Just a few weeks after the delightful news that New York City rent prices are finally going down (woohoo!), StreetEasy released a report analyzing local neighborhoods by price cuts and total days on the market to figure out which areas real estate hunters should be focusing on right now.
To put it simply, according to StreetEasy itself, the report highlights the New York City neighborhoods "where buyers have the upper hand." You haven't heard that in a while, now have you?
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Here is the top 10 list and, below that, a bit more about the study:
1. Morningside Heights in Manhattan
2. Tribeca in Manhattan
3. East New York in Brooklyn
4. Lower East Side in Manhattan
5. Rego Park in Queens
6. Central Harlem in Manhattan
7. Bensonhurst in Brooklyn
8. Greenpoint in Brooklyn
9. Gramercy Park in Manhattan
10. Crown Heights in Brooklyn
To come up with the ranking, the company looked at "the growth in the share of listings that cut asking prices and the growth in median days on market, from Q3 2021 to Q3 2022."
The results were pretty telling. In Morningside Heights, for example, which topped the list, folks have noticed a 15% increase in the share of listing offering price cuts compared to last year. Each entry has also spent, on average, 64 more days on the market than this time last year (that's probably an indication of how reluctant people are to invest at the moment)
In Rego Park, on the other hand, where the median asking price for an apartment is $399,000 (the lowest on the list), the share of listings offering price cuts is at 31% while the average days on the market have increased by 21, to 77.
Is it the best time to buy a home? Probably not, especially considering the Federal Reserve’s decision to steadily increase interest rates. But, given the tumultuous years we’ve all had recently, it’s encouraging to notice signs indicating a hopeful return to normalcy—including more affordable real estate prices.
