McMansions Make Malba “the Hamptons of Queens”

Which New York neighborhoods are paved with gold? Tribeca, check. Dumbo, check. Malba, ch – . Whoa, Malba? As in Malba, Queens? Yes, the neighborhood near the spot where the Whitestone Bridge soars across the East River is officially the most expensive in Queens, and the 25th priciest in the five boroughs, according to Property Shark’s year-end ranking of the city’s 50 Most Expensive Neighborhoods.

Trendy Tribeca in lower Manhattan remains the most expensive neighborhood in the city, with the median sale price jumping 12 percent during the past year to $4.7 million. Soho was a distant No. 2 at $3 million, followed by that steroidal West Side mega-development, Hudson Yards, at $2.3 million. Seven of the 10 priciest neighborhoods are in Manhattan.

Dumbo, Brooklyn’s most expensive enclave, slipped to No. 6 overall at $2 million. But the borough’s most explosive growth was in Fort Greene, where prices nearly doubled to just over $1 million, thanks to a spate of new luxury developments, pulling the neighborhood even with Chelsea, home to art galleries and the High Line. How do you spell g-e-n-t-r-i-f-i-c-a-t-i-o-n?

Which brings us back to Malta, Queens, where sales volume was not particularly heavy, but where opulent waterside McMansions continued to fetch high prices. One went on the market last summer for an eye-popping $8.8 million. Although closing only 14 sales, Malba saw its median sale price jump 11 percent over last year to just over $1 million, bringing the hood up three positions to No. 25 overall in the city. Those numbers inspired one hyperventilating broker to describe Malba as “the Hamptons of Queens.” Which, given the slippery nature of New York City real estate hype, is probably no worse than calling Fort Greene “the Chelsea of Brooklyn.”