Construction Boom in Queens?

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More than 170-thousand jobs were lost in New York City over the last 2 years. But, construction jobs rose 4.7 %. In the last part of our series on the economy. WNYC's Leticia Theodore went to find out how this development has affected the Queens housing " I was waiting for a while hoping that it would go down and I realized it was just going up and up and up 1:15 That's why I decided I'm just gonna take the a chance and go with it. Reporter: Donovan Lyons, a Caribbean immigrant, bought his 2 family house in Jamaica Queens, a year ago for $330,000. Lyons: "If I knew I could afford to pay the mortgage I'd just buy regardless of the economy or not. I work for the city so I was pretty stable in the job knew I wasn't going to get laid off Reporter: in order to come up with a down payment, he worked two jobs and his wife held on to her own job and took care of their 2 children. He wanted to live on long island, but when he calculated the mortgage cost for a one family home on long island it was equivalent to a house with a rental apartment in Queens. Experts say housing expenses shouldn't exceed 20 to 30% of your income. Donovan, who still worked 2 jobs, leans against his pick up truck with the peeling paint and grunts. He says that's a joke... "It shouldn't be right now where the people upstairs are paying 13 hundred dollars... But that's half of my mortgage right there. Reporter: within a four-block radius there are 6 new houses under construction that are comparable to Donovan's. The asking price? About 425 thousand dollars. Queens realtor, Glen Calderon, sold 638 houses last year alone. That's more than $135 million in sales. At least one third of his business is done in Queens. Lyons: Prices are very strong, and as long as demand exceeds supply prices will go up regardless of the underlying times, that's just the way it is." Reporter: Joshua Muss, a developer based in Forest Hills Queens, says it's not just a perception; new residences are going up on virtually every corner in the borough. Muss: As a developer it's an epiphany, for communities it can be an epidemic. The trauma it sometimes brings to communities is that people come in to established communities and knock down larger houses, older houses with larger pieces of property and sometimes put up 5 to 10 units where there was one before." Reporter: homeownership rates in Queens are close to 42.8 %, that's compared to 30 % citywide. Michael Schill, professor of law and urban planning at new York university says the typical Queens home buyers are first or second generation immigrants, and/or thirty-somethings looking to buy their first home. Schill: The census report shows the number of households in Queens went up by over 64,000 which is one of the largest increases in the city. At that same time the number of new housing units only went up by about 15,000. So you can see the population growth or the demand for housing is outstripping the supply. Reporter: in 1965, Caroline Clement bought a 4-bedroom house she paid $25, 500, today it's worth well over 300,000. What she gained in value she lost in quality of life. Clement: There's no air to breathe, you feel everybody's on top of you. It feels like Brooklyn because there are so many houses, now there's no vacant space. For wnyc I'm Leticia Theodore