Queens County

Queens sits at a 3.43% cap rate on a $745,223 median purchase price, generating a rent-to-price ratio of 0.0527, or roughly 52 cents of monthly rent per $1,000 of purchase price. At a 6.85% financing rate with 20% down, the model produces a monthly mortgage of $3,907 against estimated rent of $3,273 and additional expenses of $1,146, landing at negative $1,779 in monthly cash flow and a cash-on-cash return of -12.45%. Those numbers place Queens squarely at the appreciation end of the spectrum. Year-over-year home price growth of 4.79% is doing real work here, but it is doing all the work. There is no cash-flow cushion, and an investor who needs current income should understand that from the outset rather than discover it after close.

The appreciation score of 85 out of 100 is the single most useful number in this data set for characterizing who belongs in Queens. This is not a market for a cash-flow buyer, full stop. The -12.45% cash-on-cash return means an investor is writing a check every month for the privilege of ownership, and that check runs close to $1,779 before any capital expenditure or vacancy. A value-add operator faces the same math: even a meaningful rent bump on a $745,000 asset barely moves the needle on a 3.43% cap rate. The investor who belongs here is a long-duration appreciation buyer, specifically one who has the balance sheet to carry negative cash flow, believes NYC-metro scarcity dynamics continue compounding price gains, and is underwriting total return rather than yield. The affordability index of 9 out of 100 confirms that entry is expensive, and the national percentile rank of 23rd confirms this is a below-average market for overall investment attractiveness despite its appreciation profile.

Queens is the most populous county in the New York metro area at 2.36 million residents, and that scale creates durable rental demand independent of any single employer or sector. The density and transit connectivity that make it one of the largest urban counties in the country also create a structural floor under rent, since displacement pressure in Manhattan and Brooklyn continues pushing renters into Queens as a relative value within the borough hierarchy. That relative positioning is partly reflected in the $3,273 median rent, which is meaningful but still sits below Kings County's $3,516. Population scale alone is not an economic anchor, but in a land-constrained market where new supply is severely limited by zoning and construction costs, 2.36 million people in a single county represents a demand base that is unlikely to soften materially.

Tax and insurance carry deserves its own line on the underwrite. The monthly tax and insurance estimate comes to $1,217, which is a substantial component of the $1,146 in total estimated expenses shown in the model. The state-average effective property tax rate used here is 1.72%, and at that level, annual taxes on a $745,223 property run approximately $12,818. That flag is warranted: 1.72% is high enough that a 10 to 15 basis point variance at the actual township level meaningfully changes your monthly carry. New York City property tax assessments follow their own classification rules and phase-in schedules that frequently diverge from state averages, so the honest underwrite requires pulling the actual tax bill for any specific address rather than relying on a rate-based estimate. Annual insurance at $1,789 is comparatively modest, but the combined $1,217 monthly burden for taxes and insurance alone means an investor is spending $14,607 per year before debt service or management fees.

The primary risk in Queens is concentration in a single metro labor market with one of the highest regulatory burdens on landlords in the country. New York State's rent stabilization laws, eviction protections, and tenant-friendly court system create meaningful operational friction that does not appear in a cap rate. These are not invented concerns; they are structural features of the regulatory environment that affect every buy-and-hold operator in the five boroughs. Demographic concentration risk is limited by the sheer size and diversity of the population, but any investor underwriting Queens needs to factor legal carry costs and timeline risk into vacancy assumptions.

Among the five neighboring counties in the data, Queens is the only one where the appreciation thesis is this clearly dominant. Kings County (Brooklyn) posts a higher median price at $915,205 and a lower rent-to-price ratio of 0.0461 versus Queens' 0.0527, meaning Queens actually pencils slightly better on yield while sitting at a lower entry point, though both are deeply negative on cash flow. Westchester at 0.0439 and Richmond at 0.0412 are worse on yield and do not offer a comparable appreciation score. Rockland County at $724,554 and an overall score of 51 is the only neighbor with a lower price and a marginally better overall score, but it operates in a very different market dynamic without the same density-driven appreciation argument. Warren County at $356,302 is a fundamentally different asset class: a lower-priced market with a 0.0454 ratio but nothing like Queens' appreciation trajectory. Choose Queens over its neighbors specifically when your thesis is long-hold appreciation in a supply-constrained urban market and you have the liquidity to absorb years of negative carry while that thesis plays out.