Call it the Brooklyn breaking point, when the cool factor of Kings County is not enough to compensate for a less-than-ideal living situation.

For Joseph I. Dube and his wife, Frances Cabrera, it came last year. After realizing they could not afford to buy a place in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, where they had been renting, the couple began looking in Sunset Park.

But though that neighborhood was more affordable, it required a longer trip by subway to Midtown Manhattan, where Mr. Dube and Ms. Cabrera both work. And they were discouraged when the offers they made on apartments there were unsuccessful.

They had better luck in Jackson Heights, in north-central Queens, a historic and heterogeneous area less than a half-hour from Midtown — and, pricewise, a world away from trendier enclaves.