Williamsburg Is NYC's Top 'Neighborhood To Watch' In 2020: Study

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — L train shutdown, who?

Once in a rental slump because of the impending 15-month shutdown of its most popular transit line, Williamsburg has bounced back and then some since the dreaded L train closure was canceled nearly one year ago, according to a new study.

Researchers at StreetEasy have marked Williamsburg as the number one "Neighborhood to Watch in 2020" in its annual report, which studies which New York City areas are on their way to becoming the rental and development hotspots of next year.

And even with the new plan for the L train repairs slowing the subway line nights and weekends, Williamsburg's rents increased by 7 percent, searches for apartments in the neighborhood went up by 48 percent and more than 40 new buildings were built in 2019, according to the report.

"Williamsburg has rapidly rebounded," the experts wrote. "And though the new solution to fixing the Canarsie Tunnel has disrupted access to the neighborhood overnight and on weekends, the combined strength of this recovery makes us think Williamsburg is primed for a big 2020."

The StreetEasy report measures the number of new buildings in each New York City neighborhood in the last year and then looks at median rent price, median sale price, the number of searches for the neighborhood on the StreetEasy and how much each of those has grown in the last year.

Williamsburg's 41 new residential buildings soared above all nine other neighborhoods in the study's top 10 list. The second spot to watch in 2020, Clinton Hill, came in with less than half of Williamsburg's amount with only 13 new buildings in 2019.

The growth shouldn't be too much of a surprise considering Williamsburg's commercial market has also seen a comeback since the L train shutdown slump.

A report last month found that storefronts once empty because of the L train limbo were filling up on two of the neighborhood's main corridors.

On StreetEasy's report, Clinton Hill and Williamsburg were joined by four other Brooklyn neighborhoods in the top 10 list, making Brooklyn the borough with the most hotspots on the ranking. Two Queens spots, one Bronx neighborhood and one Manhattan spot rounded out the top 10.

Researchers said the other four Brooklyn neighborhoods seemed to mark an increasing willingness of renters to look deeper into the city's outer boroughs for a place to live. Midwood, East Flatbush and Crown Heights all surpassed neighborhoods, like nearby Prospect Heights, that are closer to Manhattan.

"As rents rise across the city, New Yorkers are looking to neighborhoods in the outer boroughs that still offer convenient subway access," they wrote. "However far out they may be, these neighborhoods offer residents a reasonable walk to the 2, 5, B, or Q trains."