New York City Luxury Rental Blog

We talk about the renter's market here at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog the way that older men in bars talk about their high school football days, but we do so for a reason -- those were good times to be in the market for Manhattan rental apartments. Not only were rents down -- or, at the very least, flat -- but concessions abounded from the bottom of the market to the top. As the renter's market has receded during the NYC rental market's return to form, those concessions have become harder nad harder to find. They're still out there, of course -- there are plenty of no-fee rental listings in Manhattan and, oddly enough, concessions are still available to find at new construction luxury rentals such as The Ohm and 808 Columbus Avenue -- but concessions have been harder and harder to come by in recent months, despite widespread hopes that there would be a concession bounce-back in the fall. Just-released fourth-quarter statistics make it plain -- the last few months have seen the number of concessions fall by more than half from where they were in January of 2010 and are roughly a third of what they were at the end of 2009. Good news for landlords, in short, but less so for those hunting for Manhattan rental apartments. Combine this with a bump in rents and a low vacancy rate, and it's hard to find a silver lining in all this. Luckily, it's out there.

We've written before about both our crush on Chelsea's High Line and the hugely salutary effect the beloved, beautiful Chelsea park has had on the apartments for rent near The High Line. For condominiums for sale near the High Line, that proximity has led to a spike in both value and demand. For the select few Chelsea rental listings lucky enough to be High Line adjacent, the effect has been the same. The good news, though, both for those looking for rental apartments in Chelsea and those of us who simply enjoy walking on Manhattan's loveliest new park, is that The High Line keeps growing. Which means that the number of apartment listings near The High Line keeps growing as well. The sound you are hearing is landlords, developers and Chelsea renters high-fiving one another. With news -- and pictures -- of the ongoing High Line expansion reaching the New York Times yesterday, you may have to fight the urge to high-five yourself. It's not easy for us, either.

It's a trend we've written about over and over again -- with Manhattan condos seemingly a sketchier investment than in years past and still out of just about everyone's price range, more and more people are opting for Manhattan rental apartments over condos. There are, as we've also noted here at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog, good economic reasons for this, but there's another, simpler reason why the market for Manhattan rental apartments is surging while the condo market is stagnant. That other, simpler reason being that new construction Manhattan luxury rentals increasingly offer the same high-end finishes and fixtures, and similar suites of amenities and extras, as their condo counterparts -- and offer it without the economic anxieties that come with a mortgage, a co-op board, and all those other, less-desirable condo extras. But while it's not necessarily surprising that high-end luxury rentals are bouncing back from the Manhattan real estate downturn than condominiums, there's also more to the reason why this is so than the fact that both top-tier new construction NYC luxury rentals and high-end condos feature SubZero refrigerators and expansive suites of amenities. Although that obviously doesn't hurt.

The first rule of Manhattan real estate -- of real estate in general -- is said to be "location, location, location." Which, as conventional wisdom goes, isn't the silliest thing in the world. But Manhattan real estate observers could be forgiven, in recent years, for believing that at least one of those "location"'s could be swapped out for "branding." New Manhattan neighborhoods are nothing new -- New York City is a study in flux, and all it takes is one zoning decision and a few bold luxury rental developers to turn a neighborhood like the nowheresville around the Lincoln Tunnel entrance into "The Linc," a newly branded neighborhood complete with its own green luxury rental listings and superstar new rental developments such as Emerald Green. What sets Hudson Square apart from The Linc, besides a much cooler name -- The Linc? You're sure about that? -- is that this new neighborhood is actually one of Manhattan's oldest neighborhood. Hudson Square is, for all intents and purposes, West Soho. And it's not exactly "new," either, given that it has been around for centuries -- the Ear Inn, one of Manhattan's oldest nightspots, is a Hudson Square landmark -- and was Manhattan's printing district back when Manhattan had things like printing districts. But a recent re-branding campaign has helped Hudson Square re-make itself as one of the hotter residential neighborhoods in lower Manhattan, and a new campaign to remake the city's streets into leafier, more pedestrian-friendly thoroughfares suggests that it's time for all of us -- those looking for apartment rentals in SoHo and those of us who just dig NYC real estate -- to give this old-new neighborhood a new look. So, yeah: let's look at Hudson Square.

After a number of recent posts here at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog can attest, we are of the opinion that autumn and winter are about as good as it gets for Manhattan luxury rentals. Which, being as this is the blog at a site comprised mostly of Manhattan rental listings, probably makes some sense. But while the seasonal rise in concessions makes Manhattan rentals that much more appealing, there's also a broader, contextual reason the Manhattan apartment rental market has performed so well of late -- that reason being that buying Manhattan condos is hugely expensive, hilariously onerous, generally difficult and not becoming notably less so. All of which explains, somewhat, why the market for high-price, high-end Manhattan luxury rentals is currently booming. And things are currently hottest at the very high end of the market.