Sales Prices Hit Record Highs in Brooklyn and Queens as Rental Rates Cool
(DNAINFO) Amy Zimmer | July 13, 2017 — The sales price of homes in Brooklyn and Queens continues to skyrocket, with plenty of options for renting in those boroughs, as well as in Manhattan — though rents remain high despite a cooling market, new statistics show.
Record high sales prices were set in Brooklyn and Queens last quarter, according to a report on second quarter data released Thursday from Douglas Elliman.
Brooklyn’s median sales price reached $795,000, jumping more than 20 percent from the same time a year ago, the report found.
The median price in Queens was $510,000, rising nearly 10 percent from the year before as the borough saw a “spillover” effect from Brooklyn’s hot market, pushing its prices up, too.
“Brooklyn has become the new Manhattan, while Queens has become the new Brooklyn,” said Steven James, CEO, New York City, Douglas Elliman. “It’s like falling dominoes.”
It’s also why there’s been a surge in interest in towns in Westchester County, and more house hunters looking at Riverdale in The Bronx, he noted.
While Manhattan’s sales market is seeing price dips as units spend a longer time on the market, that trend has not yet hit Brooklyn, where more than 23 percent of all sales went for more than the listed price — at an average 3.8 percent more, according to Elliman report author Jonathan Miller.
He echoed that what’s happening now in Queens “shows how much Brooklyn is growing to have this kind of impact on an entire borough next door,” but he did not expect the price growth to continue skyrocketing.
“In many ways what’s happening in Brooklyn and Queens is what’s happening in suburban America: chronic inventory shortage and rapidly rising prices,” he said. “At some point it has to level off.”
But many expect the growth to continue, at least for a bit.