Astoria, LIC Rents Inched Up In April, Report Says

ASTORIA-LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — Rents in Astoria and Long Island City inched up between March and April of this year, signaling the gradual rebound of New York City's housing market, according to a new study.

The Street Easy report found that the median asking rent price in Astoria and Long Island City increased by $50 and $19, respectively, in April 2021 compared to the first quarter of this year, when rents in the neighborhoods hit record lows.

Although rents citywide stabilized in April after declining for 12 consecutive months, according to the study, rent prices in northwestern Queens are still down as much as 15 percent from the same time last year — despite year-over-year rent increases in some Queens neighborhoods hit hardest by the pandemic.

The median asking rent prices in Astoria and Long Island City are still 15.2 and 6 percent less than they were last year, respectively.

By contrast, rents have continued to rise in hard-hit neighborhoods including Flushing and The Rockaways, which are among the hardest-hit by the pandemic citywide — a trend that has persisted in Queens, and the city at large amid the pandemic.

When Patch spoke to Matthew Murphy, Executive Director of the NYU Furman Center, about rent changes in March, he pointed out that rents have risen and fallen across the borough in trends largely segmented by race and income.

According to Murphy, lower-income households have found themselves in neighborhoods where "listed rents have increased" because "demand has remained high,"whereas rents have decreased in some of the borough's primarily white, wealthy neighborhoods — including Astoria and Long Island City — from which people have fled during the pandemic.

This segmented rent trend is also one explanation for shifts in the Queens housing market at large in April.

Last month, Queens had the most significant uptick in rents citywide, and open rental inventory in the borough continued to soar as the number of open rentals shrunk across the city as a whole.

Across The World's Borough, median asking rent rose by $50 last month, up to $2,050, and there were actually 14 more open units this April compared to August's then-record high.

While a high number of available rentals could signal an overall decrease in rent — as has been the case for the past year — the simultaneous increase in rents and available units in Queens points to the phenomenon of increasing rents in some low-income neighborhoods, while vacancies in higher-rent units persist.