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Name: missgee

Comment: I thought I paid to much for my Duplex at $85,000, and the rent for mine is only $580 a month for a two bedroom apartment with a living,dining rm,kitchen and laundry hook-up. I'd had a good rental income if I lived in New York. New York prices are ridiculous, how in the world are the elderly and low income families suppose to live with that kind of rent.

Name: KayaNow

Comment: Yes, missgee. That rent is unheard of in New York where studio apartments go for over $1000. It is crazy here but the high price of real estate in Harlem has nothing to do with Bill Clinton. The average sale price for an apartment in Manhattan hit a record high of $1.386 million in June. The demand is waning a bit but prices are still rising. Manhattan has always been a desirable place to live and more and more people are opting to stay in the city rather than move to the suburbs of New Jersey and Connecticut. Therefore they are looking for larger apartments, townhouses and entire brownstones in which to raise families. The big Wall Street firms paid record bonuses this year so bankers have cash and are willing to pay top dollar for a spacious pad anywhere in Manhattan. The sad thing is many long time Harlem residents could have bought their apartments and buildings years ago. Sure, it might not have been easy but buying one's first home rarely is. I ate Ramen noodles and tuna for months to buy my house. Up until 3 years ago you could still get a fairly good size, clean apartment in Harlem for about $150,000. What's happening uptown is just a representation of what's happening everywhere else in the city. Trust, the folks who scrimped, saved and managed to buy a piece of real estate, many of them black, are not the ones complaining. And why do I see more Escalades, flat screen TVs and huge fish tanks going into the projects in Manhattan than anywhere else? Could our priorities be misplaced? We've been too happy just renting instead of owning for a long time and now we want to blame Bill Clinton? Yes, I feel bad for old people whose rent is now sky-high but the reality is, they didn't wake up old today. They could have been the ones SELLING these multi-million dollar buildings! If anything, let this be a lesson for younger folks. Take control and own your shyt!

Name: Teigh

Comment: As a long time resident of Harlem I also think our representation sold Harlem out right after Clinton came North. Everyone balked when Clinton wanted to put his office on 57th street, they didn't want to deal with the secret service headaches. Then Clinton picked Harlem -- the Empowerment zone that was originally for the Bronx suddently included Harlem and the rest is history. Savoy Park Manor used to be called Delano Village, when it was under the federal Mitchell-Lama program. It was a twenty year plan and unfortunately most folks forget what would happen when Mitchell-Lama expired. There are going to be many folks displaced in Harlem (and other major urban cities) in the next five years. If you are on any type of government assitance (Sect. 8, etc.) one would be very smart to wake up and get with the program cause the gig is up!!!!

Name: fanteeking

Comment: <Teigh: My family has lived across the George Washington Bridge in Englewood, New Jersey since 1962. It was nice early on and the living was good for Black folks. Now, 44 years later, white Yuppies are leaving Manhattan and moving into converted condos in Englwood on Palisade Avenue. The average condo starts at $2 million. Poor Black folks are leaving in droves going back south. My poor family is leaving in 2 months because taxes are sky high. It's our fault! While we were "electric sliding" white folks were "electric scheming". This is our "Trail of Tears!"

Name: MOTHERSHIP

Comment: And meanwhile....Our schools and teachers are starved of resources while we give billions in tax breaks to the already wealthy. We dish out vast sums of free money to oil and timber companies, to airlines and military contractors, while millions of homeless sleep on America's streets

Name: coesmo

Comment: well said Mothership....

Name: EdnaMae

Comment: Its as if the "desired" cites are all becoming bastions of those who can afford it. When my husband was transfered to San Francisco about 10 years ago, we rented a huge apartment for about $1200 a month, which was a steep price as we had owned a place in So Calif with a mortgage of $800 a month. On a recent trip there,SF, that same place is now $3000 a month! Who can pay those prices? In SF the black areas are declining at a pace so fast, that some say San Francisco will have no blacks at all in 20-30 years and even in Oakland they are leaving in droves. The areas they are in are being over taken by gays and Asians who can afford $700,000 homes. The one thing everyone should take from this article, is that you have to try and save and buy your own place, its the only way you will be able to live where you want, and to have some fininical security.

Name: Justeace

Comment: Blaming Bill Clinton! Those people should be ashamed of themselves. Prices for real estate in NY is and always has been outrageous. The only reason it's just now hitting Harlem is because the buppies and yuppies have redone every other real estate property in NY and now they figure if the prices go up in Harlem the crime will go down and it will be safe for them to live there. Instead of renting a brownstone they bought it and redid it and now it's worth millions. I agree with "KayaNow" people with a mind on the future ate their ramen noodles and tuna fish and saved and bought instead of renting and now it's paying off for them big time if they choose to sell. It's unbelievable to me that people complained when Harlem became a crime ridden place where people talked about how amazing it use to be and now that it is becoming that amazing place again where so many people want to live your still complaining. I'm sorry but you can't have it both ways it just doesn't work that way. You can't clean-up the hood and expect that people aren't going to notice and want to live there, therefore driving up the price for everything. If it goes back to being the crime ridden hood it once was then no one will want to live there again, including those complaining. I'm sorry that the long time residents that have lived there for decades are being pushed out but like "KayaNow" said "you didn't wake up old today" you had your chance to make Harlem really and truly yours by buying it. How many times have we heard now, stop renting and buy what you consider yours so no one can easily take it away from you. You can't look back and say coulda, woulda, shoulda and blame someone that helped make your neighborhood better. Unfortunately the only person you can really blame is the one you look at in the mirror everyday. Band together buy your shyt, like immigrants do when they come to this country. They don't buy flat screen tv's, $200 pair of sneakers they open a family run restaurant, package store, UPS/Mailbox etc. franchise, work together people dang. You act like it's a foreign concept! The entire diamond district is run by families and competing families. They could be you if you'd spend your time and energy on that rather than flapping your gums complaining. And you wonder why young blacks are becoming republicans.

Name: Exmun

Comment: I'm shaking my head in awe that people would be "complaining" that property values have increased and that CRIME is down in an area. That's stupid, no matter what color you are. The key move would have been the obvious... to have owned property in Harlem. These same complaining Cathy's would have been the recipients of this real estate boon. I sympathize with our peeps, but I can't support such nonesense thinking blaming Clinton for what most would see as a desireable effect (decreased crime, growth in property values). Start owning your property... even if it's a broken down piece of something. Fix it up, slowly but surely. In the future, you'll be glad that you did.

Name: fanteeking

Comment: Justeace, you sho-nuff right!!! 30 years ago, my cousin bought a delapidated brown stone on 120th Street in Harlem. It was in deplorable shape and little by little we began to fix the place up. I thought she was crazy leaving East 38th Street moving into that place. Her mortgage was $20,000 and it's all paid off!!! Right now "that place" has been appraised at $1.5 million and it is FABULOUS!!! This trend of the rich whites returning to occupy the inner-cities at exorbitant prices is a nation wide THANG! From Frisco to Boston, like the 4 Tops said, "It's the Same Old Song". In the 11 years I lived in Englewood, NJ, I NEVER, NEVER, EVER, heard of a Jew renting a home, business building etc. It's not in their DNA. Maybe one day, we'll all wake up and realize that land is POWER!!!

Name: Exmun

Comment: Folks are sleeping... but land is the only thing that they can't make anymore of. Own your junk... it IS the American way.

Name: Soulwriter

Comment: KayaNow, Justeace and Fanteeking are keeping it real; I bought my first home 2 years ago AS A SINGLE MOTHER AND PAID NOTHING DOWN!!! It was my good credit, job security and faith in God that made it possible. In the words of black publisher and author Haki R. Madhabuti, who wisely said, "The only thing that nobody, anywhere, is making any more of is land." If you want to kick it in apartments your whole life, that is your option, but I wanted my son and I to have our own corner of earth, for him to play in his own backyard and for me to have the true privacy, yet sense of community, that is the gift of home ownership. It's the only %*$et that most of us will have that APPRECIATES, NOT DEPRECIATES, IN VALUE BROTHERS AND SISTERS!!! I'm now remarried, and although my family doesn't rock the most expensive gear or jewelry and our vehicles are 11 and 12 years old, my wealth is being able to pull up into OUR 2-car garage every day and to pass on that spirit and legacy to the children. We as a people must do all we can in the present and plan better for ALL our futures. Shake the haters off Big Bill, and to my people, find a realtor and get started building your own corner of the world TODAY!!!

Name: MOTHERSHIP

Comment: My family had acres of land and it was stolen from them. I'm researching now to try and get it back.

Name: ImJustAsking

Comment: This has nothing to do will Bill Clinton. Cities LOVE gentrification, they cater to the wealthy. Now, I can't agree with those of you who think that 4000% appreciation is a good thing, especially in one of the few areas that have cultural and historical significance to people of color. The powers that be would have you believe that you need to have affluence in order to cut down on crime. However, that is just a way to justify building everything with an eye toward the rich. If the city cared about racial and class diveristy, they would build housing that is affordable for people with median incomes (teachers, firefighters, police officers, administrative professionals). DC's prices have also skyrocketed and this week we were under a crime emergeny...You want to know why? Because the only people who live in the city are the really really poor people who have not yet been pushed out and the really really rich people. There is no middle class in the city. Therefore the rich neighborhoods are now rubbing shoulders with the poor, and the poor don't want to rob Tyrone Biggums, they want to rob Senator so and so or the CEO of whatever company. Say what you want about economic revitalization but it is not fair when you bought your home for 125K in 1996 and now your property is %*$essed at 800K and you can't afford 10k a year in property tax and so you have to move. But let's be honest, with all these people taking ARMs because income growth has not kept up with inflation, there will be plenty of foreclosures around the nation in the next 3 years as a result of people stretching to buy over priced properties. Foreclosures are already up in many states, to find out more you can check realtytrak.com.

Name: ImJustAsking

Comment: Let me stress that this is not just about home ownership. Look at the statisitics, black home ownership is wayyy up. And, in the south, blacks, for the most part always owned their homes, many, such as my great grandfather, built their homes by hand before there were tight house inspection regulations. I can't speak too much on traditions of homeownership in the north...however, in some parts of the north it was more economical for blacks to rent, it all depends on the situation. What this is about is our values as a nation and whether our social policy support those values. If we care about our police officers and teachers then why does every condo that is built in the city have to have granite countertops, marble foyers, and other luxury amenities that drive the price up? People with median incomes are just looking for solid housing that is convenient to work but the cities do not encourage those types of projects to be built. now, the new thing in cities are car condos...people are now so rich that they are buying 700k condos just to house their car collections. Something is wrong here.

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