Apartment rentals New York with Affordable Rental Apartments

If you are looking for an apartment to rent and you’re finding the rents in most Manhattan neighborhoods to be too expensive, the latest rental market report from MNS suggests that you start looking in the Murray Hill and Harlem neighborhoods for your new home. According to the report, while most of the city continues to face an inventory crunch and, therefore, a rise in apartment rents, these two neighborhoods are standing out from the rest by asking rents that are still, surprisingly, affordable and reasonable in this volatile market climate.

When compared to the cost of buying an apartment in Manhattan, rental prices in the borough aren’t actually that bad. A study released on Friday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York says that apartment prices in New York City have risen considerably faster than rents have in recent years. This split has raised some serious questions about the outlook for housing prices in the city as well as the sustainability of current prices. “Manhattan price-rent ratios, although off their 2008 highs, are still up dramatically over the past two decades, suggesting less financial ‘value’ today in an apartment purchase there,” said New York Fed economist Jason Bram, writing in the bank’s Current Issues in Economics and Finance.

As the year draws to a close, the latest rental report from MNS for the month of November reveals that rents in Manhattan have fallen again, hence following the trend seen in the borough’s rental market since fall began. However, the decrease seen in November is a very small one, with the average decrease across units reported as only $19. However, professionals following the real estate market closely over the past few years will probably not be too surprised by these values, because decreases in rents are traditionally seen during the same time as temperatures fall in New York City. Besides, the rents here had been on an upward spiral up till September, and had also plateaued at really high values. But November’s report is noteworthy because of the drop in the city's inventory, thanks to a market that was already short of apartments and Superstorm Sandy shuttering many of the new buildings as well.

As the year nears its end, the latest monthly rental reports from various real estate companies have revealed that just like the temperatures in the city, the rents in Manhattan have also taken a dip, a dip that is particularly interesting given that there was a decrease in rents in the last month as well. However, as we mentioned in our analysis of last month’s rental report, despite the decreases, the average October rents are still at extremely high figures. For instance, the Elliman Report for October says that the average rental price for October was $3,856, an increase of 5.4% from the average rent of $3,658 for the same period last year.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy housing is becoming scarcer. And with cold weather on the way, city, state, and federal officials are trying to assemble a pool of vacant houses to supplement New York City's shelter system. While many people have been clinging to their apartments despite not having heat or hot water, officials are worried that another wave of people, numbering in the hundreds if not the thousands, will seek shelter as temperatures fall. “We feel a real imperative to have something in place when the second surge comes,” said Matthew M. Wambua, the city’s housing commissioner. With the electrical outages and the encroaching winter season, many people are left wondering where, and how, they are going to stay warm.