New York City rents hit another record high for the second month in a row: the median cost of an apartment in Manhattan is $4,241, up 1.6% from March
- Brooklyn’s median rental jumped 15% to $3,500 in the year to April
- The Northwest Queens region rose 13% from a year earlier to $3,525
- Activists will stage a ‘the rent is too high’ protest in Brooklyn on Saturday
New York City rents have hit new records, with the median price of a Manhattan apartment climbing to $4,241, a real estate survey showed Thursday.
Median rents for new leases in Manhattan, Brooklyn and northwest Queens broke records in April as people flocked to the city in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report, written by appraiser Miller Samuel and brokerage firm Douglas Elliman Real Estate, confirms what many New Yorkers have been complaining about on social media for weeks: that rents are “too high.”
The typical Manhattan apartment is 8.1% more expensive than a year ago, according to the report.
They are also 1.6% or $66 more expensive than they were in March, another record month.
Median rents for new contracts in Manhattan, Brooklyn and northwest Queens hit records in April as people flocked to the city
New Yorkers walk past the window of a real estate agent’s office in Brooklyn, where rents jumped nearly 15% last year
Brooklyn’s median rent of $3,500 is up nearly 15% from a year ago, researchers said.
The median in the section of Queens that includes Astoria and Long Island City rose nearly 13% from a year earlier to $3,525.
“There’s a lot of demand, and it’s not just for one type of apartment,” real estate appraiser Jonathan Miller said in a statement.
NYC is a ‘pain factor for tenants,’ says appraiser Jonathan Miller
“This is an equal opportunity factor for tenants.”
The researchers said landlords were convinced they could fill empty apartments and were raising prices and cutting incentives, defying a national trend of falling rents.
The Big Apple is bucking another trend. Typically, the city’s rental market develops from spring and peaks in late summer.
This year, the high prices came early.
Prices increased from the previous year in almost all categories in these three areas.
Median luxury pads in Manhattan jumped 13% to $11,310.
At the same time, studios in Brooklyn rose 8.5% and the cost of three-bedroom apartments jumped 47%, the report said.
After glancing at the adverts, many would-be movers are opting to stay put – new apartment leases are down a fifth from March and 14% from a year ago.
More New Yorkers are staying put as bargains have dried up
Tenants and housing rights activists interrupted a New York City Rent Board meeting this month, demanding a zero percent rent increase for city-stabilized apartments
“The decline in new leases indicates that there is a strong increase in lease renewals,” Miller said.
“The tenant consumer has accepted that we are not going to see any improvement in affordability in the short term.” They sign renewals instead of testing the market trying to find better opportunities.
Still, Miller added, they could wait a while.
“The only real answer to that seems to be a recession,” he said.
“Economists have been calling for a recession for two years. Given the current state of the market, it doesn’t seem like it’s something people are expecting anytime soon.
He predicted further price increases throughout the summer.
Faced with rising prices, New York activists organized a protest “the rent is too high” in Brooklyn on Saturday.
“Working-class New Yorkers are hanging by a thread as rents soar and evictions ravage our communities,” the local Democratic Socialists of America group posted online.
