Apartment rentals New York with Manhattan Apartments

Manhattan real estate is not necessarily logical, and hardly a precise science. But for the most part, basic logic does apply, here. That is, it's easy to see why apartment listings in a certain Manhattan neighborhood are appealing to people looking for Manhattan rental apartments. A subway ride and a brief pub crawl is enough to explain why, say, people want to live in rental apartments in the East Village; a stroll through Central Park and a shopping jaunt at Fairway or Zabar's is enough to figure out what NYC dwellers see in Upper West Side rental listings. But while the appeal of Upper East Side rental listings is plain enough -- Central Park, museums, shopping, you already know all this -- it's about to get a little bit clearer. We're not saying that anyone would move to the Upper East Side because the UES just got its first branch of Danny Meyer's beloved burger joint Shake Shack. We wouldn't say that. But... have you ever been to Shake Shack? It's not impossible, and it's surely not unreasonable.

Yesterday, we wrote about the the latest development in the ongoing boom in new construction luxury rental apartment buildings in greater Hudson Yards -- a neighborhood that is sometimes (if unfortunately) called The Linc, and which encompasses the western edges of Chelsea and Clinton. If it seems like we've been covering the goings-on at Hudson Yards a lot here at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog, that would be because we have. It's not every day that you get to see a new neighborhood rise before your eyes in Manhattan, after all, and the presence of blockbuster new construction luxury rentals such as the LEED-certified Emerald Green, one of Manhattan's most impressive new green rental apartment listings, and the equally impresive 505 West 37th Street have already given Hudson Yards its share of blue chip new luxury rental listings. And now, with news that the planned expansion of the 7 train into Hudson Yards has finished drilling, this new neighborhood is close to a new subway link to the rest of New York City -- and possibly to a new life as one of Manhattan's most desirable residential neighborhoods.

It all seems like a dream, now, the boom market in Manhattan real estate. But while it was unsustainable and way overhyped, and is faintly ridiculous in retrospect, there was a period when Manhattan rental apartments enjoyed an almost instant absorption rate and rental activity was almost terrifyingly constant. That was the middle of 2007, and it seems a long time ago now. But while many of the things that seemed cool in 2007 seem less so, now -- remember how much scarier the world was when Lindsay Lohan wasn't in jail? -- NYC real estate watchers have never quite given up hope that those days might return to the Manhattan rental market. The just-released quarter two Manhattan apartment rental stats suggest, though, that the pre-Lehman glory days of Manhattan real estate aren't coming back. No, the new stats suggest -- astonishingly -- activity in the Manhattan rental apartment market was well beyond those mid-2007 levels. In other words, the Manhattan rental market is not only back, it's apparently stronger than it was during its historic highs. Even more surprisingly, while rental activity soared, rents stayed mostly flat. Maybe that (prematurely lamented) renter's market will survive the turnaround in Manhattan real estate after all.

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.

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.