As empty Manhattan apartments continue to increase and rents are still dropping, it is the first time median rent has been below $3,000 in almost a decade!
Street Easy recently announced the news in a new report, which also revealed that available Manhattan rentals have increased by 69.8% in the third quarter of 2020, with 30,000 more apartments compared to last year’s vacancies.
And Manhattan’s rent has fallen 7.8%, giving way to some of the most affordable rent in the past nine years. Boroughs across the city are facing similar drops in rent as Brooklyn median rent has dropped 2.5% and Queens 2.2%, according to the same press release.
This resistance to pay these rents have Manhattan landlords under extreme pressure to discount and negotiate prices in order fill their vacancies since the pandemic first hit. Out of the rental listings on StreetEasy, 44.7% had to be discounted in price, soaring to an all-time high. The median rent discount given last year was around $139. This years average discount rose to $272, increasing from last year by 5.1% to reach a rental discount of 9.1% in Manhattan.
Nancy Wu, StreetEasy Economist, said “renters are no longer willing to pay the commute premium of living in Manhattan when they do not need to commute to an office five days a week.” With remote work being done all across the city, potential renters are finding themselves less willing to pay high rents when they are simply working from home now.
As boroughs beyond Manhattan become more attractive to potential renters, landlords are “being forced to cut the location premium out of their asking price in order to compete with larger and more affordable apartments in the outer boroughs,” said Nancy Wu.
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