Edited by: TJVNews.com
Seems like it takes a small fortune to be able to afford to rent an apartment in New York City. That might not come as a complete shock to those who live in the Big Apple as New York has the distinction of being a very expensive city in which to dwell, but now that the pandemic era is winding down, rents have seen an astronomical increase, almost to the point of being surreal.
Starting in the spring of 2020, rents plunged to record lows but now that Covid is winding down, apartments in NYC are commanding all time high rental rates. And this July was no different.
The New York Post reported that “according to the latest rental market report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel — a monthly release tracking pricing in Manhattan, Brooklyn and parts of Queens —found that median and average rents in Manhattan climbed to a respective $4,150 and $5,113 per month.”
These over-the-top rental rates have superseded the already historic highs. The Post reported that the report for June which was released last month, revealed that the average price for a Manhattan apartment broke the $5000 per month threshold for the first time ever. And that beats the May report which indicated that the rent price reached $4,000 for the first time, according to the Post report.
The Post offered an explanation by saying: Median rent, largely known as a more reliable way of tracking prices, is the mid-point value of total price samples. The average is the sum of all rents divided by the number of samples.
As for discovering why rental prices keep significantly increasing which makes them unaffordable to the average renter, nothing has really changed. The Post has reported that after the massive exodus from Manhattan in the spring and summer of 2020, when city dwellers headed for the Hamptons, Florida and other less populated places to live due to the onset of the dreaded Covid virus, late last year, these same folks migrated back to New York City as schools and offices reopened. It was then that the rental market became quite congested. Those New Yorkers who managed to clinch fairly inexpensive rental rates during Covid were now facing exorbitant increased in their monthly rent when they renewed their leases as well due to the demand, the Post reported.
In addition, remote workers from out of town are joining the wave of New Yorkers who are coming back to the city, which has created a huge demand for apartments and landlords are essentially charging through the teeth, the Post reported. The remote workers who have moved from other cities and towns to New York City are doing so because of the ongoing locational flexibility.
Thanks to inflation, they also now compete with would-be home buyers who have turned to the rental market for the time being due to higher mortgage rates, the Post reported.
Prior to the release of the Elliman and Miller Samuel report, several weeks prior a market report emanating from StreetEasy revealed that the inventory for city rental homes rose 14% to nearly 66,000 units in the second quarter from the first — with priced-out tenants likely accounting for at least a third of that sum, as was reported by the Post. That equals at least 22,337 homes whose residents couldn’t keep up with payments, the report indicated.
To weed out potential defaulters of the soaring rental prices in New York City, the Post reported that landlords are requiring those who apply for leases to “earn an annual salary equal to some 40 times their monthly rent, otherwise known as the “40 times rent rule.”
