Rent Cost Is Rising Fastest In This Queens Neighborhood: Study

ELMHURST, QUEENS -- Rent costs that are constantly on the rise has largely become the standard for most New Yorkers, but a new study found that spike gets even higher in neighborhoods with more families.

Such was the case for Elmhurst, which saw the highest rent increase in all of Queens over the last decade, according to a report recently released by StreetEasy that analyzed rent prices listed on the site between January 2010 and 2018.

During that time, rent in Elmhurst rose 36 percent, the study found. The central Queens neighborhood is among several outer-borough areas where more than a third of renters have children and rent is increasing rapidly, analysts said.

"The burden of increasing rents has fallen particularly hard on areas with a large number of families," the report read. "Cumulative rent increases between 2010 and 2018 are highly correlated with the share of renter households with children under the age of 18."

Overall, the study found rent rose by 32 percent on average in NYC neighborhoods where at least a quarter of residents have children, about 5 percent more than those where less than 25 percent have kids.

Though Brooklyn saw a brunt of the rent spike - Ditmas Park and Prospect Lefferts Gardens were tied at 45 percent - several Queens communities were hit with significant increases over the eight-year period.

Rent increases in Sunnyside and Flushing were also on the high end at 35 and 33 percent, respectively.

But it wasn't all bad news in the borough. The study found rent prices rose slower in Ridgewood than any other neighborhood in New York City at just 15 percent. Long Island City wasn't far behind at 18 percent, the fourth slowest in the city.

Though most slow growing rent rates were found in high-end neighborhoods, the study found Ridgewood to be an exception. Its presence at the top of the list is likely because of ambitions developers who overestimated the neighborhood's asking price early on before scaling back significantly overtime, analysts said.

In Long Island City, analysts suspect an explosion of development is to blame. The study found the rent in neighborhoods upzoned to fit more housing tends to rise at slower rates than in those without new developments.

Three of the 10 NYC neighborhoods with the slowest rent growth - Long Island City, Dumbo and the Upper West Side - were upzoned between 2007 and 2009, according to the study. On the other hand, neighborhoods that were downzoned to preserve their character have seen the cost of rent increase more, analysts said.

View StreetEasy's full report here.

Lead photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images