New York City Luxury Rental Blog

No, we're still not going to call the rising residential neighborhood in West Chelsea and West Clinton -- Hudson Yards, to some -- by the name real estate types have tried to hang on it. But just because we're not going to call "The Linc" The Linc doesn't mean that we won't call it one of Manhattan's fastest-growing markets for luxury rental apartments. While it's unclear whether we should classify the apartments for rent in greater Hudson Yards as Chelsea rental listings, Garment District apartment rentals or Clinton rental listings, the fact remains that the bumper crop of new construction luxury rental buildings in the neighborhood, highlighted by superstar LEED-certified rental Emerald Green, have helped turn this formerly desolate stretch of Midtown West into one of the more interesting places to rent an apartment in Manhattan. With news that the second phase of The High Line will reach Hudson Yards' southernmost regions and that an expanded 7 train could make it increasingly accessible to the rest of the city, the future seems bright for Hudson Yards. In that sense, then, perhaps the announcement of an impressive new luxury rental apartment building in Hudson Yards shouldn't be too surprising. Still, by any standard, the just-finished Townsend -- a 569-unit luxury rental building at 350 West 37th Street -- is a pretty cool development, and another sign of how hot Hudson Yards has become.

It all seems like a dream, now, the boom market in Manhattan real estate. But while it was unsustainable and way overhyped, and is faintly ridiculous in retrospect, there was a period when Manhattan rental apartments enjoyed an almost instant absorption rate and rental activity was almost terrifyingly constant. That was the middle of 2007, and it seems a long time ago now. But while many of the things that seemed cool in 2007 seem less so, now -- remember how much scarier the world was when Lindsay Lohan wasn't in jail? -- NYC real estate watchers have never quite given up hope that those days might return to the Manhattan rental market. The just-released quarter two Manhattan apartment rental stats suggest, though, that the pre-Lehman glory days of Manhattan real estate aren't coming back. No, the new stats suggest -- astonishingly -- activity in the Manhattan rental apartment market was well beyond those mid-2007 levels. In other words, the Manhattan rental market is not only back, it's apparently stronger than it was during its historic highs. Even more surprisingly, while rental activity soared, rents stayed mostly flat. Maybe that (prematurely lamented) renter's market will survive the turnaround in Manhattan real estate after all.

It's not exactly news anymore that the Financial District has been pretty thoroughly reinvented from a center of international commerce into a very desirable Manhattan residential neighborhood... that also happens to be the center of international commerce. But for all the top-notch apartment listings in the Financial District -- and there are many, from pre-war rental apartments like those at 37 Wall Street or 71 Broadway or The Crest to the ultra-luxe new construction rental apartments at 90W -- one thing the neighborhood has lacked is, for lack of a better word, the things that make Manhattan neighborhoods feel like Manhattan neighborhoods. Slowly but surely, though, that's changing. With the announcement that the Financial District's Andaz Hotel will be sponsoring a new Financial District Greenmarket, FiDi foodies will finally have a place to get the fresh local produce, meat and seafood their neighborhood has been missing. And an ambitious plan to reimagine traffic-saturated Water Street as a green byway suggests that more neighborhoodiness could be in the offing for the Financial District. This is good news for a bunch of reasons.

There's a lot to like about Tribeca, which is home to some of the most distinctive-looking blocks in Manhattan, as well as some of NYC's finest restaurants, shopping and art galleries. All of which makes it even more of a pity that there are relatively few rental listings in Tribeca, relative to its neighbors. But while the existing building stock in Tribeca -- much of it a century old and safely landmarked -- will probably prevent it from becoming a luxury rental listing mecca like the Financial District (Tribeca's neighbor to the south) or Soho (its neighbor to the North), a long-awaited plan to re-zone the largely industrial northern part of Tribeca to allow for more residential development is beginning to make its way through the Dpeartment of City Planning and Community Board 1. If approved, the re-zoning of Tribeca could make for a boom in Tribeca apartment listings, and thus make it easier to find a place to live in one of Manhattan's coolest residential neighborhoods.

New York City and New York City real estate have a way of focusing the mind -- this is a tough town, as you might've heard, and an interesting one. For those of us who care about NYC and the market for rental apartments in NYC, the ebbs and flows of the Manhattan real estate scene can come to seem like the most important news in the world. If you're searching Manhattan rental listings, it might well seem like it, but the national real estate market is plenty interesting in its own right. That's the reason -- well, mostly it's that we sometimes like to ogle North Carolina mountain homes and South Carolina golf homes, but also that -- why your Luxury Rentals Manhattan blogger often finds himself checking in with Southeast Discovery, a full-service real estate site serving, yes, the Southeast.