by Laura Matiz 

Last week I ran across PlaceILive.com and their Life Quality Index. I was intrigued by their safety/crime map (see screenshot), especially having read recent media coverage about New York City continuing to be one of the safest cities in the country.  As a lifelong New Yorker, seeing the crime rate drop the way it has is something I proudly recite to out-of-town visitors, while gently warning them that NYC is still a big city and to stay aware. 

In terms of real estate value, few things matter more than crime rate and safety. The lower crime rate in New York has been a major factor in the tremendous growth in real estate value over the last decade.  The Life Quality Index as shown on the PlaceILive.com map includes many other factors as shown in the image. Manhattan's Life Quality Index is currently at 62, although many neighborhoods reach into the 90s.  

by Laura Matiz

My customers ask me which listing website they should use for their apartment searches. This used to be an easy answer: use The New York Times. For many years, the NYT was the go-to source, combining listings from most of the major and minor brokerage firms. The NYT served the role of a multiple listing service (MLS), common in most areas of the country, but non-existing in NYC. But times have changed. It is rare now that I get a customer that is using the NYT listings. So, what are the new alternatives?

In the real estate press, we see more and more articles touting the power of data, specifically big data and open data, to change our understanding of the world around us. New York City participates in this movement with a program called NYC Open Data. Although knowing the language of statistics is becoming more and more important, most of us are not statisticians, but people who are, such as Ben Wellington, Visiting Assistant Professor in the City & Regional Planning program at the Pratt Institute, can enlighten us. He runs a blog called I Quant NY with the purpose of "telling a story one data set at a time." (Follow him on Twitter: @iquantny.)

Professor Wellington's in-depth analysis of data sets cover city flood zones, the most ticketed parking spaces (fixed), and why $19.05 should be your purchase amount at the MetroCard machine. My favorite thus far is about Medicare's huge massage-therapy payments to the Brighton Beach area—the punch line is that Medicare doesn't even cover massage therapy. Of course, a picture tells the story even better: see map of payments for massage therapy using Medicate data from 2012.