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A few months before the lease on her two-person shared apartment expired at the end of May, she was nervous because she knew that rents in the city were going up. Robinson hoped any increase would be limited to a few hundred dollars, and figured that maybe a few extra odd jobs as a waitress could make up for that. But there was a rude awakening: The property manager wanted to increase the rent from $2,400 to $3,800 a month, an increase of almost 60 percent. Attempts to negotiate the price down failed. “They told us there were enough other people who would pay for it.” Robinson saw no other option but to move out. There was no way you could find anything else in central Manhattan on your budget. Instead, she will live in Brooklyn and share a monthly rent of $3,000 with two roommates.
On the real estate market, New York has ticked off the Corona crisis. Stories of drastic rent increases like those experienced by Robinson are a constant flow these days. According to a study by real estate consultant Jonathan Miller for Douglas Elliman, the median apartment rent in Manhattan was $3,870 in April, up 38.7 percent from a year earlier. Rents also rose significantly in other parts of the city.
Most expensive rental market in the USA
Bargain housing that existed in the early days of the pandemic is largely gone, as are landlord incentives like a month’s free rent upon signing a contract. Some New Yorkers, who have taken advantage of intermittent price drops to move to a better neighborhood or live alone rather than in a shared apartment, are now finding themselves forced to return to the old normal.
The Corona dent on the market has even more than been overcome. According to Miller’s study, the median rent has not only risen compared to the previous year, it is even at a record high – and more than 9 percent above the level before the pandemic. The offer is tight. The number of advertised rental apartments has fallen by more than three quarters compared to a year ago, the vacancy rate from 11.6 to just 1.6 percent. And for every fifth apartment there is currently a bidding war, which ensures that an even higher rent than requested is paid.
Public real estate group Equity Residential, which owns a number of residential properties in New York, summed up the comfortable position the city’s landlords are currently in in its recent earnings results. Chief Executive Mark Parrell said while there are currently many tenants moving out rather than accepting a raise, he’s not worried because it’s easy to find willing replacements. According to the real estate portal Zumper, New York replaced San Francisco as the most expensive rental market in the USA a few months ago. Before the pandemic, San Francisco was the frontrunner by a wide margin.
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