The Big Apple is living up to its name as one of the most expensive places to live, with rents at record heights.
As government officials and companies try to bring more workers back into the city, a new report by real-estate company Douglas Elliman and appraiser Miller Samuel found that rents were up in April in Manhattan by 8.1% as compared with the same month in 2022.
The median rent in New York City is now $4,241 per month, according to Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel, which have tracked New York rents dating back to January 2008.
New York City is one of the most expensive places to rent in the U.S., a separate report by Zumper confirms.
Adjina Dekidjiev, a broker at Coldwell Banker Warburg, said most renters are renewing their current leases and swallowing substantial rent increases.
For many renters, “it doesn’t make financial sense to move,” she said, since they will have to pay for the move itself, broker fees, security deposits and more.
Plus, “some Wall Street bonuses aren’t as large as in years past,” she added, causing some financial-sector workers to remain in the rental pool longer than they otherwise might have. “These buyers are reconsidering purchasing until prices go down more and prefer to rent.”
Some landlords are offering rental concessions that bring down the net effective median monthly rent to $4,205, according to the report. The typical landlord paid about 1.2 months’ worth of free rent.
The typical monthly rent for a studio apartment in Manhattan was around $3,200, while a one-bedroom cost $4,200, according to the Douglas Elliman report.
Two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments were much more expensive, at around $5,500 and $6,950, respectively.
Nevertheless, given how the city is drawing people back, often from far-flung pandemic-era locales, and having a place to live within commuting range was nonnegotiable, the scales are tipping in favor of property owners. “It’s a landlord’s market,” Dekidjiev said.