Bronx County, NY Cap Rates by Neighborhood

County-Wide Gross Yield: A Starting Point, Not a Conclusion

The Bronx posts a 6.77% gross rent-to-price ratio against a June 2026 median home price of $498,600 and median rent of $2,815 per month. That yield looks like a clean signal, but it is a blended figure across wildly different asset types, flood exposures, tax trajectories, and transit profiles. The spread between a flood-zone Clason Point two-family and a multifamily walkup near a future Metro-North station in Morris Park is wider than the headline number suggests. The 6.77% figure tells you the Bronx is the most income-supportive borough in NYC. It does not tell you which specific deals make money after taxes, insurance, and regulatory friction.

The price-to-rent ratio of 14.8x confirms the relative income advantage. For context, Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn sit well above 20x. But 14.8x at the county level still masks sub-market variation that determines whether net cash flow is positive or a slow bleed.

Property Tax Drag on Net Yield

Before breaking down neighborhoods, the tax math deserves a clean look. The effective property tax rate in Bronx County is about 0.85%, below the national median of 1.02% and far below the New York State median of 2.39%. On a $498,600 property, that produces an annual tax bill near $4,238. The county's median annual bill is $5,572, implying assessed values and class-specific rates push typical investor-held properties (Classes 2 and 4) above the blended average.

Apply the tax load to the gross yield:

• Gross yield on $498,600: $33,780 annually (6.77%)
• Tax at 0.85% effective rate: $4,238
• Net yield after tax only: about 5.92%

That is the floor before insurance, maintenance, management, and vacancy. Two additional headwinds matter here.

First, the FY2027 tentative tax roll shows the Bronx recorded the largest market value increase among all five boroughs at 8.4%, and commercial and mixed-use assessed values rose 11.0%. Investors acquiring multifamily or mixed-use assets today should not anchor to current tax bills. Underwrite for assessed value escalation, because the data shows it is already happening.

Second, a 2025 Community Service Society report found that Bronx and outer-borough homeowners face effective tax rates roughly double those of comparable Manhattan condo owners due to structural inequity in NYC's property classification system. Class 2 multifamily investors in the Bronx bear a disproportionate share of the city's tax burden relative to asset value.

Neighborhood and Sub-Market Yield Breakdown

Mott Haven and Norwood: Gentrification Corridors

Q1 2025 investor activity concentrated in Mott Haven and Norwood for multifamily and mixed-use properties. These neighborhoods represent the sharpest value-add opportunity in the borough, where below-market in-place rents on rent-stabilized units sit against rising market rents driven by tenant displacement pressure from Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Gross yields in these corridors likely run above the county average when you catch a building mid-transition. The risk is rent stabilization friction: NYC's regulatory regime caps rent increases on stabilized units, compressing the rent growth you need to justify appreciation-priced acquisition. Norwood also benefits from proximity to the Montefiore Einstein Medical Center campus in the same neighborhood, which generates persistent demand from the system's 1,200-plus resident physicians and support workforce.

Morris Park and Parkchester/Van Nest: Transit Premium in Progress

Morris Park carries a median home price near $780,000, placing its price-to-rent ratio well above the county median. At that entry price, gross yields compress toward 5% or below depending on unit mix. The reason to accept that compression: the $3.1 billion Metro-North Penn Station Access project places new stations at both Morris Park and Parkchester/Van Nest, cutting commutes to Penn Station by up to 50 minutes. Completion is now targeted for 2028 at earliest after a third delay.

Investors in these corridors are pricing in transit premiums before the infrastructure opens, which is a reasonable bet but not a near-term yield play. The August 2024 Bronx Metro-North Area Plan rezoning creates capacity for about 7,000 new housing units in station catchment areas, with one-quarter permanently restricted to low-income households. Development timelines on subsidized units will extend deal horizons further.

The displacement between today's yield and the transit-adjusted future yield is the thesis, not the current cash flow.

Hunts Point and Co-Op City: Opposite Ends of the Same Rail Line

Hunts Point and Co-Op City are the two other named stations in the Metro-North project. Hunts Point is a distress-signal neighborhood: zip code 10473 (covering Clason Point, Castle Hill, Soundview, and Unionport nearby) led the borough with 29 new foreclosure filings in 2025, part of a 35% year-over-year surge in Bronx foreclosures that more than doubled over two years. Foreclosure supply creates below-market acquisition opportunities, but also flags credit risk and requires careful title work and rehab underwriting.

Co-Op City at the other end is primarily a large-scale cooperative housing complex; investor purchase options are limited, and the transit premium accrues mostly to existing residents rather than to fee-simple investors.

Fordham

Fordham anchors institutional rental demand from Fordham University and benefits from the same rent stabilization pressure that defines the rest of the Bronx multifamily market. Q1 2025 investor activity included Fordham for multifamily acquisition. Yields here are supported by student and young-professional demand, though the same tax escalation risk applies to every multifamily acquisition in the borough.

Riverdale and Kingsbridge: Yield Constrained by Structure

Riverdale's co-op concentration removes most properties from straightforward cash-flow analysis. Board approval processes extend deal timelines and restrict buyer pools, which supports price stability but creates liquidity risk. City of Yes zoning restrictions apply to portions of Riverdale, limiting density upside. For income-focused investors, Riverdale underperforms the county yield average and adds transaction complexity.

Neighborhood Yield Comparison

Flood Insurance: A Real Yield Reducer for Coastal Assets

Coastal and low-lying Bronx properties along the Harlem River, East River, and Long Island Sound shorelines carry NFIP insurance obligations under FEMA flood zone designations post-Hurricane Sandy, covering both A Zones and V Zones. Flood insurance premiums on affected properties must be modeled as a fixed operating expense that reduces net yield directly.

Beyond insurance cost, the December 2024 COYHO companion legislation explicitly prohibits basement and cellar ADUs in coastal flood hazard areas and inland flood-prone zones. An investor underwriting a two-family acquisition in Hunts Point or Clason Point with a basement ADU income line needs to verify FEMA zone classification first. If the parcel is flood-mapped, that ADU income disappears from the pro forma, and the flood premium lands on top.

Only about 12% of NYC's one- and two-family lots qualify for ADUs after flood zone, historic district, and density restrictions are applied. In flood-exposed Bronx neighborhoods, the qualifying share is lower still.

Cap Rate Compression vs. Decompression

Prices are rising faster than a traditional compression alert would require. The ZHVI increased 5.72% year-over-year to June 2026. Without matching rent data for the same period, the direction is toward mild cap rate compression at the county level: prices appreciating faster than rents typically pushes yields down.

That trend is uneven across sub-markets. In transit-catchment neighborhoods where commercial investment volume rose 79% year-over-year in Q1 2025 and buildable square footage traded increased 853%, land prices are moving ahead of stabilized net operating income. That is classic pre-transit compression, and it means the window for above-average yields in Morris Park and Parkchester/Van Nest is narrowing.

In distress sub-markets like the 10473 zip code, foreclosure supply offsets appreciation pressure and can produce temporary yield expansion for buyers willing to acquire out of distress.

Cap Rate Outlook

The directional read is compression at the high end and selective expansion at the distress end, with the transit story pushing the 2028 horizon as the next inflection point.

Three forces will drive net yield over the next two to five years: First, assessed value escalation is already the fastest among NYC boroughs, and the 11.0% rise in commercial assessed values points to rising tax expense lines on multifamily and mixed-use assets. Second, the Metro-North stations remain the single largest value catalyst, but the third delay to 2028 means two more years of carrying cost before the transit premium is priced in by the broader market. Third, the City of Yes density bonuses near transit corridors will layer new supply into station catchment areas, which can limit rent growth even as land values rise.

Investors entering today should underwrite net yields in the 4.5–5.5% range on stabilized multifamily after tax, insurance, and basic operating costs, with upside keyed to rent growth in market-rate units and transit-driven appreciation. The 6.77% gross yield is real as a borough-wide starting point, but the path from gross to net erodes more in the Bronx than the headline number implies.

Model your specific deal with our investment property calculator to run the tax escalation, flood insurance, and rent stabilization scenarios for your target zip code.