New York City Luxury Rental Blog

Prices on Manhattan rental apartments are down, which is good news for -- obviousness alert -- people looking for Manhattan rental apartments. But like all good news in NYC real estate, there's a catch, here. While it's easier to find a Manhattan rental listing at the price you want, it's getting harder to find a Manhattan rental listing period. Even during the summer, which is traditionally the prime time to find a Manhattan rental apartment, NYC apartment inventory is low and the market is, while still comparatively cheap, also surprisingly tight. The Apple Peeled takes a look at this curious and seemingly contradictory real estate trend and tries to make some sense of it.

The very fact that a second "Sex and the City" movie exists is proof that the lessons of the sharp economic downturn -- both in Manhattan real estate and, um, everything else -- haven't totally sunken in with everybody out there. But while it's usually not a good idea to look to NYC real estate for signs of rational, level-headed thought, a recent poll by the National Apartment Association indicates that perhaps those looking for Manhattan rental apartments have internalized the lessons of the economic demi-disaster better than, say, whoever green-lit "Sex and the City 2: The Grievous Miscalculation." The NAA poll finds that 76 percent of people prefer to rent apartments, as opposed to owning them. That's a five percent increase since 2008, and it is, in its way, kind of heartening.

By all accounts, the sad and scary death of a Murray Hill renter last month after he fell from a not-up-to-code balcony was both a fluke accident and the product of some serious oversight on the part of the building manager. It's not the sort of thing anyone likes to think about, this sort of thing, and for obvious reasons. But if you go through the rental apartment listings at Luxury Rentals Manhattan, you're going to notice that balconies are something we talk about a lot. We do this because, as Manhattan apartment perks go, balconies are pretty cool and pretty in-demand. A perch above it all, a bit of private space, an opportunity to grab some fresh air -- these are things that NYC dwellers want in a Manhattan rental apartment, and they are things that NYC dwellers will continue to want in a Manhattan rental apartment. We're not in the prediction business here at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog, but that seems like a fairly easy prediction to make. That said/fearlessly predicted, as New York Magazine's S. Jhoanna Robledo reports, more and more people are getting antsy about what was once a pretty sweet Manhattan apartment perk.

Manhattan real estate heads already know that Joyce Cohen's "The Hunt" column in the New York Times is one of the more enjoyable Manhattan real estate reads out there. But as entertaining as it is to read Cohen's interviews with people seeking (and finding) rental apartments in Manhattan, there's always the matter of authorial distance. That is -- and we're not going to get too lit-crit on you, both because it's been a long time since college and because this is the blog on a website about luxury rental apartments in Manhattan -- the question of where and how Cohen herself lives. Does it color her perspective? Bias her discussion of neighborhoods? Are her ceilings higher than yours?

There are a great many reasons to look for a luxury rental in Gramercy Park -- greater Gramercy is a beautiful neighborhood with plenty of nice restaurants, some charmingly low-key nightspots and several really nice rental apartment listings. But as much as we at Luxury Rentals Manhattan love us some Lex Lofts or Park 23, there's one thing that a rental apartment in Gramercy will never boast: access to the actual Gramercy Park. Keys to Gramercy Park are among the most elusive prizes in Manhattan real estate, and even people who own their apartments on Gramercy Park are denied keys. If you don't own one of the 39 town houses surrounding Gramercy Park, the best you can hope for is to look through the high, wrought-iron fence surrounding Gramercy Park's eponymous green space. But will it always be thus?