When Amazon announced that Long Island City would be one of two new locations for its HQ2, the media were abuzz with the news that New York City could soon become the next technology hub, rivaling Silicon Valley. The entrance of the company was expected to be a major economic development initiative, creating as many as 107,000 jobs directly and indirectly, and building a campus of over 4 million square feet, according to a Nov. 16, 2018 Curbed article.
Long Island City was already the country's fastest growing neighborhood prior to the announcement, with median home prices rising from $509,000 in 2012 to $769,000 in 2019. Real estate information company PropertyShark examined searches for homes in Long Island City on its platform Point2Homes, and found that queries for properties in the area exploded by nearly 200 percent in the three days following the news. After the announcement, even less pricey areas such as Astoria, Greenpoint and Sunnyside were seeing a surge in home prices due to the ripple effect of high demand in Long Island City.
