It’s getting hot in Brooklyn.
The borough of Kings had the city’s busiest sales market in June, with listings receiving 34.2% more buyer inquiries than in June 2019, according to a StreetEasy report released Thursday. In Manhattan, by contrast, properties received 13.4% more interest than four years ago.
Overall, the citywide median asking price reached $1.08 million in June, a record high for the third straight month. Further proving that the Big Apple recovered from COVID, April was the first month the city median topped $1 million since 2018.
With mortgage rates reaching 7%, homeowners hesitate to move right now, experts at StreetEasy said. This keeps inventory low and drives up competition among buyers. The number of newly listed homes in the five boroughs dropped 20.7% year-over-year in June, falling for the 13th month in a row.
In Brooklyn, where the median asking price was $999,999, up 0.5% since last year, for-sale inventory was down 24.7% from 2019.
Brooklyn is known for rows of brownstones, and they’re also seeing interest from buyers. Getty Images/iStockphoto
Rising interest rates to combat inflation have made for fewer home sale listings, meaning more competition for what’s available. REUTERSManhattan has the hottest condo market of all the boroughs, the report found. Its median asking price in the category rose 12.8% from last year to $2.3 million in June, though condo listings sat on the market four weeks longer.
While a record 17.8% of the city’s office space was vacant in the second quarter this year, according to the commercial real estate firm Colliers, office hubs like Midtown South and the Financial District saw spikes in condo interest, StreetEasy reported.
Williamsburg in Brooklyn was the busiest neighborhood citywide in condo sales, however, with a 64.4% hike in inquiries from the first half of 2019 to this year.
Brooklyn townhouses are selling faster, and for less money, than their counterparts in Manhattan. Shutterstock
Brooklyn residents get the benefit of leafy streets. ShutterstockAnd what the borough overall lacks in condo sales, it makes up for with townhouses. Throughout “brownstone Brooklyn,” including the neighborhoods of Cobble Hill, Fort Greene and Bed-Stuy, 197 entered contract in the first half of 2023. That number fell from 255 in the same period last year, but nearly doubled the 114 sold in Manhattan.
Though brownstones in Brooklyn waited 45 days on the market so far this year, nine days longer than in the first half of 2022, in Manhattan they spent 142 days on the market — nearly two months longer than last year.
StreetEasy experts say Brooklyn sells more brownstones than Manhattan due to the median asking price of $3 million in the former borough compared to $6 million in the latter.
“Wealthy buyers have started to realize that they can often get more in Brooklyn at a lower price point than they would in Manhattan,” said Kenny Lee, an economist with the site.
