According to a recent study by RentCafe, if you’re in need of more space, you might want to set your sights on Manhattan.
We know, we sound crazy—but rent data from Yardi Matrix, an apartment market intelligence company, actually shows that we’re telling the truth!
In what comes as a shocking statistic between three NYC boroughs, Manhattan was the only borough to see an increase in the average apartment size over the past 10 years.
Manhattan apartments were on average 721 square feet 10 years ago. However, they’ve increased in size by 3% since then, with an average at about 740 square feet in 2022.
What might be the cause of this? Well according to Crain’s New York Business, “the borough has increasingly become a bastion of luxury housing in the past decade, as developers transformed formerly industrial and middle-class areas by adding expensive towers.”
RentCafe also shared that they believe its from people’s desire for more space coming out of the pandemic. The New York Post phrased it as “In more expensive housing markets, like Manhattan…deeper-pocketed renters are looking for more space, despite the high cost.”
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Manhattan apartments are still below the average apartment size (887 square feet in 2022) across the cities analyzed.
Unexpectedly, increases were not observed in either Queens or Brooklyn. By 2022, apartments in Queens were on average 681 square feet. That’s a 7% decrease in apartment sizes from what the average was in years past (727 square feet). For Brooklyn, apartment sizes dropped from 737 square feet to 692 square feet over the past decade. That’s again a 7% decrease in the average apartment size.
Surprisingly, Manhattan wasn’t the only place to have an unlikely upgrade in apartment size. Among the other cities in the study, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco both saw an increase in apartment sizes over the past decade. Chicago’s average apartment size went up 12%, while San Francisco upsized by 7% and Los Angeles by 6%.
You can find more statistics from the study here.