Manhattan Apartment Rents Tumble Some More
Manhattan apartment rents stayed flat in September, on par with average rents in the summer and substantially lower than those from early autumn 2007. Rents are down by around $200 across the board since September 2007, in fact, for both doorman and non-doorman buildings, according to a new report from The Real Estate Group New York (PDF). (The report analyzes rents south of Washington Heights.)
The average rent for a doorman one-bedroom, for instance, dropped from $3,881 in September 2007 to $3,692 in July, and then dropped further through September. For two-bedrooms in doorman buildings, the September average was $5,529, down from the summer and down from the same month last year.
The report's analysis alludes to the effects the financial crisis could have on the Manhattan apartment market. According to Daniel Baum, TREGNY's chief operating officer and the report's author:
As Congress debates a credit market fix, Manhattan property owners have created their own “rental market fix.” Making a concerted effort to lower vacancies and prices, inventories have fallen for the second consecutive month. This much needed correction is giving Manhattan a fresh breath of stability, which is good news for both renters and property owners alike.
Even with this good news however, I would caution property owners to remain conservative with asking rents. As we move into the fourth quarter, which historically has been the slowest time for the rental market, property owners should proceed with caution to avoid sending inventory levels rising again.
Translation: Now may be the best time in a long time to apartment hunt in Manhattan.
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This would almost be hilarious if it were not so tragic.
As GREED led owners of recently sold / older "white brick' buildings to legally harass rent stabilized tenants out of their buildings so they could de-stabilize them, renovate and rent them for incredibly high "market" rents, some thing had to give. My late dad's old $ 2100/month huge corner 1-bedroom/1 1/2 bath windowed apartment on a high floor will now rent for $ 4700 a month -- if the arrogant owners and equally greedy managing agent can find one or two people who still have well paying jobs and can pass the "finance" test. Whose "market" is it anyway ?
As for all these new buildings that Mr. Bloomberg allowed, with silly high rentals, and outrageous tax breaks, well they deserve all the bad luck they can get. As long as someone like me, earning about $ 70,000 per year, with a perfect credit history, a balanced checkbook with a real balance, who does not live beyond her means cannot find a decent, 1 bedroom apartment in Manhattan, or just over the bridges in Qns or Bklyn or the BX for less than $ 2000 a month -- well shame on the greedy folks who got the tax breaks that are now bankrupting the city who cannot help me find shelter.
Rents down about $ 200 per month ?? That is no bargain for most of us real New Yorkers...what a joke and insult to the really hardworking NYers who make this city work -- the teachers, cops, firefighters, nurses, aides, restaurant workers, etc.
Seems to me that a report written by industry insiders, representing owners and landlords and agents, have a pretty good reason to carefully craft a report that impacts many of its "own" and still does not address the shortage of "affordable" housing for the truly middle income earners here in the 5 boroughs. And though the report is "Manhattan-centric", some of those averages in the report look a lot like parts of the other boroughs.
The effect of the events of the past few weeks and weeks to come is that there will be fewer young people from the financial industries to get together to rent the still-overpriced market rate apartments, and whose parents, whose savings and other assets might have been wiped out during these past few days, wont be able to help them.
We really need serious rent-reductions in these big buildings -- not so big that they cannot pay THEIR bills, but serious enough to let more of us middle-aged, working, middle income folks move back to Manhattan.