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Upper East Side's 10065 Ranks No. 1 on Forbes' Priciest ZIP Codes

By Amy Zimmer | October 16, 2012 8:31pm

MANHATTAN — The Upper East Side’s 10065 ZIP code — where the median home asking price is $6.5 million — topped Forbes’ list of priciest ZIP codes, marking the first time a New York City neighborhood took the No. 1 spot, the magazine said Tuesday.

This ritzy enclave, which spans from Central Park to the East River between East 60th to 69th streets, includes the homes of such wealthy power brokers as Rupert Murdoch, Ronald Perelman, David Rockefeller and Robert Bass, among others, Forbes noted.

“Luxury properties are still holding strong,” said Joan Swift, herself a No. 1, as the top producing individual broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman. “There are still a lot of wealthy people in Manhattan and wealthy people who come to buy in Manhattan.”

The 10065 neighborhood includes a six-level $40 million modernist limestone townhouse — complete with a waterfall in its backyard — rising at 34 E. 62nd St. It also has a $21 million home for sale built by billionaire Alexander Rovt. There are also more than 50 condo units in the area asking seven figures or higher, Forbes said.

Swift has a $19.9 million listing in the area, at 20 E. 65th St., for a loft-like 6,500-plus-square-foot triplex condo in a Beaux-Arts limestone mansion that was converted from several apartments a few years ago into two residences — with their own doorman.

“It’s kind of like Downtown loft living Uptown,” she said of the listing. “You can’t find that on [the] Upper East Side. You can’t even find that kind of space Downtown. [And] in the city you can’t find a townhouse with a doorman.”

Forbes enlisted the help of Altos Research, a California-based company that tracks housing data, to pull asking price information for more than 22,000 ZIP codes across the U.S. from June 28 to Sept. 28. 

Three other Manhattan neighborhoods cracked the top 10 — the West Village’s 10014 (No. 6 with a median home price of $4.1 million), the Upper East Side’s 10021 (No. 8 with a median home price of $3.98 million) and the Upper East Side’s 10075 (No. 10 with a median home price of $3.885 million). A total of 19 New York City ZIP codes — eight of which line Central Park — made it into the top 100, according to Forbes.

Why did Manhattan fare so well this year?

Lower inventory helped — creating a tight market, especially for the limited supply of high-end townhouses and lofts — and deep-pocketed foreign buyers who have turned to pricey condos as a safe place to invest bumped up prices as well, according to Forbes.

Swift wasn’t surprised that the 10065 — which is rich in luxe townhouses — topped the list.

Even though many New Yorkers might shun the area for hipper Downtown spots in the West Village, for people coming from out of town or out of the country and looking for a Manhattan home, this is “where the action is," she said.

“You’re close to all the stores at Madison Avenue where you have every high-end luxury retail store. You have Barneys. You’re close to the major department stores on 57th Street and all the hotels. You’re right off Central Park,” Swift said. “So, if foreign buyers come, they have the world at their fingertips.”

Because Forbes used median asking prices for single-family homes and condos but excluded co-ops, the magazine acknowledged this may have pushed some of the chic ZIP codes near Central Park lower on its list.

The report also noted that using asking prices rather than tax assessments could have skewed results for neighborhoods that have become upscale in the past few decades but still have pockets of longtime residents in more modest homes.