New York City Luxury Rental Blog Archives for February 2011

New York By Gehry/8 Spruce Street/That New FiDi Luxury Rental Tower: Whatever You Call It, It's Greener Than Advertised

Given all the attention that NYC real estate heads gave 8 Spruce Street, the game-changing new luxury rental building in the Financial District designed by Frank Gehry, it's something of a surprise that there are things about the building we don't already know. Any Manhattan real estate watcher can quote you the starting prices for studio apartments for rent at 8 Spruce Street -- around $2,600, if you were wondering -- and of course the name of the star architect behind this most well-observed of Financial District rental listings is right there in one of 8 Spruce Street's alternate names, New York By Gehry. But for all this celebrity luxury rental listing's sky-high profile, it's something of a secret that 8 Spruce Street belongs among on any list of green rental listings in Manhattan. And while that secret is out, there's also a reason why 8 Spruce Street isn't flacking its green building bona fides.

Luxury Rentals: Still The Famous Person's Choice When It Comes To Manhattan Apartments

Regular readers of the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog know that it's a familiar refrain, and just about anyone who follows Manhattan real estate knows that it happens to be true, but let's run this up the flagpole one last time -- in today's Manhattan real estate marketplace, it is inarguably wiser to rent than to buy. (Here's visual proof, if you need it) Of course, if you're already browsing the Manhattan rental listings at Luxury Rentals Manhattan, you're already hip to this fact. But if celebrity endorsements are more your speed, you're in luck. Again, it's nothing new -- we were on this when Kings of Leon singer Caleb Followill joined NYC apartment rental community in May of last year -- but Curbed reports that some of Manhattan's best known residents are opting to rent rather than buy these days. (That handsome and extravagantly well-compensated fellow at left happens to be one of them)

Unhappy Trending? For NYC Rentals, January Was Another Month Of Lower Vacancies and Higher Rents

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?

Apartments For One: What NYC Neighborhoods Are Best For Singles?

At a certain level, the question of which Manhattan neighborhood is best for singles is kind of a silly one. Silly because, New York being New York, just about every Manhattan neighborhood is a pretty good Manhattan neighborhood in which to be single. But, of course, there are degrees of goodness -- which means that singles hunting for their own NYC studios or one-bedroom apartments might do well to check out a new study from the New York Daily News that uses a simple formula to ascertain which Manhattan neighborhoods are best for solo NYC apartment-hunters. Besides, you know, all of them.

Condo-Quality Redefined, or What's The Deal With Rental Listings In Luxury Condos?

When is a luxury rental apartment listing not a luxury rental apartment listing? Well, if you insist on getting technical about a rhetorical question, the answer is "never." But, for a new crop of Manhattan luxury rental listings, the answer is somewhat more complicated. Some of Manhattan's most impressive new luxury rental listings are either partnered with new construction luxury condos -- blockbuster midtown luxury rental The Ashley, for example, shares an amenity space, a developer, and a number of other commonalities with The Aldyn, a carbon-copy condo with which it was co-developed -- or, in such posh instances as Chelsea's promising Eventi rentals located on the upper floors of luxury hotels. For William Beaver House, a new luxury rental listing in the Financial District, the story is even more convoluted -- developed as a condominium, William Beaver House is still selling luxury condominiums. It just happens to offer some of the most luxurious rental listings in the Financial District, as well. And there is, of course, Frank Gehry's luxury rental at 8 Spruce Street in the Financial District, which ranks among the most luxurious luxury rentals in Manhattan real estate history. The phrase "condo-quality finishes" has never seemed more literally apt, and less like a real estate buzzword. While this new proliferation of condo-rental combos can make for some confusion when browsing Manhattan rental listings, one effect is clear -- it certainly has deepened Manhattan's already deep pool of high-end rental listings.