By:  Hellen Zaboulani

Brooklyn was the hottest borough in the Big Apple, buzzing with buyer interest and speedy sales in June.  On Thursday, a new Street Easy Report revealed that buyer inquiries into Brooklyn realty listings jumped 34.2 percent compared to June 2019. Even Manhattan lagged by contrast, with properties seeing 13.4% more interest than in June 2019.

As per the Street Easy report, for the five boroughs of New York City median asking price reached $1.08 million in June, setting a record high for the third straight month. April had been the first month in which the city’s median ask topped $1 million since 2018, signaling a recovery over pre-pandemic benchmarks.  As reported by the NY Post, with mortgage rates now climbing to 7%, homeowners have been hesitant to let go of their current loans and put their homes up for sale. This has kept home inventory low, leading to higher competition among purchasers. The number of newly listed homes throughout the five boroughs fell 20.7% year-over-year in June, dropping for the 13th month in a row.  In Brooklyn, listed home inventory was down 24.7% compared to 2019. Brooklyn’s median asking price was $999,999, up 0.5% since last year.

Throughout NYC, the median asking price for condos was approximately $1.6M in June, up 6.9% year-over-year.  Manhattan saw the biggest price increase in condos. The median asking price for Manhattan condos increased 12.8% since last year, reaching a median ask of $2.3 million in June, per the Street Easy report.  Still, condo listings sat four weeks longer on average than last year in Manhattan, with the median time condos were on the market before entering contract at 86 days in June.  Williamsburg in Brooklyn was the busiest neighborhood throughout the city for condo sales, with a 64.4% jump in inquiries over the first half of 2019.   Condos in Brooklyn had the fastest turnaround time, with a median time on market of 35 days in June, or 15 days faster than condos across all parts of Brooklyn.

Brooklyn showed strong interest for its townhouses. Throughout “brownstone Brooklyn,” including the neighborhoods of Cobble Hill, Fort Greene and Bed-Stuy, 197 contracts were signed in the first half of 2023. Though the number of contracts fell from 255 in the same period last year, the contracts nearly doubled the 114 sold in Manhattan.  In Brooklyn, the median time these listings spent on the market in the first half of this year was just 45 days. In Manhattan, townhouses spent a median of 142 days on the market, an increase of nearly two months compared to the first half of 2022.  The most sought-after Brooklyn neighborhood for townhouses was Boerum Hill, followed by Cobble Hill and then Prospect Heights.

Per the Post, more brownstones were sold in Brooklyn than Manhattan, because the median asking price is so much more reasonable.  The Brooklyn median ask for brownstones is at $3 million, compared to $6 million in Manhattan, per the June report.  “Wealthy buyers have started to realize that they can often get more in Brooklyn at a lower price point than they would in Manhattan,” said Kenny Lee, an economist with Street Easy.