Condo Prices Grow by 11% in the Bronx

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorNew York–Riverdale, Parkchester and Spuyten Duyvil are the three most popular Bronx neighborhoods for home seekers in New York City, according to ResidentialNYC.com, the Web portal created by The Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), which for the first time is making thousands of New York home listings available to the public. Previously, New York City properties were not on any kind of Multiple Listing Service.ResidentialNYC tracks neighborhood searches in each of the five boroughs. Riverdale ranks number one in popularity for the Bronx, based on roughly nine million hits on ResidentialNYC.com since the Web site launched in Sept. 2007. According to sales data collected by ResidentialNYC.com between Feb. 2008 and Feb. 2007, the median condo and co-op unit prices in the Bronx registered $195,000 in Feb. 2008 compared to $175,000 a year earlier, indicating an 11 percent increase.“Despite a national real estate slowdown, the Bronx market continues to show some signs of growth with apartment prices remaining strong throughout the borough,” says Steven Spinola, REBNY’s president.Several Bronx neighborhoods registered sizeable increases in average apartment prices between Feb. 2007 and Feb. 2008. In Riverdale, for example, the average sales price of a residential unit was $336,000 in Feb. 2008 versus $314,000 during the same month in 2007. Residential values in Parkchester also climbed by 10 percent over this period, pushing the average price of an apartment in this neighborhood up to $135,000 in Jan. 2008.ResidentialNYC.com is a resource for home seekers throughout the five boroughs. People can view constantly updated market information, can compare average and median sale prices in the areas they are looking, can browse neighborhood guides, and can research other information that is essential when choosing a place to live.