PARK SLOPE

THE BASICS: As the families that fed the area’s nineties boom—many of them Upper West Side transplants—continue to dominate the area around the park, younger and artier refugees have settled near Fifth Avenue. Townhouses are the dwelling of choice, but those that hit the market tend to be fixer-uppers, and even those are no longer inexpensive. One- and two-bedroom apartments in larger buildings are relatively plentiful.

WHAT’S NEW: The sixteen-story Shinnecock luxury condos at Union Street, near Prospect Park, opened four months ago and are the first new prime Slope development in decades. New buildings will also soon be popping up at President, Carroll, and 5th Streets between Fourth and Fifth Avenues—an area that wasn’t even considered Park Slope ten years ago. “There’s no other place to build,” says Corcoran’s Patricia Neinast.

BARGAIN HUNTING: Look on the fringes—the western flank close to Fifth Avenue and buildings on Flatbush, for example.

HOT SPOTS: Fifth Avenue—up there with Smith Street in hipster cachet—has recently spawned Moutarde, a Balthazar-style bistro; a new Blue Ribbon Sushi; a spate of secondhand boutiques; the music club Southpaw; the plush Gowanus Lounge; and the gourmet beer emporium Bierkraft.

PREDICTION: The Slope sure has boomed, but it probably won’t go much higher, at least for now. If the market falls off its current plateau, “what will do best is anything in a prime location,” says Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy & Garfield’s Neil Stein, “and anything that’s large will hold its value.” More vulnerable are one-bedrooms—a luxury for singles but too small for families. On the edges, Flatbush Avenue—with abundant services and subways—might be better off than Fourth Avenue and the Gowanus hinterlands.