If you’ve left New York and missed the sights and sounds of the buzzing Big Apple, there is help just a phone call away.
StreetEasy—the NYC arm of real estate giant Zillow—launched on Tuesday a support hotline for former New Yorkers who have traded the city for suburban life. Now through October, those who find the suburbs a little too quiet can call 1-833-I-MISS-NYC to hear the hustle and bustle of the sirens, traffic, people and things that make New York, New York.
If callers need to vent, they can also talk about how much they miss the city. After all, their new neighbors likely do not know what makes a New York bagel so good, what real traffic is like, or even why Pizza Rat is so famous.
StreetEasy said the hotline is open to provide support to the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who left the city in recent years, many of whom claim to miss it. Or at least parts of it.
According to a recent report from PropertyShark, more than 352,000 New Yorkers left the Big Apple in 2022, mostly citing affordability reasons, possibly suggesting that if it was not so expensive here, they might have stayed put.
The report also showed that of those who let, many did not stray far, choosing to stay in the tri-state region. No matter where they moved to, though, the hotline is there for them.
When New Yorkers-at-heart call StreetEasy’s free number, they will hear it sounds unique to NYC—like the Manhattan Bridge Underpass near East Broadway, complete with sirens, whistles, and traffic.
They can also leave a message describing what they miss most about the city.
To create the hotline, which is part of the company’s “Never Become a Former New Yorker” ad campaign, researchers from Zillow and StreetEasy surveyed 189 former New Yorkers. They uncovered that many transplants’ lifestyles outside the city were not as great as they had once thought.
The survey also found that most respondents said they missed at least one thing about NYC. Topping the list were local bodegas, the city’s ease of walking, and favorite bars. Notably, the research also showed that seven of the top 10 metro areas in which New Yorkers were looking for homes in 2024 also had the most residents searching for homes in NYC.
“A lot of current New Yorkers view their options as renting in the city or leaving to buy a home,” Andrea Mazandi, principal brand strategist at StreetEasy, said. “We wanted to show that being a New Yorker and being a homeowner don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”
But Maznadi said that life in NYC is not always easy—and buying a home in the local real estate market is no exception.
“But with the right tools and agent expertise, New Yorkers can have it all,” she said. “The truth is that buying a home anywhere is a massive financial investment, so it’s a decision that only makes sense if it’s in the city you truly want to call home.”
For more information, including tips on purchasing a home in NYC, visit StreetEasy’s online blog, streeteasy.com/blog.
