NOHO and NOLITA

THE BASICS: Above Houston, lawyers, bankers, and their arty spouses live in Viking-appointed lofts. Below, filmmakers and fashionistas nest in renovated tenements, drawn by nightlife and shopping. Oh, and don’t forget the celebrities (David Bowie and Iman, Lauren Hutton) in Lafayette Street’s airy conversions.

WHAT'S NEW: As tenements south of Houston are renovated, Noho-Nolita is becoming a Tribeca-Soho, albeit grittier and with fewer tourists. There’s also a handful of new high-end buildings. At 57 Bond, on the corner of the Bowery, for example, a 1,700-square-foot penthouse goes for nearly $2 million.

BARGAIN HUNTING: Older buildings near the Bowery are cheaper (some buyers are scared away by truck fumes and flophouses). Quality varies widely here, so “look for a building that’s not freshly painted, that has mortar missing between the bricks, that has graffiti—all the signs of a building that doesn’t have the money to maintain itself,” says Siim Hanja of Stribling & Associates.

HOT SPOTS: The cute little stores of Nolita—Language, Resurrection, shoe temple Sigerson Morrison—make for “human-scale shopping,” says Hanja. The scene is more intense at Café Habana, the coolest Cuban-Mexican diner in town; for a neighborhoody vibe, there’s the Mediterranean Il Buco or the easygoing bistro Five Points.

PREDICTION: This classic dot-com-boom neighborhood came back to reality somewhat in 2002. Look for increases in the better buildings on the side streets—“but only if they’re in turnkey condition,” says Hanja. The battered buildings on the Bowery and on the fringes of Chinatown are likely to lag.