The respected daily sees positive trends in the boroughs of The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, based on a survey of several dozen New York property experts - indicating that the market still works relatively well near its "top" and "bottom". On the surface, the raw data do not seem to differ from those of the other parts of the city: according to a survey by property web site PropertShark.com, the median of property sales prices - thatis, the value which half of sales prices are above and half below - fell by 27 percent in Queens, 6 percent in Staten Island and Brooklyn, and 2 percent in The Bronx in the year ended February 2008. The number of sales also decreased considerably in this period, with the biggest drop registered in The Bronx, at 50 percent.

At the same time, selling properties at auctions has become more frequent - in the first quarter of the year, 895 auctions were held in the four boroughs, compared to just 529 in the previous year. According to experts cited by the paper, it takes a lot longer to sell a property nowadays - what earlier took three months now might take as much as half a year. Brooklyn mainly attracts buyers from Manhattan, mostly those people who are no longer able to afford downtown property prices.

Therefore, experts say it is in the primary interest of the Brooklyn property market that Manhattan prices, driven by foreign buyers and leading Wall Street executives, remain astronomical. At the same time, it can be observed that buyers have become more deliberate, they "do their homework," that is they weigh their options more thoroughly and are more circumspect before buying. Certain parts of The Bronx also attract Manhattanites; however, this is the borough where it is most frequent that owners ask too much for their properties, which sets back the number of deals considerably. Queens is probably the most difficult borough to interpret, since here prices can change even from building to building. Growing demand for duplex houses is a positive trend, however.