What’s going on in the Manhattan rental Market? Let’s take a look at July 2020 data…

With the withdrawal of some of the restrictions due to Covid-19 emergency, new rental activity surged month over month but still well below the year-ago levels.

The Number of New Leases (excluding renewals), went down – 23.4% to 4,949, not the best but far from the worst percentage of loss ever – 70.9% recorded this April.

The Median Rental Price was $3,320 down -7.6% from the previous year while the Net Effective Median Rent decreased -10.1% to $3,167 from the same period last year. The most significant annual decline in almost nine years of tracking.

The Average Rental Price went down -6.1% to 4,031 and the Average per Square Foot Rent was down -8.0% to $64.39.

Consistent with the decrease in rental prices, there was a record amount of listing inventory and a rise in landlord concessions: 

The Listing Inventory reached the new record of 13,117 properties on the market up by 121.9% YoY with a Vacancy Rate that jumped for the third consecutive month to a new record in fourteen years, reaching 4.33%. The new record was more than twice the rate in the same period last year. 

The percentage of apartments offered with some form of Concession was 46.7%, up from 30.6% in July 2019. So we went back to two and a half years ago levels. 

The Days on Market went up 2 days YoY at 28 days Vs. 26 days a year ago. 

But as I said at the beginning, the situation, although far from the numbers we are used to, is showing signs of improvement. With an inventory that has never been this large, this might be a good time to get a good deal and some kind of concession.

The landlord needs to continue to be pragmatic in these times.

If you have questions, I am here for you!