In Sara Clemence’s special report: [The Most Expensive ZIP Codes [Forbes.com]](http://www.forbes.com/2006/04/17/06zip_most-expensive-zip-codes_land.html) she ranks the top 500 zip codes nationally, which is quite an undertaking. _(ok – shameless plug: my firm provided the Manhattan stats)_

Only 2 Manhattan zips made the cut, which was similar to last year. Whats so interesting to me is that the zips that you would think made the list, those that contained Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue and Central Park West, _didn’t_ make the cut. California was most represented at the upper end of the list, and those are nearly all are adjacent to some waterway. Eastern Long Island did well, posting the highest zip code on the list, 11962 in Sagaponack, New York.

Only [10013](http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/7/ZIP10013.html) and [10007](http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/7/ZIP10007.html) made top 20 and these zips happen to be primarily loft areas in the neighborhood known as TriBeCa (acronym for triangle below Canal Street). In the mid-1990’s the downtown loft markets of SoHo (South of Houston Street) were discovered and became one of the most popular areas for new development, primarily through conversion of manufacturing buildings to residential condominiums. As the market matured, loft spaces were getting larger, especially as the dot com boom blossomed. From a practical nature, units tended to sell for more on a per square foot basis, so developers made them larger. From a physcial standpoint, subdividing loft space was tricky and with 4,000 square foot floor plates on many, it made sense to market 4,000 square foot units or 2,000 square foot units but not much in between. This market appealed to existing residents, but more importantly, they appealed to residents in more traditional residential neighborhoods like the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side.

[The Most Expensive ZIP Codes [Forbes.com]](http://www.forbes.com/2006/04/17/06zip_most-expensive-zip-codes_land.html)[Zip Zip Hooray for the Hamptons [NYP]](http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/67515.htm)[Forbes: Tribeca, Soho Go Zip Zip Zip [Curbed]](http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006/04/24/forbes_tribeca_soho_go_zip_zip_zip.php)[Forbes: Most Expensive Zip Codes [Gawker]](http://www.gawker.com/news/culture/real-estate/forbes-most-expensive-zip-codes-101141.php)

_Other Zip Studies_[Most expensive housing markets [CNN/Money]](http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/hpci_data/index.html)[Gulp! It’s $528K for Boulder home [RMN]](http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/real_estate/article/0,1299,DRMN_414_4526313,00.html)