New York City Luxury Rental Blog Archives for June 2010

Phase Two of the High Line to be Completed Next Spring

Watch out Chelsea: the second part of the High Line will be complete next spring and along with it will come more attention to your luxury Manhattan rentals.  With the first phase of the project already open, alive and bustling with NYC dwellers and tourists alike some 30 feet above Chelsea, this old railway turned public park is a pretty unique part of New York City. Ten more blocks of High Line, running from 20th Street up to 30th Street in Chelsea, promise to deliver the same benefits as the first stretch: unmatched Hudson River views, a lively hangout scene, beautiful local grasses and plants, and -- perhaps most important for Luxury Rentals Manhattan's purposes -- a serious boost for the luxury rental listings lucky enough to sit in the portion of Chelsea nearest The High Line.

Home Comes To The Financial District: FiDi Rental Apartments Soon To Come With Farmer's Market, Possible Greenway

It's not exactly news anymore that the Financial District has been pretty thoroughly reinvented from a center of international commerce into a very desirable Manhattan residential neighborhood... that also happens to be the center of international commerce. But for all the top-notch apartment listings in the Financial District -- and there are many, from pre-war rental apartments like those at 37 Wall Street or 71 Broadway or The Crest to the ultra-luxe new construction rental apartments at 90W -- one thing the neighborhood has lacked is, for lack of a better word, the things that make Manhattan neighborhoods feel like Manhattan neighborhoods. Slowly but surely, though, that's changing. With the announcement that the Financial District's Andaz Hotel will be sponsoring a new Financial District Greenmarket, FiDi foodies will finally have a place to get the fresh local produce, meat and seafood their neighborhood has been missing. And an ambitious plan to reimagine traffic-saturated Water Street as a green byway suggests that more neighborhoodiness could be in the offing for the Financial District. This is good news for a bunch of reasons.

Birth of a Neighborhood: Meet "The Linc," The Lincoln Tunnel-Adjacent Semi-Neighborhood That's Home To Numerous New Manhattan Rental Listings

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.

Getting In The Zone: Department of City Planning Considering Re-Zoning Tribeca To Create More Residential Space

There's a lot to like about Tribeca, which is home to some of the most distinctive-looking blocks in Manhattan, as well as some of NYC's finest restaurants, shopping and art galleries. All of which makes it even more of a pity that there are relatively few rental listings in Tribeca, relative to its neighbors. But while the existing building stock in Tribeca -- much of it a century old and safely landmarked -- will probably prevent it from becoming a luxury rental listing mecca like the Financial District (Tribeca's neighbor to the south) or Soho (its neighbor to the North), a long-awaited plan to re-zone the largely industrial northern part of Tribeca to allow for more residential development is beginning to make its way through the Dpeartment of City Planning and Community Board 1. If approved, the re-zoning of Tribeca could make for a boom in Tribeca apartment listings, and thus make it easier to find a place to live in one of Manhattan's coolest residential neighborhoods.

May's Real Estate Numbers, Crunched: Manhattan Apartment Vacancy Rates Down, Manhattan Rental Prices Up, Renter's Market... Fading

First things first: there are still plenty of good deals out there on Manhattan rental apartments, and even a healthy number of no-fee rental listings in Manhattan. But as the economy continues its slow bounce-back and the Manhattan real estate market follows suit, it looks more and more like the long renter's market for NYC apartments is drawing to a close. The Real Deal's report on May's Manhattan apartment rental statistics bears this out: citywide apartment vacancy is down to under one percent again, and finding a West Village rental (a .33% vacancy rate) or a rental apartment in Chelsea (.52% vacancy rate) is as hard as it has been in years. But, thankfully, at least for those looking for Manhattan rental apartments, May's stats are not all bad news.

Get Out Of Town: Checking In With Southeast Discovery and Taking A Break From Manhattan Rentals Apartments

New York City and New York City real estate have a way of focusing the mind -- this is a tough town, as you might've heard, and an interesting one. For those of us who care about NYC and the market for rental apartments in NYC, the ebbs and flows of the Manhattan real estate scene can come to seem like the most important news in the world. If you're searching Manhattan rental listings, it might well seem like it, but the national real estate market is plenty interesting in its own right. That's the reason -- well, mostly it's that we sometimes like to ogle North Carolina mountain homes and South Carolina golf homes, but also that -- why your Luxury Rentals Manhattan blogger often finds himself checking in with Southeast Discovery, a full-service real estate site serving, yes, the Southeast.

Lowering The Volume: Why Are Manhattan Rental Apartments So Hard To Find This Summer?

Prices on Manhattan rental apartments are down, which is good news for -- obviousness alert -- people looking for Manhattan rental apartments. But like all good news in NYC real estate, there's a catch, here. While it's easier to find a Manhattan rental listing at the price you want, it's getting harder to find a Manhattan rental listing period. Even during the summer, which is traditionally the prime time to find a Manhattan rental apartment, NYC apartment inventory is low and the market is, while still comparatively cheap, also surprisingly tight. The Apple Peeled takes a look at this curious and seemingly contradictory real estate trend and tries to make some sense of it.

The Recovery Continues, Part 23: Atlantic Development Announces Two New Luxury Rental Buildings in East Village and Chelsea

The ongoing economic recovery is good news both for Manhattan real estate developers and everyone who, you know, participates in the economy. That seems obvious, but it's worth mentioning mostly because all the recovery-related news here at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan job could easily be mistaken for a bummer by people searching for Manhattan rental apartments. Here there's news that NYC dwellers can no longer expect generous concessions on their Manhattan rental apartments. There there's news that Manhattan no-fee rental listings are not-so-gradually becoming an endangered species. Yes, it's good that the economy is apparently bouncing back. But where's the benefit for those looking for a Manhattan rental apartment? Well, it's coming, through what looks like a bumper crop of new construction luxury rental buildings that should arrive over the next year or two.