Astoria, LIC Rents Inched Up Amid City's Reopening: Study

ASTORIA-LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — After hitting record lows amid the pandemic, rents in northwest Queens have continued to inch up through the second quarter of this year as the area gradually rebounds from the coronavirus’ impact, according to a new study.

The StreetEasy study, which broke down the citywide real estate market during the second quarter of 2021 by neighborhood, found that on average it costs more to rent an apartment in Long Island City and Astoria this quarter compared to the first quarter of 2021.

This upwards trend started in April, as the city expanded vaccine eligibility and workers who left during the pandemic began to return to the city.

In Astoria, the median rent rose from $1,900 to $1,975 between the first and second quarter of 2021, and in Long Island City the shift was from $2,931 to $3,043 for an apartment, on average, StreetEasy data shows.

Although rent in Astoria is still more than 10 percent cheaper compared to what it was pre-pandemic, according to StreetEasy data, rents in Long Island City are only 1.8 percent less than pre-pandemic prices.

“There’s a mass migration of people coming back into the city, and many are choosing to go to Long Island City,” Mark Metzger, a real-estate agent at Bond New York, told Curbed in June, when rents in the area were sharply on the rise.

Just as rents dropped when young, affluent office workers fled northwest Queens at the start of the pandemic — forgoing their midtown Manhattan commutes and Long Island City apartments at the same time — rents started to rise as those residents returned.

Molly Socha, a 34-year-old podcast producer, for instance, told Curbed that she moved to Long Island City this spring because of its central location — to her friends, Central Park, and her office building.

“We’re not fully back in the office yet, but when the time comes, I can take the ferry to Midtown,” she said.

In June, it looked like a majority of employees in the city would be expected to return to their offices by this September, bolstering northwest Queens’ rental market. In August, however, some offices started to reverse course, keeping their doors closed amid the spread of the delta variant.

The economic downsides of a slower reopening remain unknown, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told CNN Business, likely meaning that northwest Queens’ rental fate also hangs in the balance.

“If we see a large number of companies not open back up and office towers remain dark, that would be a blow to the surrounding communities,” Zandi said.

Read the full StreetEasy report here.