Apartment rentals New York with Real Estate Trends

Like a heroine in a Russian novel, the Manhattan real estate market is never more lovely than when it's ailing. For NYC dwellers looking for Manhattan rental apartments, at least, a weak NYC rental market is a friendly NYC rental market, with all the rental concessions, no fee apartment listings and deals on Manhattan luxury rentals that entails. But while the economies of New York City and New York state are still struggling along, the NYC real estate scene has surged back to robust health in recent months. For landlords, this is great news. For people searching Manhattan rental listings, it's somewhat less so. The July New York City rental report by The Real Estate Group New York bears why that is -- the almost total disappearance of rental concessions, the scarcity of no-fee rental listings, and a modest but notable across-the-board hike in rents on Manhattan rental apartments. Read on, if you dare.

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.