apartment market

"...that's the sound of me playing the world's smallest violin." ["Luxe Flux!"]

Our world was rocked assiduously by the Monday morning news that Manhattan rents have begun to not only drop but tumble in some cases. Above is a rundown on the dips by apartment type from The Real Estate Group New York. The '07 average monthly rents don't include Harlem, but still... 'tis a better time to be a tenant and a worse one to be a landlord.

We dropped on you this morning the gong-rattling pronouncement that Manhattan is now a tenant's market by the two most important measures: rents (they're dropping across the board) and vacancies (they're up and climbing).

But there's more to the math.

According to The Real Estate Group New York, which released its November report just before sun-up (PDF here), the number of Manhattan apartment vacancies may be higher than signified. Why? Because some owners of higher-end rentals don't want everyone to know about all their vacancies: "[V]acancies, may actually be even higher than reported, particularly in doorman buildings, as many landlords are not releasing their full vacancy list."

Why would some landlords play their vacancies so close to the chest? More empty apartments might further drive down rents and demand of landlords ever more concessions and incentives to lure tenants.

The 16,000 jobs that Manhattan employers are expected to shed this year will help by the end of 2008 drive the borough's apartment vacancy rate up to 2.8 percent for larger buildings, according to a report from Marcus & Millichap.

The rate could rise even further in 2009 ("further" being a relative term in Manhattan, which traditionally has the nation's lowest apartment vacancy rate). The City Comptroller's office last week predicted New York would lose over 165,000 private-sector jobs in the next 24 months. Higher unemployment usually means less demand for apartments. Less demand generally means lower rents--over time. So far, despite several consecutive quarters of iffy economic news, Manhattan apartment rents have stayed generally steady.

The Marcus & Millichap report also concluded that apartment development will produce nearly 1,500 new units in Manhattan this year.

Landlord Tishman Speyer plans this weekend to officially open its four new residential amenities at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, including a private movie theater and a library.

Collectively billed as the Oval Amenities, these four services—aside from the theater and the study and library, there’s a kids activity center and a pool table-equipped lounge—will join concierge services and a fitness center for the tenants at the 11,000-unit apartment complexes.Tenants can opt into the four new services for $20 monthly, plus a one-time $250 fee per household, as long as they make a three-month commitment. Guest passes for non-residents or resident nonmembers will be $20 each. Existing gym and concierge members will enjoy a substantial discount.  read more »

On May 2, George Noia moved into a two-bedroom basement apartment on Long Island. His bedroom was small and windowless, and the kitchen held only a microwave and a hot plate. But of all the places he had seen, the one on Revilo Avenue in Shirley was the cheapest, at $130 a week.

Until he found out that his roommate was scamming him.

"When I heard that, I was pissed," Mr. Noia said. "I was absolutely angered by it. I'm paying more money for a smaller room?"

In September, Mr. Noia overheard his roommate chatting about their rent with one of the building's other tenants.  read more »

From The Real Deal:

A flailing former Citi Habitats sales agent, Leif Lopez, was busted for allegedly scamming an apartment hunter out of $100,000 in a phony transaction negotiated at Starbucks.

 read more »

From The Real Deal:

The number of incoming Brooklyn home hunters from outside of New York State increased over previous quarters, according to a third-quarter Downtown Brooklyn report looking at prospective renters.

More would-be renters were looking to move to Brooklyn from out of state in the third quarter than in previous quarters. ... Twenty-six percent of Brooklyn apartment hunters in the third quarter were from out of state, compared to 20 percent in the second quarter.

We read with glee and expectation the Sunday Times article by Vivian S. Toy on landlords in higher-end apartment buildings offering incentives to prospective tenants. Could it really be happening? Could free rent and paid-off broker fees finally be the ascendant norm?!?

We counted five specific examples in the article of buildings where landlords were offering incentives, and then there was this one line:

Mr. Malin said a recent Citi Habitats search found about 70 buildings offering incentives. The owners of these buildings, he said, “are doing what they can to make their property stand out from another property across the street.”

That's 70 buildings among hundreds. That's not that much. But that's certainly something.

Does anyone know of any specific buildings offering tenant incentives?

I wrote in this week's paper about how, even after all the calamitous economic news (like Bear Stearns' collapse), Manhattan rents appear buoyant if not strong. Most of the average rents I cited were for one-bedroom apartments.  read more »

Though the strength of the Euro has been largely credited with staving off a housing market nosedive in Manhattan, it is hitting expatriate American businessmen (and the multi-national companies they work for) stationed in cities like London, Hong Kong and Moscow hard, pushing already expensive rents into the stratosphere, according to Forbes’ survey of the most expensive international rental markets.

Mercer Human Resource Consulting checked out the median rent of Class A, unfurnished apartments, in high-end neighborhoods of commercial hubs around the globe and adjusted them from local currencies to the dollar. The “results spell trouble for businesses dealing in (greenbacks).”

Hong Kong, which ranked No. 1 in the survey, saw the median monthly rent rise from $4,898 to $6,398 between 2006 and 2007, when adjusted to the dollar. Tokyo was the second priciest market with a median rent of $4,102 per month. With a $1,000 rent increase year-over-year, Moscow ranked third, matching the $4,000 median rent in New York--the fourth most-expensive rental market. London rounded out the top five at $3,889.  read more »

Chelsea's rental market remains one of the most expensive in Manhattan, according to the Real Estate Group's 2007 year-end report, but some apartment sizes weathered an erratic year better than others.

Daniel Baum, the group's COO, told The Observer what most suprised him in the 2007 data was Chelsea's resiliency.  read more »

Good news for apartment hunters: Manhattan rents have dropped, especially in the financial district.

Granted, the average asking rent for apartments below 100th Street dropped by less than 1 percent in December, according to a new report from the The Real Estate Group's, but that downward trend is expected to continue into the new year.  read more »