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Have been in NYC for a while now (pre-covid) and what we are seeing now is absolutely NOT normal. Bidding wars, 70% rent increases, and massive supply shortages were not commonplace. NYC is an absolute shitshow right now as OP mentioned. There are hardly any good apartments available, and the ones that are are egregiously overpriced and rent within a day. Shit sucks lol

 
Have been in NYC for a while now (pre-covid) and what we are seeing now is absolutely NOT normal. Bidding wars, 70% rent increases, and massive supply shortages were not commonplace. NYC is an absolute shitshow right now as OP mentioned. There are hardly any good apartments available, and the ones that are are egregiously overpriced and rent within a day. Shit sucks lol

If apartments are renting within a day, then they aren't egregiously overpriced, now are they?

Also, while the market in NYC is going crazy, it's also not that crazy in a historical context.  1 bedroom asking rents in Feb 2022 are about 10% higher than in Feb 2020.  5% rent growth a year isn't nuts.  Compares pretty favorably with "hot" markets like Dallas (~13% increase in the same time frame).

I also wonder if part of it is due to weird turnover and the upsetting of the traditional leasing season.  Getting a new apartment if you're moving into the city in May or June has always been tough, because so much of the rental market turns over around then.  If you're in an apartment, then you have a good chance of minimizing year over year increases, because landlords are incentivized to leave some juice on the table to avoid vacant units spending 2 weeks on the market, or spending money to fix up incidental damages.  With the weird concessions given during COVID, plus a much larger than usual surge of people coming back to the city + moving for the first time, it's not crazy to think that this is a more competitive environment, even if absolute rents haven't skyrocketed compared to non-COVID years.

 
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Classic real estate greaseballs doing what they do best - jacking up prices, fucking people over, and providing absolutely no value while thinking they are gods gift to earth

 

As someone who was born and raised in Manhattan (mostly LES, currently live in UES), this is not normal at all. Rents are absolutely nuts right now. My personal belief is that it will not change anytime soon (anticipate this being a thing for the next couple of years). The generational NYers (like my family for example) have sick deals that allow us to ride this out. My parents live in a rent controlled building in a prime area in the LES where they have known the owner of the building for the last 30 years and so have been able to lock in some good deals with 2-3 year lease at a time. Unfortunately, transplants simply do not have access to this so you either have to check out western Queens/Brooklyn which are also incredibly fun places or suck it up and pay the overpriced rent. 

 

Rents went back to precovid levels, but population is still down versus precovid... While more supply is coming to market. We had a ton of MD's leave NY who haven't come back and I don't see that changing soon. Why not live in Florida or Texas if income tax is 0% and you like it? Something has to give in the market, probably with the overall real estate market, not just rentals. Manhattan is one of the few areas in the US where home prices are down versus precovid. Everywhere else is 20% up. So the fundamentals here have been fairly horrible for real estate still and were only being supported by 3% mortgage rates which have now gone to 5%. Manhattan is still expensive AF and will continue to be, but hopefully we won't continue to see 5% YoY increases in prices the way we did pre covid (as long as population continues to decline)

 

I think a lot of this comes from the fact that at the start of WFH a lot of high-earning professionals moved out of Manhattan causing a huge price drop that facilitated a large influx of people who previously couldn't afford to live in the city. I know a lot of NYU/Columbia students and people earning ~$70k who used to live in Astoria/Jersey City/Bushwick who snagged these crazy leases in Manhattan for sub $3k/month and got 2-4 months of free rent on top of that for a 24-month contract. When their leases end in the first half of next year, they will be forced to move out of Manhattan, which should free up the supply and consequently normalize rents.

 

Oh, and another, purely anecdotal observation: I think the WFH rent drop also allowed junior professionals, who would've otherwise lived with roommates, to live alone in studios and 1brs for the same price of sharing an apartment (or even less). This caused a disproportionate availability (and price drop) of 2brs, which is why now studios/1brs are in such short supply and go for like +20-30% of their pre-covid prices.

 

Both of your points are spot on. Using rough math let's say 20% vacated the city for Covid. Obviously some of those will never come back but half of that vacancy was fixed via young professionals, lower income taking advantage of low rents at the time. Now let's say 15% of the original 20% that vacated are returning but their vacant apartment was filled - now vacancy is 10% and you have a war of people fighting it out for the 5% delta if that makes any sense.

Also anecdotal but many of my friends up there did exactly what you said - grabbed a studio in a great neighborhood and moved away from roommates. Now they're all looking at going back to roommate situations or lateraling to a significantly shittier apartment at the same price point.

 

Excellent point. Recently switched apartments and was amazed that 2 bedrooms went for barely more than equally nice 1 bedrooms - actually saw a few 2 bedrooms being marketed as 1 + office just because they got so much more attention on the market

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No, and actually I witnessed this last year - rents go up starting around now and then through the summer as full-times begin moving/renting places out. They are also higher than they were last summer due to the elimination of covid deals where you get 1-2 months rent free so overall your average rent was 10-20% cheaper than the list price.

I was keeping track of it, over the summer the price for a nice 1-br went up by like $300-$500/month and also things started renting way faster (like nice apartments/good deals don’t stay on the market for more than a few days).

So point being, rent quickly if you find a good deal, and if you really like a place it might be worth renting it 1 month early to hedge against prices moving up.

 

not to mention your application has a 30-50% at best chance at getting picked these days - gone are the times you could show up to NYC two weeks out from your move, view a bunch, and take your pick. Apartments are renting 2-3+ months out now which has NEVER been a thing in NYC. Feel like everyone I know has missed out on multiple apartments just because there are so many applications, so expect the process to take longer as you may not get the first one you like

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eloquence

not to mention your application has a 30-50% at best chance at getting picked these days - gone are the times you could show up to NYC two weeks out from your move, view a bunch, and take your pick. Apartments are renting 2-3+ months out now which has NEVER been a thing in NYC

Yes, it has.  I moved to NYC during the financial crisis and I still had to commit to a June 1 lease in mid April.

You sound like someone who moved to NYC in the last 18 months.

 

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