Occupy Wall Street protest hurting New York real estate

Having first had to convince buyers to return to lower Manhattan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, real estate agents have had a new problem to surmount, Occupy Wall Street protesters, who have been evicted after two months.

According to the New York Metro newspaper, potential buyers were being put off by the income inequality protestors, who set up a tent city complete with porta-loos in Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street, on September 17 and remained until they were evicted by the New York Police Department Tuesday morning.

“The clients are definitely turned off by the idea of walking through a protest to look at apartments,” Bethany Walsh, managing director of the Prime New York, told Metro.

Walsh has learnt to slip past the protest to reach properties she is showing.

“It is a concern for a lot of clients. They ask when is the best time to go down there, how long will it be there,” she added.

“I think my neighbors and I are very thankful that the mayor acted,” neighbour Marybeth Carragher told The New York Times, “but we remain completely outraged for having to endure this for nine weeks.”

Businesses operating in the financial district have reported losses and lay-offs because of the continuing protests, which resulted in barricades being erected around Wall Street. The barricades were only removed last week.

Four weeks ago the Brookfield Properties, which owns the 3,100-square-metre park, backed away from a confrontation with protestors while New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was loath to evict them for several months until changing his stance yesterday.

“New York City is the city where you can come and express yourself,” the mayor said. “What was happening in Zuccotti Park was not that.”

According to the OccupyWallStreet.org website, the protest movement, which has spread to 100 US cities and actions in over 1,500 cities globally including Melbourne and Sydney, “aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future”.