New York City Luxury Rental Blog Archives for August 2010

NYC Rental Report: Vacancies Down, Rents Up on NYC Apartments. Landlords Love It, But How Should You Feel?

Deja vu? Maybe a little bit. But while regular readers of the Luxury Rentals Manhattan already know about the end of the renter's market for Manhattan rental listings -- in part because we wrote about it a few weeks ago -- it's impressive to watch the evidence of the Manhattan real estate market's recovery continue to pile up. Impressive, and maybe just a little bit depressing -- as we wrote earlier this month, the NYC rental market is at its most renter-friendly when it's at its weakest. A stronger rental market means fewer concessions and other goodies, and makes sought-after no-fee apartment listings that much tougher to find. But while the most recent report from The Real Estate Group New York offers a vivid example of just how far the Manhattan rental market has come since the dog days of 2009, it's not quite as bad for renters as it sounds. There are still good deals to be found for those searching for Manhattan rental apartments. It just makes the search that much tougher. So, now that the soothing is over, what does the report actually say?

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(Almost) No Vacancy: Report Indicates Manhattan Rental Apartment Vacancy Rates Shrunk Yet Again In July

Rental Apartments NYC

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.

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Growing Up, Partying Down: New York Observer on the New, Improved -- And Much More Fun -- Financial District

2 Gold Street

NYC dwellers of long standing -- or even longish standing -- remember a time when the Financial District was, finally, just that: a place where finance got done and power lunches were devoured, and just about that. Restaurants were closed by dinner time, bars locked up after happy hour, and grocery stores were something that existed 20 or more blocks north. That old Financial District doesn't really match with the Financial District of today, which has become one of Manhattan's fastest-growing and most promising residential neighborhoods -- and, not for nothing, also home to what are, per square foot and despite a recent rise in prices, the least expensive Manhattan apartments for rent this side of Harlem. The grand buildings of the Financial District -- many of them luxury rental buildings converted from previous lives as the office towers that used to define the neighborhood -- are home to a bunch of impressive and impressively appealing Financial District rental apartments but the neighborhood itself is, as the New York Observer's Guelda Voien points out, increasingly home to a vibrant and well-rounded neighborhood -- one where stroller-pushing families comfortably share space with party-throwing twentysomethings. Not bad, honestly, for a neighborhood that used to be a ghost town after the closing bell -- and nothing compared to what the Financial District promises to become over the next decade.

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That's Cold: In Sweltering Summer, NYC Rental Apartments With Utilities (Read: AC) Included Become Hot Commodity

As a general rule, a luxury rental apartment in Manhattan is something of a prize. Some Manhattan rental apartments are more prized than others, and more prized by some NYC dwellers more than by others -- no fee NYC rental apartments are both rare and money-saving, which gives them some obvious value; the appeal of green rental apartment listings is no less obvious. But with New York City sweating out what is turning out to be one of the hottest summers on record, a new type of Manhattan rental listing has surged to the top of the list of most desirable NYC rental properties. In the New York Times, Sam Dolnick describes the appeal of the ultilities-included rental apartment, in which the absence of apartment-specific electricity monitoring enables round-the-clock air conditioning blastage. So, is the utilities-included rental apartment the new holy grail of Manhattan rental listings? Or is it just an especially inefficient way for some NYC dwellers to create a huge, 66-degree carbon footprint for themselves? Who says it can't be both?

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Concrete Benefits: Thanks To New Shake Shack, Upper East Side Apartments Just Got A Bit More Appealing

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.

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NYC Renters Market In Retreat: Rents Up, Vacancies Down On Manhattan Rental Apartments

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.

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