Apartment rentals New York with New Construction Luxury Rentals

Brooklyn, once a borough for small to mid-rise buildings is starting to add a few high-rises to its resume. 388 Bridge Street will have 53 stories and 378 units, of which 234 of them will be rentals. The other 144 will be condos that are expected to be up for sale sometime this coming spring. Near completion, the building seems to pierce the sky as you’re looking at the borough’s silhouette from a distance. But it isn’t the first building to go up and dominate Brooklyn’s skyline. 

Murray Hill’s unique location in Midtown Manhattan has made it one of the more desirable neighborhoods to live in New York City. After all, residents here are near the city’s famous hotspots, be it the bright frenzy of Times Square or the refined elegance of Gramercy Park. But Murray Hill itself has its own particular charm, made apparent with the variety of retail and dining options available in the area. As a result, the neighborhood has been attracting Manhattan home hunters by the dozen, a fact that has not been missed by New York’s real estate developers. This could therefore be one of the reasons why Manhattan-based real estate investment firm Atlas Capital Group has bought the Eastgate Tower Hotel at 224 East 39th Street, with the intention of converting the 147,000-square-foot property into a 190-unit luxury rental building.

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.

Everyone knows that big changes are on the way for Hudson Yards. The old manufacturing area will be transformed in the next decade or two into an entirely new neighborhood, one replete with luxury apartment buildings, an ultra-modern office complex of angular high-rises, a new park, a new museum, a subway line, and even a new boulevard that will bisect the area. But if you were to look at the Hudson Yards site right now, it still looks much like it did ten or twenty years ago. Appearances can be deceiving though, because new development for luxury rental apartment buildings has thrived in the area over the past half-dozen years, and many newly constructed luxury rentals are already available. Considering that the Hudson Yards area has succeed in sustaining new construction at a time when such success is rare, this area is well-positioned to emerge as Manhattan’s next hot rental neighborhood.

The National Association of Home Builders, in conjunction with Wells Fargo, released their monthly Housing Market Index last month, and the report, which gauges builder confidence in the housing market nationwide, provided some promising new information. Nationally, builder confidence in new construction is higher than it has been since before the market crash, and while the index number is still relatively low—standing in February at 29—it is on a consistently upward trajectory, and is now the highest it has been since May 2007. While the report does not touch on individual markets, it does imply good news for builders and renters of apartments in Manhattan.