Apartment rentals New York with NYC Rentals

Roosevelt Rising: Heard About the Roosevelt Island Population Boom?

When most people begin looking for a luxury apartment rental in Manhattan, several districts tend to come to mind immediately. There's the sought-after high-gloss, high-culture vibe that comes with SoHo apartment listings, the famed luxury of Upper East Side rental listings, and the perpetually trendy East Village and its apartments for rent. But there's one New York City area of rapid growth and expansion that twenty years ago wouldn't have been on anyone's apartment-hunting list: Roosevelt Island. Once saddled with the less-than-flattering nickname "Welfare Island," this former backwater in the middle of the East River is an afterthought no longer, as a boom of new construction condos and luxury rentals on Roosevelt Island suggests. But here's the biggest sign of Roosevelt Island's rising prosperity: People are actually moving there. Quickly and in serious numbers. Seriously.

New York, Burger City: Two Manhattan Neighborhoods Snag Beloved Burgerterias

At Luxury Rentals Manhattan, we are not unaware that people browsing Manhattan rental apartment listings are often looking for different things. This is why we've built our search so that NYC apartment hunters can find apartments near subways and rental listings near parks and so on. It's our hope that a more focused and specific way to search Manhattan apartments will lead to a more satisfying and successful experience. That said, there is not currently a search function at LRM that enables you to find an apartment located near a delicious hamburger. For that, we use the LRM blog. No, seriously: we've covered Shake Shack pretty extensively in the past, and we're not going to stop doing that. We do it for you, readers. And also we do it because we're hungry, and because Shake Shack is delicious. And so it is with no small amount of delight that we inform Luxury Rentals Manhattan readers that rental listings in Battery Park City will very soon be rental listings near a delicious hamburger.

Spring, Unsprung: NYC Rents Once Again Way Up Over 2010, But Barely Budge Month-To-Month

Every month, the statistics on Manhattan luxury rentals tell the same story. Which means that just about every post we do on that topic reads pretty similar to the one before. At the risk of getting intolerably meta-bloggy, here's a quote from a recent Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog post on February's rental stats. "While increased demand should have led to a serious spike in Manhattan rents, it hasn't... yet. A pair of recent studies show that rents are up a robust 8 percent over 2010 figures, but rents are still essentially flat month-to-month, just as they were last month." You'll notice that "last month" links to another Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog post that says almost exactly the same thing. And so you see how this works, and has worked -- demand has stayed strong for Manhattan rentals, and is growing stronger as the traditional NYC real estate boomtime of spring approaches, but prices have barely budged month-over-month. That was the story in March, and it may yet be the story in April. It's the waiting for it to change part that has people nervous.

Middle of Manhattan, Top of the World: New Luxury Rental MiMA Looking Like A Blockbuster

Manhattan real estate is the land of acronyms and abbreviations, and from Soho apartment listings to FiDi rentals to apartments on the LES, it's one that New Yorkers speak every day without even noticing it. So, in a certain sense, MiMA -- a hybrid new luxury rental and condominium building from The Related Companies whose name is short for Middle of Manhattan -- fits right in. In just about every other way, though, MiMA stands out -- for its location on 42nd Street and 10th Avenue, at the heart of booming Clinton; for its stellar suite of amenities; for its luxurious (and not-at-all cheap) apartments for rent. MiMA is as ambitious and extravagantly amenitized a new construction luxury rental development as Manhattan has seen since... well, since Midtown West neighbor The Ashley, probably. But MiMA is also further proof that Manhattan's high-end rental market is returning to robust health -- Manhattan rental listings don't come much more luxurious than this.

The Hold Steady: Manhattan Rents Way Up Over Last Year, Barely Up Over Last Month

That the Manhattan real estate market is in a better place now than it was 12 months ago is looking more and more like an objective fact. But while each month seems to bring more news that the marketplace for Manhattan rental apartments is back on its feet, there's an odd, uneasy addendum to what looks like good news. Well, two -- one is that what's good for the Manhattan rental marketplace is usually good for landlords, not those searching rental listings. But the more novel issue this time around is that, while the Manhattan rental market seems to be tilting in landlords' directions and the old renter's market appears to be on its way out, numbers suggest that things should really be a lot worse for Manhattan renters. While the number of no-fee rental listings in Manhattan has shrunk, there are still plenty out there. While landlord concessions have diminished, they're still out there to find. And while increased demand should have led to a serious spike in Manhattan rents, it hasn't... yet. A pair of recent studies show that rents are up a robust 8 percent over 2010 figures, but rents are still essentially flat month-to-month, just as they were last month. For now, at least. So you see the "uneasy" part, presumably.

All-Whirled: Architecture Critics Flip For Gehry's New Financial District Rental at 8 Spruce Street

Gehry Financial District Rental Luxury Rentals ManhattanWe've never been afraid to say it here at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog: Frank Gehry’s new Financial District rental at 8 Spruce Street is jaw-dropping. The Spruce Street project -- formerly known as Beekman Tower and still kind-of-known as 8 Spruce Street -- is called New York by Frank Gehry. Not only is the new Gehry rental the the tallest luxury residential building in New York City, it is also one of the most-celebrated new construction apartment buildings the city has seen in years.   If you move around the tower the shape changes constantly. Why? Well, because of its rumpled stainless skin, its curved windows and, perhaps, the vertiginous 76-story height that makes it look something like the Transformers’ headquarters. In short, 8 Spruce Street sits on the northern edge of the Financial District; west of Cass Gilbert’s 1913 Woolworth Building, east of McKim, Mead & White’s 1912 Municipal building, and at the top of any list of new Manhattan rental listings worth celebrating.

A Blockbuster On The Border: The Continental Is One Of Manhattan's Hottest New Rental Listings... But Where Is It?

We know what The Continental is -- it's a new luxury rental at 32nd Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, and it has been one of the most popular luxury rental listings on Luxury Rentals Manhattan since it began leasing in mid-January. What's harder to pin down about The Continental is what neighborhood it's in. By our guidelines at Luxury Rentals Manhattan, the new luxury rental at 32nd Street and Sixth Avenue is filed under Chelsea rental listings, and that categorization passes the initial shrug-test. But The Continental is a shorter walk from the Empire State Building than it is from The High Line, and nearer to Madison Square Garden than Chelsea Market, which could see it filed under Garment District rentals or Clinton rental listings. In this sense, The Continental has something in common with Emerald Green, a blocbuster rental listing on 38th Street that appears to exist in several neighborhoods at once. One thing that is not subject to debate about The Continental, though -- and another thing that it has in common with Emerald Green -- is that it belongs on any list of Manhattan’s most intriguing new luxury rental listings. Wherever it is, The Continental is a hit.

New York By Gehry/8 Spruce Street/That New FiDi Luxury Rental Tower: Whatever You Call It, It's Greener Than Advertised

Given all the attention that NYC real estate heads gave 8 Spruce Street, the game-changing new luxury rental building in the Financial District designed by Frank Gehry, it's something of a surprise that there are things about the building we don't already know. Any Manhattan real estate watcher can quote you the starting prices for studio apartments for rent at 8 Spruce Street -- around $2,600, if you were wondering -- and of course the name of the star architect behind this most well-observed of Financial District rental listings is right there in one of 8 Spruce Street's alternate names, New York By Gehry. But for all this celebrity luxury rental listing's sky-high profile, it's something of a secret that 8 Spruce Street belongs among on any list of green rental listings in Manhattan. And while that secret is out, there's also a reason why 8 Spruce Street isn't flacking its green building bona fides.

Luxury Rentals: Still The Famous Person's Choice When It Comes To Manhattan Apartments

Regular readers of the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog know that it's a familiar refrain, and just about anyone who follows Manhattan real estate knows that it happens to be true, but let's run this up the flagpole one last time -- in today's Manhattan real estate marketplace, it is inarguably wiser to rent than to buy. (Here's visual proof, if you need it) Of course, if you're already browsing the Manhattan rental listings at Luxury Rentals Manhattan, you're already hip to this fact. But if celebrity endorsements are more your speed, you're in luck. Again, it's nothing new -- we were on this when Kings of Leon singer Caleb Followill joined NYC apartment rental community in May of last year -- but Curbed reports that some of Manhattan's best known residents are opting to rent rather than buy these days. (That handsome and extravagantly well-compensated fellow at left happens to be one of them)

Unhappy Trending? For NYC Rentals, January Was Another Month Of Lower Vacancies and Higher Rents

We'd start this post with a "stop us if you've heard this one before," but for two reasons -- the first being that you have certainly heard this news before, and the second being that you've heard it often enough that we've probably already rolled out the "stop us if you've heard this one before." And because we don't want to stop, and because you've certainly heard this news before, we'll just go ahead and say it -- January was another month of (incrementally) increased rents and (notably) tightened vacancies in a NYC rental marketplace that has been defined by those trendlines for months now. This is the thing with trends, of course -- they tend to be linear, and they tend to be difficult to blog about without repeating oneself. The problem, here, being that -- when it comes to Manhattan rental listings over hte past few months -- the trend has proven to be especially persistent. How much so?