PERSONAL FINANCE / 2 APRIL 2019, 5:00PM / SHELLY HAGAN AND WEI LU

Finally, a New York City neighborhood has landed a coveted spot on Bloomberg’s annual ranking of America’s richest zip codes. And no, it’s not Billionaires’ Row where residences have sold for more than $100 million.

Instead, Tribeca — a neighborhood in downtown Manhattan near the World Trade Center — is making noise.

The neighborhood’s southern zip code — 10007 — ranked in the top 5, is beating out all other NYC postal codes.

NYC still has a ways to catch up on the top spot. Miami’s Fisher Island led the table again with $2.2 million.

Average annual income in zip code 10007 was $879,000, according to 2016 tax returns, the most recent available. Other nearby zip codes on the list include 10005 at No. 34, 10282 at No. 36 and 10013 at No. 72.

Tribeca used to be a hub for industrial and manufacturing buildings. In the 1980s, developers converted the warehouses into residential-use which attracted more progressive and edgier individuals, according to Darren Sukenik, director of luxury sales at Douglas Elliman.

“It’s very subtle wealth. You don’t know who is behind which door in Tribeca,” Sukenik said. “It’s not like Park Avenue or Madison Avenue. There’s not a Ferrari sitting outside.”

One Manhattan real estate professional was surprised to hear 10007 made the list ahead of its northern neighbor 10013, which he calls “prime Tribeca” and considers to have far more valuable listings.

“When you have a really expensive zip code like 10013 where all the real estate is so valuable, you’re going to have migration into neighboring zip codes because developers will go to this area and buyers will follow,” said Jeremy Stein, real estate advisor at Sotheby’s International Realty. “That’s certainly the case with the southern and eastern portions of Tribeca. You can see the developers have tried and succeeded in expanding the boundaries of the neighborhood.”

Stein pointed out that new developments in 10007, like 30 Park Place, which is home to the Four Seasons private residences, have “extraordinarily expensive” apartments. Last year, the 80th floor penthouse sold for $32.6 million, the building’s highest sale yet. Still available is Penthouse 82 — with three bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms — listed at $30 million, according to the building website.

Other top Manhattan zip codes include 10022 in Midtown East, 10069 on the Upper West Side (overlooking the Hudson River) and 10021 on the Upper East Side, to name just a few of the Manhattan locales that made the list this year.

Richest

Miami’s Fisher Island took the richest spot again this year with $2.2 million in average annual income.

The 216-acre island attracts international buyers from over 45 countries, according to Heinrich von Hanau, a lead developer on Fisher Island’s final two luxury condo developments. Over 700 families live on the island and many use it as a second, third or fourth home.

One of things that makes the island so desirable among buyers is its exclusivity and privacy, said von Hanau, a nearly 30-year resident. Fisher Island isn’t open to the public and it’s not accessible by car. Only residents and their approved guests can access the island via a seven-minute ferry ride from Miami. The ferry also transports vehicles to and from the island, but residents don’t need them once they arrive. Instead, the islanders drive around in golf carts, von Hanau said.

Besides zip code 10007, the top five richest zip codes are largely unchanged from the prior year. Two zip codes in Silicon Valley — 94027 and 94301 — ranked No. 2 and No. 3 and Palm Beach, Florida’s 33480, home to President Donald Trump’s weekend retreat Mar-a-Lago, took No. 4.

Wealth Diversity?

Not unlike the recent Bloomberg’s Richest Places index, which showed high incomes concentrated on the East and West coasts, 50 of the top 100 zip codes were spotted in just eight counties.

Seventeen states had at least one richest 100 zip code. California and New York each claimed 23, whereas Connecticut and Massachusetts independently added another nine. Bloomberg’s full index of the 300 richest zip codes are spread among 30 states and the District of Columbia.

Zip codes in Wyoming, North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania landed these states on the list, a nod that eluded them in the recently released “Richest Places” index.

Postal codes are smaller geographically and one town or “place” can have multiple zip codes. Measuring zip codes provides a closer look at smaller pockets of extremely high incomes.

Source: Bloomberg