New York City Luxury Rental Blog

For NYC dwellers on the hunt for an apartment, green residences might seem more of a nicety than a necessity. But by 2030 high-rise city real estate is going to get a whole lot greener, and hopefully a whole lot more affordable. A recent study has found that simple energy-conserving technology can save landlords bundles, and the statistics endorse New York City’s continued push for citywide environmental initiatives. To keep the city’s green-o-meter rising, new laws mandate many large buildings keep a public tab on their energy efficiency. The desired outcome is green new developments and retrofitted buildings. But what will the impact of all this paper shuffling be for renters, and does this look like a greener NYC or a pipe dream?

How can a chain reaction of uncertainty lead to stability? Well, the undercurrent of anxiety in Manhattan real estate over the state of the economy, both at home and abroad, has badly hurt sales of luxury condominiums, but the rental market has flourished in turn; rental vacancies in New York City recently dropped below 1%. This phenomena is one of the most salient features of the Manhattan real estate market today and has already been well documented elsewhere on luxuryrentalsmanhattan.com, but now there’s a new twist to the story: expensive, fully-furnished luxury rentals are more popular than ever. Wealthy New Yorkers have revived the market for furnished rentals despite the fact that the monthly rent is usually double the cost of unfurnished luxury apartments. The causes of this Manhattan real estate trend are counterintuitive, but all of them bolster short-term investments, especially fully-furnished luxury rentals.

When New Yorkers think of the Financial District, the last image that would ever come to mind is that of a residential neighborhood. After all, the Financial District wouldn’t be called such if it was populated with residential buildings rather than business headquarters and offices. Yet, that is exactly what many Manhattan residential developers have envisioned in the recent years. In an attempt to revitalize the Financial District as a viable residential neighborhood in downtown Manhattan, many developers have converted what were once old office buildings into condos. The only problem is that nobody wanted to buy. But a buyer's loss is swiftly turning into renters' gains.

Luxury rental apartments in NYC, as opposed to luxury apartments for sale, continue to be the first choice of many searching throughout the Manhattan real estate market. A variety of factors have contributed to this, including but not limited to: increased difficulty in securing outside financing; the still present aftershock of the housing crisis; and just all around lower personal income and savings. Perhaps this phenomenon can explain the recent shortage of multi-bedroom luxury rental apartments in Manhattan, a trend that crosses all neighborhoods and areas.

Within NYC luxury real estate, it is often quite difficult as an international student to find a luxury rental apartment. It can be hard for most students, as well as many others without a long work history or established credit, to obtain a luxury apartment lease. But for international students searching through NYC luxury real estate listings, it can be even more of an ordeal, simply because they do not have the same opportunity to use a guarantor. Susan Tsang, for example, is a PhD student in biology who was born in Hong Kong. When she moved to NYC to attend school, she did not have any U.S. employment history, and therefore was in a position where she needed a co-signer. However, because her parents still lived in Hong Kong, she was confronted with a number of challenges, as dozens of landlords refused to allow for international guarantors. She was eventually able to find a studio in Manhattan’s Upper West Side neighborhood, but not before she was forced to deal with the roadblocks a great many foreigners have had to circumnavigate.