Manhattan Rental Market Report -- April

interesting. The year over year decreases are accelerating, though sequentially it looks better. But this is pretty unambiguously good for renters, bad for landlords. Demand down 20-30% in the summer? Sheesh.

Ironically, I think the reason Harlem rents are "up" for doorman buildings is only because SO MANY doorman condos are now for rent in new developments. "re-rents" are definitely not up in price in the old doorman buidlings.

this seasonality brings with it the new hires and intern class which has traditionally helped to both absorb supply and allow owners to increase their asking rents. Our relocation contacts and HR managers, however, have told us that these new hire classes will be down anywhere from 20 to 30% from years past. So it's our expectation that while we will see an increase in rental demand during the summer months, these increases will not have the same pronounced effect that they previously have.

not to mention that it will be an opportunity for those with expiring leases to move if they wish.

Always look at the fine print: "Our data is aggregated from the TREGNY proprietary database and sampled from a specific mid-month point to record current rental rates offered by landlords during that particular month."

If this means, that they only compare the rents OFFERED BY LANDLORDS, it is interesting but by no means an accurate gauge of rents being PAID to landlords.

I'm very, very happy...my lease is up in November so I hope it continues as I'm paying $2495 for a very small one bedroom non-doorman, elevator bldg. My apartment is now renting for $2200.

if landlords keep asking the same rent, but then offer concessions and discounts only when you sign the lease, we will never a drop in rents in reports like this one that only record the prices offered by landlords...
what an idiotic way of doing "market analysis"! somebody needs to teach everybody involved in real estate some serious math (brokers and square footage, analysts and prices, inventory and shadow inventory). i am sick of it!

You guys are a bit silly. The author of this an other reports like it freely admit to the blogosphere and media that these are JUST asking rents and that with concessions, net effective rents are actually most likely lower. However, its practically impossible to conduct a survey this frequently and this timely and this accurate while also including the value, or "value" or AMex gift cards, free gym memberships, parking spots, storage units, free months, free cable, etc. Just believe this guy and his counterparts when they told the WSJ and NYT that actual rents might be another 10-20% lower in many cases and move in.

Why does the report use average left and right? This paints a rosier pic than if they would have ussed median. Ugh...

Citi-Habitats has slightly better data, they at least take actual rents rather than asking rents. Still doesn't include concessions though

"Why does the report use average left and right? This paints a rosier pic than if they would have ussed median. Ugh..."

Do you KNOW that? Median is not automatically lower than mean.

But perfitz said rents aren't going down!

"You guys are a bit silly. The author of this an other reports like it freely admit to the blogosphere and media that these are JUST asking rents and that with concessions, net effective rents are actually most likely lower."

Funny but I didn't see that in the report and I think most people aren't going to blogs to do their own research on what the guys who issued the report REALLY think. Where I come from you put disclaimers and qualifications in the actual document. Its called disclosure and brokers as a whole aren't famous for it, which is why most people here question everything they say.

Hey all, I'm "this guy", (Daniel Baum of TREGNY), and I have to say that I happen to agree the data would be more indicative of real rent prices if concessions and incentives were aggregated into the report. That said, it is virtually impossible to do so for many reasons. My objective with our report has never been to be THE source of information, but simply to attempt to bring some level of transparency to an otherwise incredibly cloudy rental market. Malthus & polydoa - sorry we couldn't be more accommodating... Jason10006 - thanks.

side note to malthus: Here is a quote from my letter in last months report, "It should be noted that these numbers do not take into consideration concessions." and a link to that report: http://www.tregny.com/content/rental_market_reports/march-2009-manhattan-rental-market-report/
I understand your point, but I try not to sound too repetitive each month%u2026
Have a great evening everyone!
Daniel Baum

See? And I am a RENTER. But I knew all that.

Hey Daniel how about using actual rents rather than asking rents? Can't be that hard to do. Using asking prices these days puts a serious upward bias into the numbers.

East Villager, I assume when you say "actual rents" you mean the price the landlord accepted on the lease? If so, the only way I could do that would be if our firm closed every rental deal in the city. Otherwise that info isn't public record as closing prices on sales units are.

Bettina Equities web site always has about 35-50 apartments available....as of today....drum roll please....143 apartments available!!!

"I assume when you say "actual rents" you mean the price the landlord accepted on the lease? If so, the only way I could do that would be if our firm closed every rental deal in the city. Otherwise that info isn't public record as closing prices on sales units are."

Read: This rental report is virtually worthless.

No, re-economist, is is VERY worthwile for us as renters to know that asking rents are going up or down and by how much. There is no other way to get a quick and timely snapshot of the rental market.

Daniel - congrats. Unlike 99% of the windbags here, you actually contribute something positive to this site. Keep up the good work. Those that criticize, come up with something better if you don't like it. What I've seen over the past few weeks is that the actual numbers aren't as bad as the short sellers here want them to look; average ppsf went down only 2% this quarter and rentals aren't down nearly as dramatically as all of the anecdote here would lead one to believe.

As someone who spends a lot of time crunching data for my day job, I know how difficult getting good data can be and sometimes you just gotta work with whatcha got and caveat the heck out of it.

One figure that might be helpful would be to give an estimation of percentage discount from asking to actual rent. E.g., based on deals you close you could calculate the average difference and report that. If you have a large enough sample size, that could be a helpful figure.

Daniel: I appreciate your chiming in here and that you can't get the data for actual rent prices. I never expected greater accomodation. I merely pointed out what the report actually states and you have confirmed that. So thanks again.

ANd also vacancy rates by neighborhood help too. Hardly "useless."

OTNYC & Jason - thanks for the support and vote of confidence.
RE_Economist - Sorry you don't find it useful
JohnDoe - I agree and will look into the feasability. excellent suggestion
malthus - thanks