Asking Prices For Forest Hills Homes Rise As Rents Stabilize

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — The asking price for a home in Forest Hills increased between March and April of this year while rents remained stable between the two months, according to a new study released by StreetEasy, reflecting a gradual rebound of New York City's housing market.

The study, which broke down the citywide real estate market by neighborhood, found that people are asking $435,000 for homes in Forest Hills in April 2021, compared to March of this year, when the median asking price in the neighborhood was $430,000. Both months the median asking rent price in the neighborhood remained stable at $1,950.

These stable findings coincide with the first time in 12 consecutive months when rent did not precipitously fall citywide — the citywide median rent rose to $2,499 in April, $4 higher than in March.

In Forest Hills, where rents have dropped throughout the pandemic, the month-to-month stability of rent points to a gradual return to pre-pandemic normal.

Also, the increase in home asking prices in the neighborhood — and in other suburban-feeling neighborhoods across the borough — reflects an ongoing trend of New Yorkers' interest in moving from more densely populated areas in the city into single-family homes in the outer boroughs amid the pandemic.

However, StreetEasy economist Nancy Wu cautioned that New York is "not on solid ground just yet" when it comes to the stabilization of rent, citing high unemployment, a huge number of empty apartments and the likely persistence of work-from-home, which could shake up the city's geography.

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 a different phenomenon.

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.

While rents decreased in some of the borough's primarily white, wealthy neighborhoods, they rose in some central Queens neighborhoods, 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.

According to Murphy, those lower-income households then found themselves in neighborhoods where "listed rents have increased" because "demand has remained high," he explained, adding that "given this segmentation, low-income households are not seeing the benefit of rent decreases."

This trend has not entirely dissipated in April, as rents have continued to rise in hard-hit neighborhoods including Flushing and The Rockaways, while dropping in by as much as 15 percent in high-income neighborhoods like Astoria and Long Island City.

Read the full StreetEasy study here.