Many of these prices are due to supply and demand, which is compounded in particularly popular cities with a shortage of available housing. New York City, this is not a drill. Rental prices are falling (very slowly), at least for now. New York City's rental market is ranked according to an unusual degree of coexistence between unrelated adults, because housing here is very expensive and the housing stock doesn't fit the city's demographics.
It is, real estate reporter Bridget Read writes for Curbed, a season of “utter indignity” for the city's tenants. Joshua Young, executive vice president and managing director of sales and leasing at Brown Harris Stevens, said that landlords were too optimistic to expect rent increases of 20% or more, and that many are now starting to lower prices or add more concessions to keep their apartments full. Economists have long argued that rent control provides security for some, but raises the price of unregulated housing for others. Earlier this summer, New York City witnessed increases in rents for both apartments with stabilized rents and units at market price.
Rents in Manhattan rose 2% in November, dashing hopes that prices would cool down and forced many tenants to give up their leases or reduce their size, according to brokers. To give you an idea of how that compares, the city has about a million unregulated rental units, so 75,000 additional unavailable apartments would more than compensate for any population drain. Sky-high rents in New York City don't usually make headlines, but all parties agree that something out of the ordinary is afoot. Real estate experts say that the big drop in new leases, if it continues, will eventually force landlords to comply with tenants at a lower price.
According to the apartment rental website Zumper, the average rent in New York fell by 2.3% between September and October. Tenants living in rent-stabilized housing experienced the biggest price increase in more than a decade, and one-year leases increased by 3.25%, while the board voted in favor of a 5% increase in two-year leases. Appraiser Jonathan Miller told Curbed that, according to his analysis, the slight change could lead to a more balanced rental market, in which broker fees could fall and bidding wars could end. According to a recent StreetEasy study, the gap between real wage growth and rental prices in August was 23% when inflation is taken into account.
After a summer in which moving to a new apartment or renegotiating the lease seemed to be confronting the last New York City boss, the rental market seems to be cooling down a bit. Rising rents have been hitting New Yorkers even more than you might think considering the role that inflation played.
