Home prices on the rise in Forest Hills

72 Tennis Place in Forest Hills, Queens
72 Tennis Place in Forest Hills, Queens

Home prices in a coveted Queens neighborhood hit hard by the recession are on the rise, and real estate agents credit a bidding war among families who can’t afford Brooklyn or Manhattan.

Susanna Hof, the owner and a broker at Terrace Sotheby’s International Realty, which specializes in the Forest Hills area, told DNAinfo that prices are higher than they’ve ever been. The median price of a home in Forest Hills is $728,500, according to Property Shark. House hunters can expect to pay about around that price for a townhouse, but more than $1 million for a detached house, Hof told DNAinfo.

“A few years ago, if you got anything over $3 million, it was unusual,” she said to DNAinfo. “Now, for a spectacular large house, you can get up to $4 million.”

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A two-story, 3,798-square-foot tudor home at 72 Tennis Place, between Exeter and Dartmouth streets, sold for $4.3 million in October, according to StreetEasy. Its common now for Forest Hills agents to sell at full asking price or higher, and in cash — sometimes as much as 50 percent, agents told DNAinfo. The competition is fierce with the number of home sales in Queens up by 75 percent at the end of 2013 from the same period the year before, Douglas Elliman reported.

Much of Queens isn’t known for convenience, but homes in Forest Hills has always been in high-demand, with under-15-minute commutes to Manhattan and proximity to both LaGuardia and JFK airports. With apartment prices in Brooklyn at an 11-year high, family renters looking to settle down may be opting for Queens’ low-crime, tree-lined streets. [DNAinfo] — Angela Hunt