A residential report comparing the three boroughs found that Queens was “uniquely competitive” throughout the month of August.
While Manhattan and Brooklyn homes sat on the market for longer than previous years’ listings, homes in Queens sold six days faster than in 2016, according to StreetEasy’s August 2017 market report. In terms of house prices, while Manhattan homes saw no real change and Brooklyn saw a 3.7 percent increase, Queens’ home prices rose by over 7 percent compared to last year to about $500,000.
“The glut of luxury housing in Manhattan and Brooklyn has been a key driver of the slower-moving markets in those areas,” said StreetEasy Senior Economist Grant Long in the report.
“More affordable housing options are still limited and as a result, New Yorkers are increasingly turning to Queens for the best deals, causing home prices and competition there to spike,” he continued.
Despite the spike, however, the pace of rent increases in Queens this summer was slowest StreetEasy has documented for the borough; with a 1.4 percent year-over-year increase rents, the median asking rent is currently hovering just below $2,000, according to the report’s findings — a far cry from Manhattan’s median asking rent of about $3,000 or Brooklyn’s at about $2,500.
Notably, the report highlighted that, for the first time, Brooklyn’s expensive Prospect Park and Northwest neighborhoods saw minor dips in asking rents this summer.
[StreetEasy] — E.K. Hudson