量，很可能导致该地区租金和房产销售价格的上涨。” 斯帕诺维奇说。（财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎

With a transit “apocalypse” avoided, a small area of real estate in New York City looks prime again. But who stands to benefit—whether it be landlords, renters, buyers, or businesses—is now a question up for debate in and beyond the five boroughs.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made the surprise announcement on last Thursday the L train subway tunnel between Manhattan and Brooklyn will not be shutting down for 15 months—previously scheduled to start on April 27, 2019—as originally planned. The L train will continue to run throughout that period, at least sometimes. The closure had been in the works for years in order to repair damage incurred during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when the subway tunnel was submerged by floodwaters.

“The news of L-pocalypse avoided is a welcome development, and is expected to result in an upswing of renting and buying activity in Williamsburg,” Aleksandra Scepanovic, managing director of New York real estate firm Ideal Properties Group, tells Fortune. “People who may have been considering moving out of the area for a year or two because of the shutdown are likely to reverse their thinking and stay put.”

Brooklyn’s Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods have steadily seen rents rise sharply over the last decade, but are also often derided as hotbeds of gentrification with an influx of luxury high-rises, mass market retailers, and a younger professional crowd of renters and buyers often working in tech and finance.

With the news of an official shutdown, local businesses and residents had been dreading a future without a vital transit link to the area, and many landlords were offering incentives, from a free month of rent to Uber credits, to keep tenants as some renters already prepared to leave the neighborhood altogether. While perhaps a relief to some current L train straphangers, not everyone was pleased with Cuomo’s announcement right away, and there is still no shortage of unanswered questions.

“Last Thursday’s news will definitely raise the confidence level of all the above business categories knowing that their customers will be much less inconvenienced. If they haven’t moved, residents looking to leave will reconsider,” says Jason Pennington, managing director of retail brokerage at RIPCO Real Estate’s Brooklyn office. But given that there will still be significant schedule changes with night and weekend construction work, Pennington warns the shutdown could still be an issue for local businesses and restaurants catering to tourists and outer borough residents.

Before last Thursday’s announcement, the local real estate market was down—and continuing to go down, according to Warner Lewis, an agent at Halstead, a real estate firm covering the tri-state area. “Many developers had pulled units off the market and were repricing them lower, landlords were giving very robust concessions, and individual sellers were having to discount prices to get deals done.”

Adam Meshberg, a resident of Williamsburg as well as founder and principal of architecture and design firm Meshberg Group, concurred that the market had been getting softer, but suggested things could turn around quickly.

“One client called today and shared they were about to rent one of their units for a two-year contract under market value to fill the space,” Meshberg said. “Minutes before signing the contract, they heard the announcement and are no longer renting it under value.”

Scepanovic thinks both landlords and tenants could stand to benefit from the news, the most obvious being tenants and buyers won’t have to worry about a significant disruption to their commutes. Landlords and sellers, of course, will be able to continue with business as usual.

“Everyone wants to hear that it’s the landlords who will benefit the most, but there is a tremendous benefit to the renters and buyers,” adds Andrew Barrocas, CEO of MNS Real Estate in Brooklyn. “Residents can get their kids to school in the city, get to work, etc. And of course, landlords will reap the benefit. It’s not black and white.”

For prospective tenants who might have been hoping to take advantage of what were expected to be lower rents, there might still be a small—very small—window of opportunity.

“Winter temperatures in New York City always have a cooling effect on property prices—both on sales and rental fronts, and this year is no exception,” Scepanovic says. “The pricing is likely to correct upward, and the incentives may start falling off in the warmer months ahead.”

For rentals, specifically, the difference will be felt immediately, Lewis says. “Concessions will pull back and there will be more potential tenants in the market,” he explained. “This is the biggest possible gift in 2019 that landlords in Williamsburg could have hoped for.”

The crucial transit link also helps with the real estate market for surrounding neighborhoods—perhaps most notably to the immediate north in Long Island City, where Amazon just announced it is planning to open a massive new headquarters. Within days (and even days before) the HQ2 reveal late last year, apartment listing searches and bids for condos in the Queens neighborhood surged immediately. Keeping the L train alive will also mean Williamsburg is directly linked to Google’s current base on the western side of Manhattan as the Internet giant plans another New York campus not too far south along the Hudson River.

Eric Benaim, CEO and founder of Long Island City-based brokerage firm Modern Spaces, says that other markets that were betting on the L train shutting down as a way to drive more traffic to their neighborhoods and buildings will have to be more competitive now.

Scepanovic suspects that a substantial portion of the incoming Amazon HQ staff working in Long Island City will likely settle in Greenpoint and Williamsburg as well as Manhattan’s Midtown East and Astoria, just to the north of Long Island City in Queens.

“The selection of LIC as the Amazon’s partial HQ destination is yet another localized market force, the expression of which is likely to result in the increase of rental and sales prices in the area,” Scepanovic says.