Rent Affordability in Queens Report

Late last month, Renthop (a nationwide rental listing service) published a study on the affordability of neighborhoods in NYC. Can you guess which of them rank highest? Here are your choices:

A. Long Island City
B. Lower East Side
C. Williamsburg
D. All Of The Above

If you guessed D. All Of The Above, you would be correct! These three neighborhoods topped the charts in unaffordability. At first glance we were not surprised… but then we read further into the report.

First, to come to this conclusion, Renthop “took a look at the data on two-bedroom apartments and compared it to the most recent median income data available at the neighborhood level.”

Now, this doesn’t mean it’s the most expensive neighborhood per se, this assessment is about how much $$$ you need to make to afford to live there—in other words, how much the average income is compared to housing costs. What’s interesting is that when LIC is mentioned, it’s not the usual suspect—Hunters Point—it’s Queensbridge-Ravenswood-Long Island City.

To compare, here is Hunters Point’s numbers:

More, according to Renthop:

“The neighborhood tabulation area of Queensbridge-Ravenswood-Long Island City topped the list of unaffordable neighborhoods. Median rent for a two-bedroom is $3,300 while median household income is just $28,378. Rent prices soar higher as the real estate boom continues to change the face of the area while putting new apartments far out of reach of the current households. Spending 139.5% of your income on rent is not just absurd, it’s mathematically impossible.”

Read the rest of the report, here.

Here’s the interactive map to see other neighborhoods in context: