The three most important words in real estate, as even non-real estate types know, are location, location and location. This would be why we worked so hard on the "Apartments Near" modality at Luxury Rentals Manhattan. But if we could add a fourth word to real estate's holy (and wholly redundant) trinity, it would be "scarcity." You don't need to be Paul Krugman to know how this works -- the fewer available rental apartments there are, the more prices tend to climb. (Scarcity has always been a big part of the appeal of no-fee rental apartment listings -- in addition to the fact that no fee rentals are a great value, naturally -- but we're already seeing the effects of an improving NYC real estate market in the shrinking number of no-fee rental apartments) The fact that Manhattan's rental vacancy rate continues to fall further and further below one percent suggests that, as previous studies have indicated, the recovering NYC rental market is going to lead to higher prices on Manhattan rental apartments. With the usual caveat that there are still plenty of good deals on Manhattan rental apartments to be found -- and with the reminder that you can browse Manhattan rental listings here to find them -- let's take a look at what Citi Habitats' new Manhattan rental market report means for NYC rental apartment hunters, and everyone else.
