NYC homeowners live in their home for an average of 8.1 years

Property

By means of Joyce Cohen

March 1, 2023 | 1:10 PM

How long do homeowners in New York stay in their home before selling it?

Just over eight years.

The stats — from a new PropertyShark report that covers all five boroughs — contradict the conventional pandemic wisdom that people have left the city en masse. Last year, New York City homeowners had a median tenure of 8.1 years — one year more than the median “homeownership term” of 7.1 years in 2019.

The calculation report shows that those who lived in small houses – one- to four-family homes – stayed for nine to 10 years. Co-op owners sold after about seven years.

Two- to four-family homes in The Bronx had the lowest sales, followed closely by single-family homes in Queens and Brooklyn. These lucky residents stayed for about 11 years.

Staten Island homeowners had the shortest tenure – about five years.

“While it seemed like everyone was moving, getting bigger, or changing their current homes due to the pandemic, there were actually more risk-averse owners than pioneers willing to just get up and leave during a period of so much stress and uncertainty,” says the report. relating to sales in the past four years.

The revenue slowdown could be due to the “golden handcuffs” phenomenon, according to the report.

“While there will always be homeowners who have to sell because of major life events that force them to do so, most owners are rather reluctant to give up the 30-year fixed-rate mortgages they had taken out when interest rates were at an all-time low. .”

When it came to sales, the size of the house didn’t matter much, except when it came to tiny houses in The Bronx. For homes less than 500 square feet, homeowners showed great stability for nearly 22 years.

As for the age of the home, the highest turnover occurred in homes less than five years old. The average term of office before that was 2.3 years. In Manhattan, it was just 1.4 years — possibly because new homes can be starter homes, with people upgrading soon after for growing families or better jobs.

Homeownership rates in New York City are among the lowest in the country. Many residents of multi-family homes are renters.

When it comes to square footage, “generally speaking, the larger the home, the more time owners spent in it before selling it,” the report says. But in Brooklyn and Staten Island, smaller is better. Owners spent the least time in the largest homes there, possibly due to higher maintenance costs.

A similar analysis in California showed that homeowners in Elk Grove and nearby Sacramento stayed less than 2.5 years on average. Those in Salinas, the agricultural hub, stayed for more than 9 years.

The number of transactions in the city fell during the pandemic, hitting a low of 27,000 in 2020 and a high of 45,000 in 2021. Homeowner tenure is defined as the time between the most recent sale date and the previous sale date. Homes without at least one previous transaction are not included in the data.