Predicting the past

Tom McGeveran

The headline on a report from Bloomberg this last month promised, temptingly, to apply hard facts to the soft science of New York City’s evolution:“NYC’s Next Hot Neighborhoods Targeted With Property Funds.”

A young Goldman Sachs alumnus and hedge-fund manager named Seth Weissman had put together a pool of investors to speculate on gentrifying neighborhoods.

“Investors who pledge at least $100,000 to one of the program’s neighborhood-focused funds become partial owners of a group of buildings and share in the rental income,” Jonathan LaMantia reported. “The first pool is more than halfway toward its target of $5 million, which will be used to buy properties in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant.”

The fund is starting out in Bed-Stuy, which has been the subject of speculation for some ten or more years now; next up are Harlem and Bushwick, also familiar targets for speculators; then Crown Heights and Sunset Park.

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/08/8551241/predicting-past