Long Island City

At a glance

Where it is: western Queens on the East River opposite Midtown, from the Hunters Point waterfront inland through Court Square and Queens Plaza Share of recorded sales: condominium 87 percent · cooperative 7 percent · small multifamily 4 percent Market character: 55.6 percent arm's-length — the lowest of any market in the Index. Close to half the recorded sale history is not resale evidence Defining control: tax exemption. Much of the tower stock was built carrying a 421-a benefit that steps down on a schedule specific to each building Transit: 7 at Vernon Boulevard–Jackson Avenue and Hunters Point Avenue; E, M, G and 7 at Court Square; E, M and R at Queens Plaza; F at 21st Street–Queensbridge; Long Island Rail Road at Hunterspoint Avenue; NYC Ferry from Hunters Point South Watch for: the most recent recorded sale in a new tower is frequently a sponsor first-sale rather than a comparable. Filter the record before you price against it

Why Long Island City trades the way it does

Every market has a mix of resales and sponsor sales. Long Island City is the only one we publish where that mix breaks close to even. Across 9,231 recorded sales, 55.6 percent clear our arm's-length test — a resale between unrelated parties on market terms — which means roughly 44.4 percent do not. That is the largest non-arm's-length share of any market in the Index, and it is the single most important thing to know before you read a number here. In Forest Hills the comparable figure is 96.4 percent. The two neighborhoods sit on the same subway line, and their sale records are not the same kind of evidence.

The second structural fact is concentration. Those 9,231 sales sit across only 743 addresses, and the four busiest — 3 Court Square at 774 recorded sales, 4-74 48th Avenue at 610, 27-28 Thomson Avenue at 400 and 46-30 Center Boulevard at 273 — account for better than a fifth of everything ever recorded in the neighborhood. A market this concentrated moves when a small number of large buildings move. It also means that for most of the towers here, the deepest comparable set available is the building's own history rather than the block's.

The third is that the two tenures have run in opposite directions. The condominium series — 87 percent of the sale record, and where essentially all the volume sits — rose 33.6 percent between 2016 and 2025, a real-terms change of negative 0.5 percent. It held value and did not gain any. The cooperative series over the same window fell 3.6 percent nominally and 28.1 percent in real terms. That tier is 7 percent of the sale record and rests on a narrow base, so treat it as a direction rather than a measurement. The direction is still worth knowing: the older, smaller, non-tower layer of this neighborhood has not participated in what the towers did.

The stock

Condominium at 87 percent is not a majority, it is the market. The characteristic product is a large sponsor-developed tower with a full amenity package, a common-charge line that reflects it, and a tax line that reflects an exemption. Price it per square foot, from resales only, and hold the comparable set inside one building wherever the history supports it.

The tower stock splits geographically in a way the neighborhood name hides. The waterfront blocks along Center Boulevard and 48th Avenue in Hunters Point are one market — river frontage, park frontage, the ferry, and the view premium that goes with all three. The blocks around Court Square, Jackson Avenue and Queens Plaza are another: closer to more subway lines, denser, without the water. Both roll into one median. Build comparables within one of them, never across the two.

Under the towers sits a much older and much smaller layer that rarely trades: the cooperative tier at 7 percent, small multifamily at 4 percent, converted industrial buildings, and the Italianate row houses of the Hunters Point Historic District, designated in 1968 and covering roughly one block of 45th Avenue between 21st and 23rd Streets. That district is genuine Landmarks Preservation Commission jurisdiction — exterior alterations require a Certificate of Appropriateness — and it is small enough that a buyer should confirm an address against the designation report rather than a neighborhood map. Everything outside it is governed by zoning alone.

Reading a sponsor-led market

This is where the diligence work actually is. When a sponsor sells a unit under an offering plan, the recorded deed price comes off a pricing schedule at a particular point in a sell-out, and the terms behind it are not on the deed. The purchaser customarily pays the sponsor's transfer taxes in a new-development closing, and credits negotiated late in a sell-out — closing-cost contributions, common-charge periods, mansion-tax credits — do not appear in the public record at all. A recorded price can therefore sit above the economics that actually cleared.

The method that works: pull the individual unit's history rather than the building's average. The second recorded sale of a given unit is the first print you can treat as market evidence. In a building whose sell-out finished recently there may be very few of those, which is precisely why the Index publishes this neighborhood with a caveat for a thinner resale base. If your target line has no resale history at all, widen to the same line in a comparable tower with a longer record — the alternative is pricing off a sponsor's schedule and calling it a comp.

421-a and what it does to carrying cost

The tax exemption that made most of this stock financeable is not permanent, and it is not uniform. A 421-a benefit runs for a defined term, reduces taxes on the improvement rather than the land, and phases out in steps at the end of that term. While it runs, the monthly tax line on a unit can be a fraction of what an unabated building of the same value carries. When it steps down, that line rises — in some buildings substantially.

Do not take a year from a listing, a brochure, or a summary of the program, and do not take one from this guide. The program's terms have changed repeatedly through legislation and successor programs, and the benefit's start year, term and phase-out schedule are facts about the specific building — recorded in its Department of Finance property tax record and described in its offering plan. Get both, then underwrite at the post-benefit tax level rather than the current one if you intend to hold past the step-down. If you intend to sell before it, your buyer will run exactly that arithmetic. In a market that is 87 percent condominium and overwhelmingly built in the abatement era, this is the question that separates two apparently identical units.

Daily life and getting around

Vernon Boulevard is the retail and restaurant spine of the waterfront side; Jackson Avenue and the blocks around Court Square carry the inland side, with the tower ground floors along the avenues behind them. Gantry Plaza State Park and Hunter's Point South Park give the neighborhood a continuous river esplanade directly opposite Midtown, which is the amenity most buyers are actually paying for; Queensbridge Park sits north of the Queensboro Bridge approach. MoMA PS1 on Jackson Avenue is the anchor cultural institution.

The transit package is the reason the rezoned blocks produced what they did. Court Square is a four-line complex — E, M, G and 7 — and the G terminates there, making it the transfer point for anyone coming from central Brooklyn. Queens Plaza carries the E, M and R; 21st Street–Queensbridge carries the F; Vernon Boulevard–Jackson Avenue and Hunters Point Avenue carry the 7. Most of the neighborhood is one stop from Manhattan. The Long Island Rail Road stops at Hunterspoint Avenue, but service there is limited and skewed to peak direction, so read the timetable rather than assuming it. The NYC Ferry pier at Hunters Point South runs the East River route to Midtown and Lower Manhattan.

What to know if you're buying here

Separate first-sales from resales before you look at a single price. In a market that is 44.5 percent non-arm's-length, an unfiltered comparable set is not a comparable set. This is the first step here, not a refinement of the last one.

Get the tax picture in writing, from the building. The current monthly tax figure on a marketing sheet describes today. Ask for the benefit's term and phase-out schedule from the offering plan and the Department of Finance record, and model the step-down. Two units at the same asking price in two different towers can carry very different ten-year costs.

Read the common charges as carefully as the price. Amenity-heavy towers carry the amenities in the monthly line. Combined with an exemption that will step down, total carrying cost is where the real differences between buildings show up, and it is what your eventual buyer will underwrite.

Decide whether you are buying the water or the trains. Hunters Point and the Court Square–Queens Plaza blocks are different products at different prices. Pick one before you start reading comparables, and for waterfront addresses confirm the FEMA flood-zone designation and the building's flood insurance position — both are quick public checks.

Do not read the cooperative series as a discount opportunity. The co-op tier is 7 percent of the sale record and runs opposite the condominium series, down 3.6 percent nominally and 28.1 percent in real terms since 2016. That may reflect a thin sample, an older stock, or both. It is a reason to underwrite any co-op purchase here on its own building rather than on the neighborhood.

What to know if you're selling here

You are competing with a sponsor, and you should price like it. If new inventory is still closing in your building or the one next to it, that inventory sets the terms — including concessions your buyer will ask you to match. Know what is actually clearing in the sell-out before you set an asking price, not after.

Your remaining tax benefit is a marketable asset with an expiry date. State the term plainly, and state what happens at the end of it. A buyer who discovers the step-down in diligence renegotiates; a buyer who was told about it at the outset underwrites it and moves on.

Lead with the line and the exposure, not the neighborhood. Volume in this market concentrates in a small number of large buildings, and your buyer is comparing your unit to other units in your building and to a handful of towers nearby. Position against that set specifically. Neighborhood averages here blend waterfront and inland stock and describe neither.

Where it sits in the Index

Long Island City carries the highest condominium per-square-foot reading in Queens by a wide margin, and we publish it with a caveat: new-development-heavy, with a thinner resale base than its raw sale count suggests. The honest summary of 2016 through 2025 is that its condominium series gained a third nominally and finished essentially flat in real terms, while its small cooperative tier lost ground on both measures. Read it against Forest Hills, the borough's cleanest resale market at 96.4 percent arm's-length, and against Astoria immediately north, where no single tenure accounts for even 35 percent of the sale record. The full parent-market read sits on The Roebling Index.

Run the numbers

• Mansion Tax Calculator
• Buyer Closing Cost Calculator
• Seller Closing Cost Calculator

Related guides

• Astoria — A Buyer's Guide — the neighbor to the north, and the most evenly split market in the Index
• Forest Hills — A Buyer's Guide — the resale benchmark to compare this record against
• Manhattan Apartment Buying Guide — new development, sponsor terms and closing costs
• NYC Real Estate Tax & Closing Cost Guide