Apartment rentals New York with Harlem Rentals

With many of Manhattan’s popular neighborhoods getting denser by the day, it is only natural that people looking for homes in the city are looking for newer, but traditionally overlooked, neighborhoods to move into. One such neighborhood, which has found many takers among the renters of New York City, is the quiet yet evolving locality of Hamilton Heights in West Harlem. With Manhattanville on one end and Washington Heights on the other, Hamilton Heights is in the midst of a revival of sorts, with people coming in to the neighborhood to make use of its low rents and great living atmosphere. The average rent of a one-bedroom apartment here comes to $1,600, whereas buying a townhouse would cost you about $1 million, a fraction of the cost of a similar home in Brooklyn.

The Beaumont has seen some better days. A historic Harlem rental building that had previously hosted author Ralph Ellison and opera singer Marian Anderson, 730 Riverside Drive has since fallen into quite a bit of disarray regarding its management and maintenance. However, efforts will soon be undertaken to bring this Manhattan rental back to some of its former glory. The order has been issued down from a state Supreme Court judge to name a receiver to oversee the restoration and renovation of the Manhattan rental building. Attorney Bradley Marks will take up this role of receiver, officially gaining the responsibility of overseeing the restoration projects set to take place.

The MNS rental market report for the month of January is out, and much like in December, it shows a market that has conformed to expectations and dipped, but that is still much stronger than it was a year ago. Generally, the cold winter months keep market activity to a minimum, but average rent for all luxury Manhattan rentals dropped only 0.4% from December to January. Prices in December were down 1% from where they were in November, suggesting that, while the market has sagged a bit, it is by no means as low as it was last year, or as low as industry professionals were expecting. In fact, rent rates are up an average 7.2% from where they were in January 2011. If you’re looking for another sign that the Manhattan rental market has improved substantially, here it is.

The December 2011 rental market report showed that prices for luxury Manhattan rentals were considerably higher than they had been the year before. Experts said this indicated how much the real estate market had recovered from the 2007 market crash, but most agreed it was abetted by a particularly scarce rental inventory. And while rental availability always ebbs and flows, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that new rental buildings could literally run out of space. Manhattan neighborhoods are running out of areas currently zoned for residential construction.

As we've written before, and proved time and again, the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog is secretly about food. Yes, we write about Manhattan rental apartments most of the time, but from the neighborhood-enhancing aspects of Shake Shack to the farmers markets of the Financial District, we will definitely write something about food when the time's right (or when there's nothing else to write about). Today, thankfully, our two usual topics -- food and Manhattan luxury rentals -- have come together in a bit of good news involving the green rental listings of Battery Park City. As Manhattan real estate heads know, many Battery Park City rental listings are green rentals, but the ones developed by Manhattan green rental superstars The Albanese Organization have taken green building a step further -- by actually providing access to fresh greens (and tomatoes, and beans, and corn, and potatoes) to residents of Battery Park green rental stars The Solaire and The Verdesian. The pioneering CSA-delivery program set up by The Albanese Organization is another reason why they're officially LRM heroes, and more proof that Battery Park City is one of the greenest and most appealing places to live in Manhattan.