Just this past Monday, NYC’s first micro-apartment building, Carmel Place, opened up applications for its market-price apartments. While tight quarters might be the antithesis of “luxury”, developer Moinian Group promises to deliver cutting-edge interior design with as comprehensive an amenity package as possible to appeal to early adopters.

Given that it is Earth Day today, we decided to check in with some of our green buildings in New York City, and find out what they actually do to be, well, green! Kermit the Frog may have said that “it’s not easy being green,” but these rental buildings prove that incorporating eco-friendly features in your home doesn’t mean that your luxury lifestyles will be compromised—on the contrary, they enhance it! Here are some examples of how some Manhattan residences are boosting their green quotient:

We talk about the renter's market here at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog the way that older men in bars talk about their high school football days, but we do so for a reason -- those were good times to be in the market for Manhattan rental apartments. Not only were rents down -- or, at the very least, flat -- but concessions abounded from the bottom of the market to the top. As the renter's market has receded during the NYC rental market's return to form, those concessions have become harder nad harder to find. They're still out there, of course -- there are plenty of no-fee rental listings in Manhattan and, oddly enough, concessions are still available to find at new construction luxury rentals such as The Ohm and 808 Columbus Avenue -- but concessions have been harder and harder to come by in recent months, despite widespread hopes that there would be a concession bounce-back in the fall. Just-released fourth-quarter statistics make it plain -- the last few months have seen the number of concessions fall by more than half from where they were in January of 2010 and are roughly a third of what they were at the end of 2009. Good news for landlords, in short, but less so for those hunting for Manhattan rental apartments. Combine this with a bump in rents and a low vacancy rate, and it's hard to find a silver lining in all this. Luckily, it's out there.

We've written before about both our crush on Chelsea's High Line and the hugely salutary effect the beloved, beautiful Chelsea park has had on the apartments for rent near The High Line. For condominiums for sale near the High Line, that proximity has led to a spike in both value and demand. For the select few Chelsea rental listings lucky enough to be High Line adjacent, the effect has been the same. The good news, though, both for those looking for rental apartments in Chelsea and those of us who simply enjoy walking on Manhattan's loveliest new park, is that The High Line keeps growing. Which means that the number of apartment listings near The High Line keeps growing as well. The sound you are hearing is landlords, developers and Chelsea renters high-fiving one another. With news -- and pictures -- of the ongoing High Line expansion reaching the New York Times yesterday, you may have to fight the urge to high-five yourself. It's not easy for us, either.

It's a trend we've written about over and over again -- with Manhattan condos seemingly a sketchier investment than in years past and still out of just about everyone's price range, more and more people are opting for Manhattan rental apartments over condos. There are, as we've also noted here at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog, good economic reasons for this, but there's another, simpler reason why the market for Manhattan rental apartments is surging while the condo market is stagnant. That other, simpler reason being that new construction Manhattan luxury rentals increasingly offer the same high-end finishes and fixtures, and similar suites of amenities and extras, as their condo counterparts -- and offer it without the economic anxieties that come with a mortgage, a co-op board, and all those other, less-desirable condo extras. But while it's not necessarily surprising that high-end luxury rentals are bouncing back from the Manhattan real estate downturn than condominiums, there's also more to the reason why this is so than the fact that both top-tier new construction NYC luxury rentals and high-end condos feature SubZero refrigerators and expansive suites of amenities. Although that obviously doesn't hurt.

You know it's good news when Luxury Rentals Manhattan breaks out the popchampagne.jpg imagery, and so it is in this case. Of course, rising vacancy rates are not the sort of thing that landlords pop corks over -- the tighter the market for NYC apartment rentals is, the more they're able to get for said NYC apartment rentals. But with October rental stats showing an (expected, seasonal) rise in the New York apartment vacancy rate, things in the Manhattan real estate market seem to have turned in favor of renters, after months of running the other way. Again, this sort of thing pretty much always happens in autumn, which is why it's the most wonderful time of the year for Manhattan apartment hunters. But that doesn't mean renters shouldn't be celebrating this particular bit of seasonal good luck. While CitiHabitats' report on the October rental market indicated that rents fell one percent from September's averages, the real news here is the rising vacancy rate -- and how it could wind up making concessions on NYC apartments a lot less rare. Thus the popping corks. Read on for the nitty gritty.

It's a pretty common refrain here at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog that the return of the Manhattan rental market to something like its old gangbusters status is a good thing. That's because, in a macro sense, it is. But it's also because we're working on talking ourselves into it. The renter's market of the great Manhattan rental market slump was tough on landlords and developers, but it was great news for those browsing NYC rental apartments, who suddenly found themselves faced with a wealth of no-fee rental listings and landlords seemingly eager to give away months of free rent and other other concessions. Now that the Manhattan rental market is healthier, the renter's market is generally a thing of the past -- a fondly remembered silver lining surrounding an ever-shrinking cloud, if you're a metaphor type, and a casualty of economic trends if you're more literally inclined. But, as we try to remind readers (and ourselves), there are still great deals to be found on Manhattan rental apartments. There are still plenty of no-fee rental listings out there, for instance, and there are also plenty of Manhattan luxury rentals offering concessions on leases. The surprising part, though, is the identity of those concession-granting Manhattan luxury rentals. From The Ohm -- a new construction luxury rental in Chelsea pictured near these words -- to a host of other new construction rental listings in various Manhattan neighborhoods, some of Manhattan's most concession-friendly rental listings happen to be at some of Manhattan's hottest new construction apartment buildings. No, really. More after the jump.