Apartment rentals New York with NYC Rentals

Time flies when you're writing about real estate. It seems like only a few months ago that we had a post at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog entitled "Sad Landlords, Happy Renters." And that's because, as it turns out, it was only a few months ago -- it was only April that the renter's market for Manhattan rental listings was that robust. Since then, though, things have changed -- as the Manhattan real estate market has returned to health, the concessions, incentives and price breaks that defined the renter's market in Manhattan real estate have largely fallen by the wayside. This was already starting to happen back in May, and by late August we were writing mournful posts with titles like "Vacancies Down, Rents Up On NYC Apartments." The lessons of all this? For one, we obviously like that particular style of headline construction. But for another, despite the fact that there are still no-fee apartment listings and good deals on Manhattan rental apartments to be found out there, things have been trending in landlords' direction for some time. That doesn't make it any more exciting to read the New York Times' recent rundown of that situation, but it does at least make things less surprising. Good news, bad news, after the jump.

You can generally tell how well and how recently your LRM bloggers have been fed by our posts. If we've eaten a healthy lunch at a reasonable hour, you'll read about trends in the Manhattan real estate market. If we're peckish, or otherwise craving something unhealthy and preferably crispy, you just might read about how much good a new Shake Shack outpost can do for a given Manhattan neighborhood and the rental listings therein. Consider today the exception that proves the rule -- we're well-fed and properly caffeinated, but we're also rolling our chair over to the Luxury Rentals Manhattan service corner to link to a food- and drink-related blog post because... well, because we think it's kind of neat. And also because, if you're looking for a rental apartment in Manhattan, you might as well know if you're going to have an easy time ordering out for Chinese food or picking up a pumpkin spice latte. Which is to say, finally, that we have some answers on which NYC neighborhoods are the most rich in Chinese food, Starbucks, and other facts of New York City life. Those very important answers, after the jump.

The three most important words in real estate, as even non-real estate types know, are location, location and location. This would be why we worked so hard on the "Apartments Near" modality at Luxury Rentals Manhattan. But if we could add a fourth word to real estate's holy (and wholly redundant) trinity, it would be "scarcity." You don't need to be Paul Krugman to know how this works -- the fewer available rental apartments there are, the more prices tend to climb. (Scarcity has always been a big part of the appeal of no-fee rental apartment listings -- in addition to the fact that no fee rentals are a great value, naturally -- but we're already seeing the effects of an improving NYC real estate market in the shrinking number of no-fee rental apartments) The fact that Manhattan's rental vacancy rate continues to fall further and further below one percent suggests that, as previous studies have indicated, the recovering NYC rental market is going to lead to higher prices on Manhattan rental apartments. With the usual caveat that there are still plenty of good deals on Manhattan rental apartments to be found -- and with the reminder that you can browse Manhattan rental listings here to find them -- let's take a look at what Citi Habitats' new Manhattan rental market report means for NYC rental apartment hunters, and everyone else.

It all seems like a dream, now, the boom market in Manhattan real estate. But while it was unsustainable and way overhyped, and is faintly ridiculous in retrospect, there was a period when Manhattan rental apartments enjoyed an almost instant absorption rate and rental activity was almost terrifyingly constant. That was the middle of 2007, and it seems a long time ago now. But while many of the things that seemed cool in 2007 seem less so, now -- remember how much scarier the world was when Lindsay Lohan wasn't in jail? -- NYC real estate watchers have never quite given up hope that those days might return to the Manhattan rental market. The just-released quarter two Manhattan apartment rental stats suggest, though, that the pre-Lehman glory days of Manhattan real estate aren't coming back. No, the new stats suggest -- astonishingly -- activity in the Manhattan rental apartment market was well beyond those mid-2007 levels. In other words, the Manhattan rental market is not only back, it's apparently stronger than it was during its historic highs. Even more surprisingly, while rental activity soared, rents stayed mostly flat. Maybe that (prematurely lamented) renter's market will survive the turnaround in Manhattan real estate after all.

Manhattan is a lot of things, but it isn't a terribly big island, space-wise. Which is nice if you're walking, but presents a problem for the NYC real estate developers whose job it is to ensure an ever-growing number of Manhattan rental apartment listings. But just because Manhattan is full of millions of people -- and already home to many thousands of apartment rental listings -- doesn't mean that it's impossible to carve a new neighborhood from one of the last swaths of unused space in Manhattan. Meet "The Linc," a hopefully named semi-neighborhood rising in the hazy post-industrial area around the Lincoln Tunnel on Manhattan's west side. A recent rezoning -- in concert with that unslakeable thirst for new residential space -- has opened up The Linc (we can go without the quotes, right?) to a flurry of new construction residential development. In the Daily News, Jason Sheftell writes about what NYC dwellers can expect to see in The Linc over the next few years. Spoiler alert: the answer is new construction rental apartments, and lots of them, from such blue-chip developers as Glenwood and Related Companies.