Apartment rentals New York with Real Estate Trends

That the Manhattan real estate market is in a better place now than it was 12 months ago is looking more and more like an objective fact. But while each month seems to bring more news that the marketplace for Manhattan rental apartments is back on its feet, there's an odd, uneasy addendum to what looks like good news. Well, two -- one is that what's good for the Manhattan rental marketplace is usually good for landlords, not those searching rental listings. But the more novel issue this time around is that, while the Manhattan rental market seems to be tilting in landlords' directions and the old renter's market appears to be on its way out, numbers suggest that things should really be a lot worse for Manhattan renters. While the number of no-fee rental listings in Manhattan has shrunk, there are still plenty out there. While landlord concessions have diminished, they're still out there to find. And while increased demand should have led to a serious spike in Manhattan rents, it hasn't... yet. A pair of recent studies show that rents are up a robust 8 percent over 2010 figures, but rents are still essentially flat month-to-month, just as they were last month. For now, at least. So you see the "uneasy" part, presumably.

We'd start this post with a "stop us if you've heard this one before," but for two reasons -- the first being that you have certainly heard this news before, and the second being that you've heard it often enough that we've probably already rolled out the "stop us if you've heard this one before." And because we don't want to stop, and because you've certainly heard this news before, we'll just go ahead and say it -- January was another month of (incrementally) increased rents and (notably) tightened vacancies in a NYC rental marketplace that has been defined by those trendlines for months now. This is the thing with trends, of course -- they tend to be linear, and they tend to be difficult to blog about without repeating oneself. The problem, here, being that -- when it comes to Manhattan rental listings over hte past few months -- the trend has proven to be especially persistent. How much so?

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.

There have been ups and downs in the market for Manhattan apartments for sale, but with the economy still bumping along the bottom in a host of indicators, the NYC condo market remains more of a buyer's market than a seller's market at this point. Which is great news... if you have $1.8 million dollars lying around, in which case you're used to great news every time you visit the ATM. But with the average price on Manhattan apartments rising to around $2 million, this buyer's market isn't one most New York apartment hunters can partake in. The good news, of course, is that there are plenty of available luxury rental apartments in Manhattan, many of them offering a level of luxury and amenitization that rivals that found at high-end Manhattan apartments for sale. But here's the better news -- a new study from real estate info clearinghouse Trulia reveals that it's not just less expensive to rent a Manhattan apartment than to buy one, it's also notably wiser and more cost-effective in the long run. (Thus the bling-bling dollar signs on this post) (Well, also we think they're neat)