Eliza Theiss Key Takeaways:
- Metro New York’s median sale price was $441 per square foot over the past 12 months.
- 200 of the 240 locations analyzed had lower median sale prices than the metro average.
- Five metro communities featured median sale prices below $200 per square foot, led by Bushkill, Penn., at just $143 per square foot.
- With a $228-per-square-foot median sale price, Newark, N.J., was the most affordable option within a 30-minute drive of NYC.
- Millstone, N.J., offered the best value for your budget with a median sale price of $268 per square foot for a median home size of 3,130 square feet.
- At $157 per square foot, Port Jervis was New York State’s best-priced market in
the metro, Wantage was New Jersey’s at $194 per square foot. - Manhattan and Sag Harbor topped the list for highest prices in metro New York at $1,310 and $1,005 per square foot, respectively.
With the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reporting a national median listing price of $228 per square foot in August, we looked into the price points that homes in the New York metro area sold for over the past 12 months. Additionally, we researched the lowest prices within a 30-minute drive of New York City, as well as where you can find spacious homes at competitive prices.
First, we found that the median sale price per square foot across the New York metro area was $441 for the August 2023 – August 2024 period. Of course, wide discrepancies were instantly evident between the area’s cities and townships: 200 of the 240 communities in our analysis had a lower median price per square foot than the metro average.
Notably, we specifically analyzed the median sale price per square foot because this approach removes outliers and pricing anomalies, such as significantly over- or underpriced properties and very small dwellings. Furthermore, the median sale price per square foot gives sellers and buyers insights into typical asking prices in the market and allows for a more equal comparison of homes of different sizes.
As you might expect, the 40 locations that concentrated most of the metro’s sales and drove up the New York metro median were mostly affluent Hamptons enclaves or cities and towns clustered around NYC. For example, just across the water from NYC, Hoboken commanded a median sale price of $891 per square foot, while Sag Harbor surpassed $1,000 per square foot.
Conversely, at the other end of the pricing spectrum, five communities featured median sale prices below $200 per square foot. Among them were Bushkill, Penn., at $143 per square foot; Port Jervis, N.Y., at $157 per square foot; and Wantage, N.J., at $194 per square foot.
Meanwhile, other locations stood out for how far your dollar could stretch by combining lower sale prices and generous home sizes. Namely, New Jersey’s Millstone stood at $268 per square foot, with the affluent community’s median home size 3,130 square feet. At the same time, Huntington, N.Y. commanded $304 per square foot., with the median size of homes sold in the North Shore town reaching 2,780 square feet.
Lowest Home Prices Within Half-Hour Drive of Manhattan: Newark, Bayonne & the Bronx
Considering NYC’s record office attendance, we started by focusing on locations within a 30-minute drive of Lower Manhattan and found 13 communities where the median price per square foot was less than the $441 per square foot metro median sale price. Of these 13 locations, 11 are New Jersey communities and two are the NYC boroughs of Staten Island and the Bronx.
While Staten Island barely made the cut at $440 per square foot, the Bronx stood out as the third-most affordable place to buy a home in within 30 minutes of Manhattan, at just $299 per square foot. It’s worth noting here that the Bronx was also one of just two locations within a 30-minute drive where the median sale price stayed below $400,000. Guttenberg, N.J., was the other. In fact, Guttenberg also sported one of the lowest median prices per square foot within a half-hour drive of NYC at $300 per square foot.
Nearby, Bayonne, N.J., rested at a median $286 per square foot, with the median home size a comfortable 2,010 square feet, close to the national median home size of 2,140 square feet. Although New Jersey’s Hudson County supplied seven of the 13 lowest-priced locations near NYC, it was Newark, N.J. in Essex County that claimed the lowest median sale price per square foot ($228) within a 30-minute drive of NYC. The median size of homes sold in Newark over the past 12 months was the same 2,010 square feet as in Bayonne.
New York Metro’s Lowest Prices Cluster in Pike & Orange Counties
Meanwhile, individuals who have fully remote setups that aren’t tied to NYC jobs or who are willing to endure three-hour roundtrip commutes for bargain prices, can choose to buy further afield from NYC at a fraction of the cost of closer communities. It comes as no surprise, then, that while the 10 lowest median sale prices in metro New York topped out at $226 per square foot, all 11 communities (the result of one price tie) were located at least an 80-minute drive from NYC.
As expected, Pike County communities in Pennsylvania claimed the lowest median prices per square foot in metro New York: At $143 per square foot, Bushkill, Penn., was the most affordable metro New York location to buy a home in. It was followed by its fellow Pike County community of Milford at $149 per square foot. Upstate New York’s Port Jervis was the third-most affordable location in the metro at $157 per square foot, followed by Dingmans Ferry, Penn., at $173 per square foot.
Moreover, Bushkill, Port Jervis and Dingmans Ferry were the only metro locations to stay below a $300,000 median sale price. And, although Milford surpassed that threshold, it was also one of just two communities among the metro’s lowest priced per square foot where the median size of sold homes was north of 2,000 square feet. The other was Wantage, N.J.
3,000-Sq.-Ft. Homes Starting at $268/Sq. Ft.: See Where You Can Get the Most Space for the Best Price
Buyers looking for a good deal on a large home can find only nine locations where homes had a median size of at least 2,500 square feet, but where the median sale price also did not surpass the $441 per square foot metro median. Of these, Millstone, N.J.; Huntington, N.Y.; Montgomery, N.J.; and Franklin Lakes, N.J., stood out as the top markets for cost-conscious buyers in need of more space.
While the four communities are all located at least an hour’s drive from NYC, Millstone was the most cost-effective option due to its $268-per-square-foot median sale price and a median home size of 3,130 square feet. At the same time, Huntington, N.Y., presented the most attractive price for generous North Shore square footage at $304 per square foot and a median size of 2,780 square feet.
Meanwhile, Montgomery, N.J. homes offered a more modest median 2,550 square feet of space, but the township is known as one of the most affluent communities in the state and is situated just a short 15-minute drive to Princeton. On top of that, the median sale price per square foot was just $313 over the past year.
That said, cost-aware buyers looking for truly large homes need to head to Franklin Lakes, N.J.: The median size of homes sold since August 20123 reached 3,880 square feet and traded hands at a median $353 per square foot. By comparison, metro New York’s median home size over the same period was 1,360 square feet and Manhattan’s 840 square feet.
Manhattan & Sag Harbor Surpass $1,000/Sq. Ft. Median Sale Price, Southampton Close Behind
As expected, the highest prices were commanded by exclusive Hamptons enclaves and communities near or within NYC, although New Jersey’ summer hotspot of Long Beach also appeared as one of five New York metro communities to surpass a median sale price of $900 per square feet. Long Beach was also New Jersey’s most expensive community, followed by Hoboken just across the water from NYC, which charged a median price per square foot of $891.
Meanwhile, Southampton stood at $962 per square foot and Sag Harbor at $1,005 per square foot to rank as the #3- and #2-most expensive places, respectively, to buy a home in metro New York. Moreover, with the median home size of both communities surpassing 2,000 square feet, buyers can expect to pay more than $2 million in two of the Hamptons’ most-coveted locations.
Even so, Manhattan remained the ultimate price leader with a median sale price of $1,310 per square foot for the August 2023 – August 2024 period. However, Brooklyn’s $748 per square foot median sale price also earned it a spot among New York metro’s most expensive places to buy a home in.
Explore the 10-page interactive table below to discover the median sale price per square foot, median size of homes sold and overall median sale price of all 240 metro New York locations included in this study:
Methodology
We defined the New York metro area in accordance with the boundaries of the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Area (MSA) as established by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The boundaries of all 240 locations (whether city, town, township, borough, village, hamlet or otherwise) were established in accordance with proprietary municipal boundary maps from PropertyShark. Example: Open https://www.propertyshark.com/mason/ny/Westchester-County/Maps and select the “Municipal Boundaries” layer in the left-hand menu. Our study includes only locations where the annual median number of sales was at least 100 between 2020 and 2024.
Residential asset types included were single family homes, townhouses, condos and co-ops. Package deals were excluded.
We determined median sale prices and median home sizes based on residential sales registered between August 1, 2023, and August 27, 2024. Median sale prices were rounded up to the nearest $1,000, while median home sizes were rounded up to the nearest 10 square feet.
Driving distances were based on Google Maps estimates across multiple workdays, considering morning (7 to 10 a.m.) traffic conditions and drive times.
Disclaimer
Information provided in this article is purely informational. It is not and should not be regarded as investment advice.
