Manhattan’s rental market is cooling, but not by much.
The median rent for a brokered apartment in Manhattan was $4,550 in September, down ever so slightly from the month before, but still up more than 8 percent over last year, according to a monthly report from appraiser Miller Samuel for Douglas Elliman.
Across the city, rents are in a holding pattern. After beginning a streak of high prices in February, they’ve since passed peaks and continued bobbing at the top of the chart. Although the pressures that pushed rents up are easing off, there’s unlikely to be a significant decline in prices anytime soon, said Jonathan Miller, the report’s author.
“[The only] economic force that could drive rents lower would be a severe recession,” said Miller.
For the past several months, elevated mortgage rates have kept would-be buyers in the rental market, driving up demand for those units, Miller said. In July, Manhattan rents set a new all-time record at $4,700.
Mortgage rates have begun to come down slightly, and demand typically falls in autumn. But those headwinds are not enough to really turn the march of rents around, Miller said.
The market remains tight. Inventory in Manhattan was low for the month, at 9,244 listings, a decline of nearly 8 percent year over year. That could indicate a high number of lease renewals, Miller said. Renewals are typically at lower prices than new leases and are not captured in the report.
Low turnover and high renewals may suit landlords just fine, as an uncertain economic picture makes locking in tenants look preferable to testing the market. And renters might be deciding that what they’re seeing on StreetEasy just isn’t worth it.
Turnover may dip lower in the future if mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani wins the election and institutes a promised rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments. That policy could put pressure on rents in market-rate apartments, Miller said, by lowering inventory and prompting landlords to make up money on any market-rate apartments they own.
Competition for a unit wasn’t at record highs in September, but it was still elevated. About 22 percent of leases in Manhattan were subject to bidding wars, according to Miller. That number was 23 percent in Queens and 33 percent in Brooklyn.
Median rent for brokered apartments in Brooklyn was $3,925 in September, just $25 lower than the median in August. Prices have risen 7.5 percent in the last year.
Inventory was down in Brooklyn as well. At 5,681, it was 3 percent lower than in August.
The median rent in Northwest Queens, which includes Astoria, Long Island City, Sunnyside and Woodside, was $3,650. That was a 4 percent increase year over year.
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