Housing prices going up

Survey shows one-bedroom rentals could cost 18 percent more

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Rent and home prices in the Bronx are quickly on the rise, growing faster even than those in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Although the Bronx is home to one of the poorest congressional districts, New York’s 15th district that includes the South Bronx, rent hikes in the Bronx are outpacing those of its neighbors to the south, according to data collected by NeighborhoodX, a real estate data startup. And the rent hikes are occurring across the borough. 

In Spuyten Duyvil, home prices are approaching Brooklyn levels, according to a NeighborhoodX report. Brooklyn has been the site of massive redevelopment and economic growth for the better part of a decade. 

Prices for a co-op in Spuyten Duyvil have risen to as high as $744 per square foot, though the average listing is $292 per square foot. 

In Riverdale, rents for one-bedroom apartments rose on average 18 percent to $1,900 per month this year from $1,600 per month in 2013, even as Manhattan rents marked a 5-percent increase and rents in Brooklyn grew 9 percent during the same three-year period.  

In Mott Haven in the South Bronx, rents skyrocketed 45 percent to $1,700 per month this year from $1,200 in 2013. 

Average rents in Manhattan, however, are still about 80 percent higher than those in Riverdale, while rents in Brooklyn are 45 percent higher than those in the Riverdale, according to NeighborhoodX data. 

On City Island, the area with the highest average rents in the Bronx, prices for a one-bedroom apartment stand at about $2,050, which is about 35 percent less than in Brooklyn, according to the real estate startup.

It is not a far off idea to think the Bronx could be the target of a new wave gentrification and development, even though the borough has long held a reputation for being gentrification-proof. 

Yet, an arrival of developers and realtors was predicted at least as early as 2006, when a pair of CUNY researchers, Gilbert Marzan and James Freeman, published a study on the effects gentrification in the South Bronx neighborhoods of Mott Haven and Hunts Point.

“Over the past 20 years, New York City poor minority neighborhoods have undergone dramatic social and economic changes,” according to the study. “Latino neighborhoods, as well as African American communities, have been especially vulnerable to the effects of gentrification.”

Their study, “From the South Bronx to Sobro: Gentrification in Mott Haven, Positive or Negative,” examines the population and demographical changes in Mott Haven during what they called the early stages of gentrification from 1990 to 2000.

“Besides population increase, gentrified areas also experienced a significant change in term of racial composition. Primarily neighborhoods racial definition changes from mostly minority to white,” the paper reads. “The low income and high poverty may indicate low rents which exist. Low rent areas are also prime for gentrification.”

NeighborhoodX, Rent, Home Prices, Anthony Capote

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