To The Dismay Of Locals, Bayside Home Prices Keep Rising: Study

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — The price for a home in Bayside has continued to skyrocket through the second quarter of this year, according to a new study released by StreetEasy, much to the dismay of many neighbors.

The study, which broke down the citywide real estate market during the second quarter of 2021 by neighborhood, found that people are asking $650,000 for homes in Bayside this quarter compared to the first quarter of 2021, when the median asking price in the neighborhood was $499,000.

Notably, houses in the area are selling for even more than the average recorded asking price — a whopping $815,000 sale price on average, which is nearly a 20 percent increase from the median sales price this time last year.

While this shift shows the gradual rebound of New York City’s sales market, according to StreetEasy, neighbors in Bayside are not thrilled to see home prices rising, with many lamenting neighborhood development.

One neighbor, whose dad bought a home in Bayside for $36,000 in 1962, “can’t believe” that the value is now listed for nearly triple that amount.

“Now the block is overdeveloped and crowded, losing all the sight lines to the bay,” she commented on a neighborhood Facebook thread about housing prices. “Not as nice in my opinion.”

Another agreed that the suburban-like neighborhood is becoming more densely populated and developed.

“They knocked down a beautiful house next door to me, split the lot and built two houses that looked like brick boxes and sold them for 1.3 million each in 2017, it's crazy,” he wrote.

A third lamented that the increased prices are “very sad” making the neighborhood “completely out of reach for the actual working class. And once they sell for a ridiculous price like that, they will never sell for less, awful.”

One neighbor, however, commented that the increase in prices indicates that Bayside is “vibrant and prospering” — though many others pushed back, with one suggesting that “the landlords in Bayside are prospering, everyone else is paying a ridiculously high percentage of their paychecks toward rent.”

The combined increased interest in Bayside homes, and the city’s surplus of for-sale inventory, however, could mean that home prices only keep rising.

StreetEasy economist Nancy Wu pointed out that there’s still a surplus of for-sale houses on the city’s market, meaning that the rise of future — when there are less homes on the market — could cause more dramatic price increases.

There were 5,140 homes on the Queens sales market in the second quarter, according to StreetEasy, marking another new record for the borough.

Read the full StreetEasy study here.