Are Woodside, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst the Hot New Neighborhoods in Queens?
Over the weekend the New York Daily News ran a piece examining the growing desirability of Woodside, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst. The story’s familiar: as housing prices rise just about everywhere, people are getting pushed deeper into Queens, in neighborhoods along the subway line. Rents in Woodside are 25 percent cheaper than in Long Island…
Over the weekend the New York Daily News ran a piece examining the growing desirability of Woodside, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst. The story’s familiar: as housing prices rise just about everywhere, people are getting pushed deeper into Queens, in neighborhoods along the subway line. Rents in Woodside are 25 percent cheaper than in Long Island City, according to the News. And the price of land in Woodside comes in 50 to 60 percent cheaper than land in LIC and Astoria.
Many of the new buildings going up are stocked with amenities, driving prices and demand up. At the Icon 52, the new luxury rental in Woodside, a two bedroom is asking $2,350 a month and a studio’s asking $1,500. According to a recent renter at the Icon 52, “We wanted to be close to the city and I think you get the best value for your money in that area.”
Woodside, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst Become More Desirable Neighborhoods [NY Daily News]
Icon 52 coverage [Q’Stoner]
There’s a completely empty giant luxury condo building on Queens Blvd by like 61st Street in Woodside, a little further down from Icon 52. I wonder who, if anyone, would be looking to get a unit at Icon 52. It’s immediate surroundings are pretty depressing and being right on Queens Blvd (directly across from the cemetery) with the 7train right behind you just doesn’t sound like an ideal living space especially for those prices.
Typical brokerbabble.
Jackson heights is dirty, there are people who don’t speak english as their first language! No bars (good luck getting a bar – seriously). No private schools, daycare minimal, no parking, minimal available land to build on, a historic district with all kinds of development bottlenecks (=cost!), an entrenched set of communities (mooslims! brown people! the hispanics! asians!) that resent outsiders and gentrification, and have political muscle to back it up. You’re near elmhurst with its terrible hospital, there is no parkland nearby, no waterfront, prostitution at night under the noisy 7 train tracks.
Please don’t come here developers…..keep yuppifying LIC into a soulless mini-mall miami clone full of junior goldman sachs succubi and leave one of the few middle-class neighborhoods in peace.
I don’t see how they can really be hot when LIC and Astoria have plenty of room for development left. For those that already can’t afford those two areas, then yes, these other spots make sense. Hot? No.
These articles are so offensive to the people who have called these neighborhoods home for decades. “Growing desirability” is a nonsense term. They were always desired – the only issue is by whom. When self-interested realtors and transplants start focusing on a certain neighborhood, it somehow becomes “discovered.” As if those who were familiar with these neighborhoods don’t count.
The brokers are just trying to eat, so it’s easy to overlook their propaganda. But when corny transplants think they have discovered an already-thriving neighborhood I want to vomit.
“The brokers are just trying to eat, so it’s easy to overlook their propaganda. ”
I second this notion.
They aren’t “hot” neighborhoods, no. But they do have empty spaces that new mid-range developers can build on for a good investment. That’s why we are seeing so many new developments there. There’s also a demand for middle income pricing, which you can offer in these neighborhoods.