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Queens is the new Brooklyn. People are seeking affordability and Queens is benefiting. |
Bidding
wars. All-cash deals. Foreign buyers.
Manhattan?
No, Queens!
The borough's housing market is
heating up as low inventory, strong demand and a spillover of buyers priced out
of Brooklyn are lifting property values.
The average price of a home in
Queens jumped 10.3%, to $429,544, in the first quarter, according to a report
from Douglas Elliman.
The average price of a luxury
home in Queens rose 19.5% to $1.03 million. The total number of sales in
the borough surged a whopping 32.8% to 3,156.
"It's crazy," Jim
Pappas, the owner of Jackson Heights-based real estate brokerage Rock Realty,
told the Daily News.
Neighborhoods riding the wave
include Astoria, Long Island City, Jackson Heights and East Elmhurst.
Foreign
buyers seeking investment properties are driving demand. Many are from China,
but buyers from Greece, Brazil, India, Tibet and Nepal are also hitting the
market, Pappas said.
Some buyers are coming in with
all-cash offers and are bidding on properties without seeing them.
Pappas is currently handling
the sale of a house on 84th St. in the historic section of Jackson Heights.
"Five offers were
submitted sight unseen in less than one week," he said.
Another one of his properties,
in Woodside, sold for all cash in January for $573,000, above the asking price
of $568,000.
Inventory in Queens is scarce,
dropping to the second lowest level in nine years, according to the Douglas
Elliman report.
Queens had been slower to catch
up to the city's real estate revival than Brooklyn and Manhattan.
But Queens has been gaining
steam lately as buyers priced out in Brooklyn are turning to the less expensive
borough.
"Queens
is the new Brooklyn," Jonathan Miller, CEO of appraisal firm Miller
Samuel, who compiles the Douglas Elliman report, told the Daily News.
"People are seeking
affordability and Queens is benefiting."
The average price of a Brooklyn
home rose 7.3% to $681,182, according to Douglas Elliman.
Another report, from brokerage
firm Corcoran Group, said the median sale price of a home in Brooklyn decreased
6% to $450,000 and the average price per square foot decreased by 5% versus
last year.
The reason: During the quarter
there was an increase in sales in lower-priced neighborhoods of south and
eastern Brooklyn, said Frank Percesepe, Corcoran's regional senior vice
president of Brooklyn.
At the same time, there was a
decline in sales activity in higher-priced areas of northwestern Brooklyn.
Written
By Phyllis Furman pfurman@nydailynews.comDouglas Elliman Realty, Long Island City Office
47-37
Vernon Blvd, Long Island City, NY 11101
Harvey's Long Island City Real Estate Blog
“Queens is the new Brooklyn. People are seeking affordability and Queens is benefiting.”
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