While home prices in Queens — and especially in the Rockaways — continue to soar, renters are catching a break due to falling prices, according to a new report.
According to StreetEasy, Queens sales prices climbed to record highs, rising 5 percent year-over-year for January to an all-time high of $512,082. This is since the site started tracking approximately 13 years ago.
Prices in the Rockaways saw the most growth of any submarket, where the index rose 22.2 percent to $525,425. The least expensive within the borough in October 2017, the area is now the third-most expensive in Queens behind the northeast and northwest Queens submarkets.
In January, College Point, Corona, south Jamaica and Woodside each saw substantial increases in home median asking price year over year. The neighborhoods of Whitestone and Beerchurst saw price decreases of about 20 percent, while Glen Oaks saw a 33 percent decrease.
Meanwhile, Queens rents fell 1.2 percent year-over-year to an average $2,071. Rent averages fell the most in the northwest Queens submarket, where the average decreased by 2.4 percent to $2,142, matching the price levels of spring 2015.
In Queens, Woodhaven saw the highest increase in median asking rent at 31 percent, while Jamaica Estates and Queensboro Hills saw the highest decreases. Prices remained stagnant in Elmhurst and east Flushing.
StreetEasy Senior Economist Grant Long noted that since home sale prices are “heating up” in the borough, buyers should expect “an increasingly tight and competitive sales market” in the coming months.
“New York City’s rental and sales markets have started off the year heading in two different directions,” he said. “Rents across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens continue to cool, providing renters with more bargaining power than in recent years. But buyers — especially those focused on the affordable end of homes — won’t be catching the same break in 2018.”
Home sales calculations include data on condos, co-ops, townhouses and single-family homes and are sourced from the New York City Department of Finance and StreetEasy listings. Data included in the calculation of rent indices comes from listings submitted to StreetEasy by brokerages, property managers and individual landlords.
