New York City Luxury Rental Blog Archives for July 2012

The Super Renters of New York City

Recent reports of rents shooting up in New York City may be a cause of concern for several home-hunters in the city, but there is also a privileged class of New Yorkers who are willing to shell out a lot of dollars to be able to live in luxury and style. Rents for such palatial homes can range from $30,000 to a staggering $60,000 a month, but the costs don’t seem to worry this elite and exclusive group. For them, maintaining the standard of luxury living they are used to is far more important than worrying about the number of figures in their rent checks.

High Rents Driving Residents Back to Manhattan

Brooklyn Residents are coming back to Manhattan in response to high rentsA studio apartment in a tidy, undiscovered corner of Brooklyn: For many young professionals, this image was the dream they aspired towards. However, the recent reality of the New York rental market has forced many to rethink the viability of such a hope. Despite the recent surges in Manhattan rents, Brooklyn’s average rents have been increasing at an even faster rate, and many now exceed the rents of several Manhattan neighborhoods. Although Brooklyn was once seen as a place to find relief from the prices of apartments in Manhattan, recent trends now indicate that the opposite is happening as many Brooklyn residents move back into Manhattan.

New Yorkers Reluctant to Pay Brokers’ Fees

Tough economic times have caused New Yorkers to tighten their purse strings, and some of the ones bearing the brunt of these hard times are New York’s real estate brokers. In a recent survey conducted by Rent.com, four out of ten New Yorkers said that they would not like to pay a broker’s fee when they look for an apartment. In a city where finding a rental is often fraught with difficulties, city residents don’t seem to want to have the broker’s fee added on to their list of expenses. The broker’s fee is typically about 15 percent of an apartment’s yearly rent, but with the double whammy of a surge in rents and a dip in vacancies in the city, New Yorkers are holding on to all their dollars to make sure they can afford their homes.

The Compression of NYC’s Small Apartments

There’s been a lot of hype and hoopla over New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to introduce 275-square foot micro apartments in the city as a means to satisfy New Yorkers’ apparent demand for small apartments. Bloomberg’s plans to shrink rental living space has got both positive and negative reactions, although the majority of the feedback seems to have been mostly of the latter category. But it now seems that Bloomberg was on the right path after all—the size of new rentals in the city has been shrinking over the past few years.

New Construction in Alphabet City Spells Success

When trying to rent a space in a market as competitive as New York City, reputation can oftentimes make or break the deal. Despite a reputation as out of the way and gritty, Alphabet City is proving otherwise, going against the grain and raising areas such as Avenue D to exciting new levels. Perhaps it's the economic pressure created by Manhattan's historically high rents, but many younger renters are turning to Alphabet City to find affordable rentals and are finding that the neighborhood is both hip and safe. Part of the reason that rental apartments in Alphabet City stayed so affordable for so long was that people perceived it as being dangerous, although today that perception is outdated and, frankly, downright false, and has been for years. The 90s saw a shift in the neighborhood environment, and along with these newly restored districts came increasing real estate projects promising to enhance the value of the apartments in Alphabet City.

From Grime to Glam: Lincoln Square

With the number of high profile buildings that Lincoln Square contains today, it is hard to believe that this neighborhood was once regarded as an eyesore in New York City. It was with the arrival of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on 65th Street and Broadway that the neighborhood began its transformation from one containing dilapidated buildings and an unwelcome atmosphere to a beautiful one replete with swanky, urban condos and trendy hotspots. Lincoln Square has come a long way from its pedestrian past, and has now become “the place” to live.

Demand Keeps Surging for Rent-Stabilized Apartments

Rent Stabilized Apartments are some of the most coveted properties in New YorkRent-stabilized apartments are some of the most coveted rentals in all of Manhattan. As a whole, rent regulated apartments (found in the form of rent-stabilization and rent-control) offer a number of benefits to the resident. With the promise of rents that are far lower than market rate rents as well as the promise of continual lease renewal, rent stabilization holds quite the attraction for any current or aspiring Manhattan resident. With these properties held in such high regard and demand, it thus comes at no surprise that the competition for the few available rent-stabilized apartments in Manhattan is quite fierce.

Manhattan Apartments Rented for Tourist Experience

Many Manhattan apartments will soon be rented for tourist use

What justifies a genuine New York living experience? Certainly, no Manhattan resident would claim that a tourist visiting the city for around a week could never actually grasp what it means to live in New York or to actually experience a Manhattan apartment. However, for many tourists, such an assertion is undoubtedly correct. The new trend in New York tourism is to shun the “non-genuine” feeling of staying in a hotel and visiting all of the common landmarks while visiting Manhattan. Visitors to New York want to truly immerse themselves into Manhattan culture, which of course does not come without having lived in a genuine Manahttan apartment. Such a wish has become reality as many tourists are now taking the chance to live in the rented-out apartments of actual New York residents.  

Developers Leaping from Condominiums to Rentals

Property developers turning to rentals over condosNeed a condominium, but can’t get a mortgage? Well, there’s good news for people in that fix with some New York City property developers are converting residential developments planned as condominiums into high-end, rental apartment buildings instead. Such conversions have been seen in a variety of locations around the city. With people buying less and renting more, there is an unprecedented demand for larger apartments, which has also been proved to be extremely lucrative in the real estate scene.

Vacancies in Manhattan Reach an All-Time Low

A few days ago, the second quarter real estate report for U.S. rentals was released, providing plenty of information on the national housing market. The verdict: rents have increased to an all-time high, particularly in New York City. Additionally, demand is at an all time-high. But the most staggering statistic at all is that the U.S. vacancy rate has sharply decreased to a level that hasn’t been seen since 2001. The report has several implications for the Manhattan market, beginning with the fact that in New York City, average rents are now at $2,935 per month, 1.7% more than last quarter.