Dec. 9, 2020 By Allie Griffin
The cost to rent an apartment in Queens has dropped more than 4 percent in the past year, according to a new report.
The average amount paid to rent a studio, one-bedroom or two-bedroom apartment was down across the board, compared to the same time last year, according to a report released by the real estate company MNS.
Some neighborhoods saw a particularly steep price drop in rental prices, such as Long Island City and Astoria, while others like Jackson Heights, Jamaica and Rego Park were mostly unchanged year over year.
Meanwhile, Flushing saw a slight uptick in rental prices from last year to this year and Ridgewood also saw a small increase in the price of studios and two-bedroom apartments.
Boroughwide rent prices fell for studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units, according to the Queens Rental Market Report.
The average rent paid for a studio apartment in Queens was $1,782 last month — down by 2.3 percent from $1,823 in November 2019, the report states.
Meanwhile, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments saw a steeper decrease.
The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment fell by 5.3 percent over the past year. Last month, one-bedrooms went for $2,120 — down from $2,238 in November 2019.
The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment was $2,637 last month — a decrease of 5.2 percent from a year earlier when the rent was $2,781, according to the report.
Long Island City saw the steepest decline over the past year. For instance, the average rent of a two-bedroom apartment in the neighborhood dropped a whopping $596 from last year. Two-bedroom units went for $3,770 last month — down from $4,366 in November 2019, according to the report
The amount paid for a Long Island City apartment is typically higher than what’s paid in other Queens neighborhoods and experts say the most expensive areas usually see the earliest and often largest decreases in rent when the market dips.
Astoria also saw a significant drop in rental prices from last year, with two-bedrooms listed at $2,362 last month — $251 cheaper than a year earlier when they were going for $2,613 on average, the report states.
Studio apartments in Astoria went for $1,753 last month compared to $1,897 in November 2019 and one-bedrooms went for $2,011 last month, compared to $2,230 in November 2019, according to the report.