Economic turmoil, high state taxes and sluggish home sales make it likely that any sort of a recovery in the New York City housing market 
is a long way off, but real estate markets outside of the metro area are already experiencing better times.
Sliding home sales in the Burroughs of New York, telegraph housing markets behind national trends. As most major metropolitan areas in the U.S. experienced the housing bubble popping, New York picked up as the titans of Wall Street and international buyers bought up real estate, including million dollar apartments in Manhattan. Now markets are unwinding with greater losses in home values forecast ahead.
In Queens home prices are sliding at the highest rate on record, while sales are also slowing. On Long Island sales also turned sluggish with declining prices even in the Hamptons where some of the areas wealthiest are trying to unload their multi-million dollar estates.
Queens has suffered through the downturn with the highest housing deflation of New York’s Burroughs. Only Manhattan remains anything close to being positive in terms of prices similar to before the real estate collapse.
| City | Forecast |
|---|---|
| Manhattan | -6.0% |
| Brooklyn | -5.8% |
| The Bronx | -5.5% |
| Staten Island | -4.6% |
| Queens | -7.3% |
| Long Island | -6.2% |
| Buffalo | 3.1% |
| Rochester | 2.9% |
| Syracuse | 2.5% |
The sales volume has slipped throughout New York City, which is just the opposite of what’s been happening elsewhere in the nation. Housing prices are a long way from a recovery in New York. Manhattan is projected to see home values slide 6% in 2012. Queens should experience an increase in sales towards the end of the year pushed by lower mortgage rates with prices forecast to slip an additional 7.3% by years end.
Long Island will sustain a slide in housing prices over the year forecast to drop 6.2%.
The Bronx has also been slammed with much lower values, which are projected to fall another 5.5% in 2012, despite near record low mortgage rates. Brooklyn is forecast to experience a rise in sales, but home values are forecast to decrease 5.8%. Staten Island should sustain less in average home losses over the course of the year, declining 4.6%.
The toll the region is paying for artificial appreciation manufactured on Wall Street with creative bank mortgages and loose lending practices will take years to overcome as home prices take their largest plunge in the nation’s history.
Upstate where winter snows chill the housing market, Buffalo is at a polar opposite with New York City. Home sales and prices are rising. Any sort of drop-off in sales during the winter will be made up for in the spring as buyers on the fence come out to make home purchases before mortgage rates go higher. Prices are forecast to rise another 3.1% by years end.
Rochester has sustained plenty of economic issues, but increasing transactions from discount priced foreclosures and short sales are out-weighing other problems. Prices are forecast to increase 2.9% in 2012.
Housing prices didn’t rocket to the sky-high levels of other New York markets in Syracuse and aren’t suffering as much from the fallout. Foreclosures are hurting but sales should increase towards the middle of the year in Syracuse pushing home prices higher by a forecast average of 2.5% for the year.