Most New Apartments Concentrated in Brooklyn, Queens Neighborhoods

According to a new report from Localize.city, more than half of the new units expected to open by 2020 are concentrated in just 10 neighborhoods. All but one in the Lower East Side are in Queens or Brooklyn. In all, New York is expected to get 31,000 new units by 2020. The wave continues to build upon the flurry of new construction the city has seen since 2016. Since then, nearly 60,000 new rental and condo units have been added to the market, Localize.city found.

Greenpoint is expected to see the biggest burst of new units by 2020, jumping from fewer than 70 units in the first half of this year to more than 2,600 thanks to the highly anticipated opening of parts of the Greenpoint Landing megaproject.

Flatbush, which saw about 100 units open in the first half of the year, is also expected to soon see a surge of new units hitting the market, jumping nearly 1,250 percent. Williamsburg and Astoria are also expected to see large numbers of new units. Both neighborhoods are expected to see the number of units opening in the next year and a half jump by 800 percent compared to the first half of 2018.

The report draws upon the machine learning algorithms that power Localize.city. The data science team analyzed tens of thousands of current permit applications through July 1, 2018, for buildings with at least four units. Localize.city’s algorithms predict when new units will finish based on the distribution of delays between various phases in a project’s life.

Much of the construction now underway can be traced back to the rush of developers angling to file permits in 2015, before the state’s 421-a tax abatement expired in January 2016. After the flurry of permits were filed, the number of units under construction peaked at the start of 2016 to nearly 94,000 units.

The number of units currently under construction is now waning. As these projects wrap up, however, the number of units that hit the market will continue on the upswing.