The housing market in New York has been anything but easy in the past year: Those on the hunt faced record high rents, leases getting signed sight unseen and bidding wars all at once.
What does 2023 hold? According to a new study from StreetEasy, Queens may be the city’s next top borough. The listing site used annual growth in user searches on the platform, home prices and rents as metrics to create a list of 10 neighborhoods to watch for the upcoming year. Queens had four neighborhoods in the list — Elmhurst, Woodside, Sunnyside and Middle Village — more than the other boroughs. Elmhurst, the highest rank for Queens, came in fourth place overall; the neighborhood saw a 31 percent increase in searches in the past year, with a median asking price of $435,500, up 16 percent, and a median rent of $2,100, up 17 percent.
The study looked only at neighborhoods where median asking prices were below $1 million and median rents were below $4,500, so that the results would be more actionable to a wider range of New Yorkers.
The StreetEasy economist Kenny Lee said that the biggest driver of interest for Queens is likely affordability. “It has been really on top of buyers’ and renters’ minds. Also, at the same time, they’re interested in easy access to Manhattan. A great example is Woodside and Sunnyside, they are all along the No. 7 train line, and they have soared in popularity.” Woodside and Sunnyside both saw search interest grow more than 40 percent, the study found.
At the top of the list was Turtle Bay in Manhattan, which had a 47 percent increase in searches. The median asking price for the neighborhood was $992,500, and the median rent was $4,000. “I think Turtle Bay is a location for New Yorkers who are really interested in a walking-distance commute to all the offices in the city,” Mr. Lee said, referring to Manhattan. “For recent graduates joining the work force, that can be an attractive option, even though the prices can be a lot higher than neighborhoods outside Manhattan.”
Parts of Brooklyn that are further away from Manhattan also made the list, including Bushwick, East Flatbush and Sunset Park. Bushwick saw a 31 percent increase in searches, which Mr. Lee attributes to “New Yorkers priced out of Williamsburg looking for cheaper options.” East Harlem and Kips Bay in Manhattan also made the list.
For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate.
