Apartment rentals New York with NYC Rentals

How To Simplify Your Manhattan Apartment Hunt

Finding an apartment to rent has often been portrayed as one of the most difficult things to do in New York City. Many a television sitcom has capitalized on the theme of New Yorkers navigating their way through the supposedly murky rental market here; a motif which has now become accepted as fact by many newcomers to the city. However, what is important to realize is that such horror stories of apartment searches are usually caused by a lack of preparation and readiness in securing the ideal apartment. If you're willing to put in a little time, planning, and preparation, then finding an apartment in one of Manhattan’s neighborhoods won’t be strenuous.

Wall Street's Woes Don't Slow Down Manhattan Rentals

Wall Street has always influenced apartment rentals in ManhattanWall Street has been front page news ever since Lehman Brothers went under back in 2008, and the adverse times that followed for the financial sector have been especially troubling in the Manhattan luxury real estate world, where the sales and rental markets have traditionally been upheld by young financiers with money to spend. But it turns out that the relationship between Wall Street and the Manhattan rental apartment market is not as strong as once believed, because Wall Street's struggles have yet to affect the luxury rental market.

According to data compiled by Nancy Packes Inc., 58% of renters below 96th Street in Manhattan made their money in finance in 2005. This year that number is down to 41%, yet the market hasn’t missed a beat. What changed? The economic landscape of New York City is now broadening and diversifying as tech- and creative-companies fill the void left by the decline of Wall Street. People in the tech and creative sectors now account for 12.8% and 13.5% of leases south of 96th Street, respectively, up from 7.2% and 8.57% in 2005. The tech-industry especially has picked up the slack for the Street, so times really have changed - brokers are almost as likely to run into a computer programmer looking to lease an apartment in Manhattan as they are a banker.

Financial District Condos Converting into Rentals

When New Yorkers think of the Financial District, the last image that would ever come to mind is that of a residential neighborhood. After all, the Financial District wouldn’t be called such if it was populated with residential buildings rather than business headquarters and offices. Yet, that is exactly what many Manhattan residential developers have envisioned in the recent years. In an attempt to revitalize the Financial District as a viable residential neighborhood in downtown Manhattan, many developers have converted what were once old office buildings into condos. The only problem is that nobody wanted to buy. But a buyer's loss is swiftly turning into renters' gains.

Buying is Out, Renting is the New Trend

Manhattan Luxury Rentals - Buying/Renting
We've noted it before at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog, more than once and in ways both bloggy and worth-a-thousand-words visual. Of course, we have our reasons for this (the name of this blog is Luxury Rentals Manhattan, after all), but the numbers don't lie -- Manhattan rental apartments, now more than ever, are simply a better deal than Manhattan condominiums. While some of this owes to the price of those Manhattan condominiums, the trend away from buying and towards renting has been so dramatic, both in Manhattan real estate and in general, that it bears repeating.
 
Which is why we keep repeating it, and which is exactly what a recent report from Bloomberg -- the financial news people, not the tiny orange Mayor -- does, in numbers too striking to ignore. Thanks in part to epidemic foreclosures and largely to a national trend towards renting, the U.S. homeownership rate has fallen below the 60 percent mark, making it the lowest recorded homeownership rate. Before this year, the lowest homeownership rate recorded was in 1965 when the rate was 62.9 percent. The highest rate, by contrast, was 69.2 percent in 2004 when George W. Bush promoted an “ownership society” and banks offered two-for-one mortgages during happy hour. Now, just seven years later, the rate is 59.7 percent -- and the erstwhile ownership society, both in Manhattan and elsewhere, is looking disarmingly like a rentership society.

Summer In The City: Rents Rise With Temperatures, But Deals Are Still Out There

You’ve got your fired-up barbecues, of course. And the beach trips and baseball games and farmer’s markets and sweltering subway stations and, with ever more frequency, weather nice enough to induce the urge to simply lie down and relax wherever or take long, otherwise unmotivated walks. All of which is to say that it’s officially and incontrovertibly summer in New York City. With all those good things (and the sweltering subways, which one eventually just learns to deal with) comes another NYC summer tradition -- the arrival of the annual warm-weather boom in Manhattan real estate. We noted its first green shoots in the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog last month, and -- same as it does every summer -- the Manhattan luxury rental marketplace is in something very much like full bloom as July arrives.

Of course, as anyone searching for an apartment in NYC already knows, the words “strong Manhattan real estate market” bode better for landlords than those browsing Manhattan rental listings. But there’s good news for both renters and landlords alike in June’s luxury rental statistics. Sustained high demand and lower vacancy rates will (as they usually do) delight landlords. But those browsing Manhattan rental listings can take heart knowing that there are still plenty of deals to be had on luxury rental apartments.

Zoned In: Will Rezoning Make It Easier to Rent in Tribeca?

Recently, Luxury Rentals Manhattan posed a question that anyone searching for a NYC rental apartment has surely asked him or herself: "Are Manhattan rental apartments now a rich person thing?" It’s no secret that New York City is the nation’s most expensive place to rent, and although -- given how much more expensive it is to buy a Manhattan apartment -- renting in Manhattan still seems like the way to go, it's all relative: MNS’ figures show that in May 2011, rental prices increased by 6% from last year’s average. That's overall, though, and as anyone browsing Manhattan rental listings has surely noticed by now, rental prices, while high throughout Manhattan, are highly variable, even between bordering neighborhoods. Averaging studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom costs for each part of Manhattan shows that Tribeca is New York’s most expensive place to rent, while Harlem is the cheapest. That’s not particularly surprising, but some of their findings are. Contrary to popular belief, or common sense for that matter, renting in the Upper East Side is actually less expensive than renting in Greenwich Village, the Upper West Side, or Chelsea. So what does any of this have to do with rezoning North Tribeca and lowering housing costs?

High Five (Figures): Demand For Ultra High-End Manhattan Rentals Continues Surge

The Manhattan real estate market is a complicated thing, as any regular Luxury Rentals Manhattan visitor -- and anyone who has ever tried to find a rental apartment in Manhattan -- could tell you. But one of the most peculiar features of the ongoing turnaround in the Manhattan rental marketplace is just how much more quickly the market for high-end Manhattan luxury rentals has turned around than has, say, the market for $2500-per-month Manhattan rental apartments. Given that there are more people in New York capable of paying more modest monthly rents than there are those willing or able to cut five-figure checks on the first of each month, the turnaround would seem to be somewhat backwards. But this is Manhattan real estate, and the top-down turnaround has become both harder and harder to ignore and -- per a recent New York Times report -- even more pronounced in the early months of summer. The demand for five-figure NYC rental apartments has been higher than that for smaller, less expensive Manhattan apartments.  So, what exactly does this mean for Manhattan real estate?

Are Manhattan Rental Apartments Now A Rich Person Thing?

Rich people things: New York City is full of them, from the hundred different takes on seared foie gras to the chilly boutiques of Soho and so on up and down the market. While our media has done a good job of making sure that New Yorkers are up on the latest trends among very wealthy New Yorkers -- and we've certainly done our part here at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog, at least insofar as noting the popular renting-a-condo trend among the city's  star athletes -- there's a sense, at least for those of us still living in the actual-existing economy, that these are trends not worth chasing. Which makes it all the more appealing that, albeit at the highest of high-end price points, the wealthiest New Yorkers are now making like everyone else in NYC. Where most of us live in Manhattan rental apartments, the richest New Yorkers long turned to ultra-exclusive co-ops. Now, though, with uncertainty the word throughout the economy, New York's rich are opting to do what everyone else does -- and rent. Yes, they're renting the highest of high-end Manhattan rentals, but for the wealthiest New Yorkers as well as everyone else, renting seems to be the move. The reasoning behind it, unsurprisingly, is proof that -- at least when it comes to finding a place to live in NYC -- the rich are not so very different from you and I.

That Spring Bump In Manhattan Rental Prices? It's Late, But It's Here.

Studio vs 2 Bedroom Rental PricesHere at Luxury Rentals Manhattan we’ve kept an eagle-eye on the recently-calm state of the luxury rental market for you, although we'll admit that at times it was like watching paint dry. Month after month, and well into the anticipated warm-weather boom period, Manhattan rental stats remained boldly, brazenly blah -- up a healthy percentage over last year's counterparts, but inching up only a fraction of a percent month to month. Sure, we warned that a bump in Manhattan rental prices was coming -- we're a blog about Manhattan real estate, and as such know what's coming. But after months of the same warnings, a sort of a chicken little vibe became almost inescapable. As we’ve previously noted, rents barely rose month-to-month this year as landlords have remained prudent, hedging their bets on a a strong spring eliminating the last vestiges of ennui from the market. And now, as June dawns in a flurry of sticky 90 degree days, it seems like spring has finally sprung in the Manhattan luxury rental marketplace.

Cell High: Roosevelt Island Luxury Rental The Octagon Scores Unique Green Honor

First things first: The Octagon, on Roosevelt Island, is one of the elite new luxury rental listings on Roosevelt Island -- which is a distinction that increasingly means something. But The Octagon is also more than that -- something simultaneously both more futuristic and more historic than the average Manhattan luxury rental, and another sign of Roosevelt Island's rise as a neighborhood worth watching on the Manhattan real estate scene. The Octagon New Yorkers know today -- a 500-unit luxury rental building that's also one of the greenest green rental buildings in New York City -- was built in 2006, around a (yes) octagonal building with a much longer story behind it. The octagon that forms the hub of The Octagon dates back to 1841, and was built then by Alexander Jackson Davis as a blue octagonal entrance building to what was known then as the New York City Lunatic Asylum (Today, of course, we no longer say "lunatic asylum," and instead use the term "Port Authority Bus Terminal.") That the space has since become one of the most luxurious rental listings on Roosevelt Island -- after 55 years of service as a 19th-century mental hospital, if you're just joining us -- is notable enough. But with the installation of a new, energy-efficient fuel cell that makes The Octagon the first green apartment building in NYC and New York State to be so-powered, The Octagon also has a claim to being one of the greenest green rentals in Manhattan.