According to Market Report, Long Island City, N.Y., is Thriving

By Jeffrey Steele, Contributing Writer

Long Island City, N.Y.—Last year was a very good year for Long Island City, N.Y., which leveraged the rising rents in Manhattan and Brooklyn to attract many first-time residents. That’s the peachy assessment from the most recent Orange Report, a market analysis by Long Island City-based boutique brokerage and marketing firm Modern Spaces.

The Orange Report, named for the color of Modern Spaces’ logo, is released every six months. Its mission is to assess the stability and market conditions of Long Island City, a neighborhood quickly catching on with renters and buyers.

According to one seven-year resident of Long Island City, that new acceptance among those from other enclaves makes complete sense.

“It’s a real neighborhood,” Modern Spaces president and founder Eric Benaim, a Long Island City resident since 2005, tells MHN. “It feels like a small town where everyone knows each other. There are lots of restaurants, and a lot of new restaurants coming in. We have four coming in in the next month or so, including Corner Bistro from Manhattan.

“You could dine in Long Island City for two months straight without repeating a restaurant. There are comedy clubs in the neighborhood, there‘s a performing arts theater, and more than 200 museums and galleries in what is the second largest arts district in New York. There‘s no reason to leave the neighborhood.”

About six or seven months ago, the vacancy rate in Long Island City apartment buildings stood at 3.5 percent. Today it is 2 percent, Benaim reports. Long Island City’s commuter friendliness is a big reason apartments are filling. It takes less than five minutes from Long Island City to Grand Central Station on the 7 train, meaning folks can get to work in as little as 10 minutes, Benaim says.

The for-sale housing is also going fast, he reports. The community currently has about 200 units for sale, and they’re being sold at a rate of about one a day. The average price per square foot in Long Island City is about $750, compared to $1,100 to $1,200 in Manhattan and $800 to $900 in Brooklyn.

Buyers will find one-bedrooms priced at about $475,000 to $525,000, two-bedrooms in the high $700,000s and three-bedrooms in the $900,000s.

In the years since Benaim moved to the enclave of 60,000, the community has added three supermarkets and two pharmacies. Two new schools are currently under construction, Jet Blue is moving its headquarters to the neighborhood, and CUNY Law School is poised to move there as well. Two large rental towers will open in the next month, adding another 700 rental units to the district.

Concludes Benaim: “Long Island City has long been a great neighborhood, and it’s shaping up to become an even better neighborhood. That’s the case whether you’re an investor or a resident.”