Uptown Housing Prices Increasing at Higher Rate than Manhattan as a Whole: Report

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS-INWOOD, NY — The real estate boom in New York City may be slowing down, at least according to a StreetEasy report analyzing real estate data from July. The report's main finding: real estate prices are going up, but at the slowest rate in years.

Across the entire borough of Manhattan real estate prices increased just 2 percent year-over-year in July, which was the mildest increase since April 2012, according to the report. The median resale price for Manhattan in July was $994,458.

"Though prices are still climbing, sellers will need to continue to level expectations amid a less competitive market, while buyers have the opportunity to negotiate asking prices down even further amid slowing price growth and homes spending more time on the market," reads the report.

The study also used StreetEasy's metric "tipping point" to suggest that the market is more buyer-friendly than years past. The tipping point of a neighborhood is the number of years you'd have to spend in a home for it to be worth buying instead of renting.

Compared to the rest of the borough, resale prices are rising at a higher rates in Washington Heights and Inwood. In fact, prices uptown are still rising faster than in years prior. But even though prices are going up faster, real estate uptown is still comparably more affordable than the rest of Manhattan.

In Inwood the median resale price for homes was $358,000, which represents a year-over-year increase of 12.8 percent. In July 2015 the median price was $317,500 with a year-over-year increase of 5.8 percent.

The median rent for Inwood in July 2016 was $1,885, a 3.3 percent decrease year-over-year. The tipping point increased percent to a value of 1.4, which means that anyone planning on staying in Inwood for longer than that amount of time (1.4 years) should consider purchasing instead of renting.

In Washington Heights, median resale prices rose 14.1 percent to $565,000. In July 2015 the median resale price was just $495,000, and the year-over-year change was actually a decrease of 3.9 percent.

In July, the median rent for Washington Heights was $2,195, a 7.1 percent increase from the year prior. The tipping point for the area was 3.1, an increase of 5.2 percent. The metric implies that if prospective home renters or owners are planning on staying in the area for 3 years or more, buying could be a smarter option than renting.

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