Outlook on Manhattan rental market (Time Square)

Where in Times Square. I own on 45th east of 9th and that areas has become incredibly vibrant, like another
Soho or East Village,

rb345/ My condo is in the 'Executive plaza' builing. 150 west 51 st.
There has always been streams of tenants waiting to rent before 2008.
I don't know whether I should short sale the unit and move on. Or keep invensting in it by renovating it.

How did your unit stay vacant for 6 months?
Sounds like a mgmt screw up.
Was it priced fairly? (Rather, why did you not price it fairly?)

captive914/ My rent has always been fairly priced for many years until 2008. I actually lowered the rent for $200 during that time to attract tenants. I think it was just a bad market and bad luck.
I only found tenants for one month basis and there were gaps in between new contracts.
The market seems much better now and I feel more confident about keeping this unit, but wanted to make sure that it's not only me who feels optimistic about the future of rental market in Manhattan.

Rent in Long Island City instead. It's the IN venue.

5Manhattan:

Several observations:

1. mid-block between 6th and 7th Avenues on 51st is not a residential neighborhood
2. your location makes you more dependent on corporate tenants, temporary and those wanting a weekday home
3. you are in the luxury class of rentals
4. in recent years there has been an explosion in luxury class rentals ont he Weswt Side
5. you are probably competing for tenantd with some of those rentals, possibly even those on 42nd and 11tth/12th
6. unless you need the consent to the condo's managing agent to rent
7. or have to give tghe condo a 1-2 weekr igth of first refusal
8. your problem is probably your asking rent
9. look at the broker listings on SE and Craigslist and Trulia
10, price v. but withint he market: avoid being the top asking price or you might get nothing
11. remember: we're not that far from Thanksgiving, whent he rental market historically deadens substantially

rb345/ You are absolutely correct about my property.
I always had a contract with a management company who finds corporate tenants for the unit and also take care of the property. And because my rent is reasonable, there were tenants waiting to move in even before one moves out. (This was until 2008)
I don't know if this kind of demend will ever happen again. But if the rental market continues to stay as 2010, then I would feel at ease to keep the unit.

It's more difficult to find tenants for winter, but that's seasonal flow that I expect.
I just hope that the bad market of 2008~ 2009 won't return.

Your answer is within your own building. There are 37 apartments for rent in your building, almost all of them one bedrooms. Some have been on the market for 270 days even with significant price drops ($500). How is your apartment going to fare next to 37 others. Is $15K really going to make a significant difference to make your apt stand out above 37 others for a competitive price?

Ah, answer with a question.

My friend BT has a friend who does corporate rentals. If you would like, I will ask to see if his friend
would want your listing.

Alternatively, if you dont need anyone's consent to rent out, and can enter into shoirt-term leases without
creating legal problems with the HOA, you should contact Feathered Nest and other RE brokers who do furnished
rentals, and explore furnishinh your apartment.

There is a large and growing market for furnished rentals because even the cheapest Manhattan hotels charge over
$200/day, and at your location, probably $300-500.

Rent it to steve. He loves living in dumpy rentals in the Times Square area.

partment Vacancies in U.S. Fall to Lowest in Almost Three Years
2011-04-06 04:01:00.11 GMT

By Hui-yong Yu
April 6 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. apartment vacancies dropped to
the lowest in almost three years in the first quarter as the
weak homebuying market fueled demand in what is usually a slow
period for rentals, according to Reis Inc.
The vacancy rate declined to 6.2 percent from 8 percent a
year earlier and 6.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, the
New York-based research firm said in a report today. The rate
was the lowest since it reached 6.1 percent in the second
quarter of 2008.
Unemployment of close to 9 percent and a surge in home
foreclosures have pushed many people to rent, driving a rebound
in multifamily properties during the past year. Construction of
apartments has climbed from a 50-year low on expectations that
rents will increase and more people will seek to lease.
“There is a bias against homeownership at this point,
especially if you feel home prices won’t rise and you can
wait,” Victor Calanog, chief economist at Reis, said in a
telephone interview. “Most of the applications for construction
and building loans are for multifamily buildings.”
Apartment owners had a net increase in occupied space of
more than 44,000 units, the most for a first quarter since 1999
and almost double the number from a year earlier, Reis said. The
first quarter tends to be a slow period for rentals since more
leases are signed in the warmer months, the company said.
About 6,000 units came to market during the first quarter,
the fewest since Reis began compiling data in 1999.

Rents Increase

Effective rents, or what tenants actually pay, increased in
75 of the 82 markets Reis tracks, to an average $991 a month
from $967 a year earlier and $986 in the fourth quarter.
Landlords’ asking rents also climbed, to $1,047 from $1,027 a
year earlier and $1,043 in the previous quarter, according to
the report.
San Jose, California, had the most growth in effective
rents during the past year, with 5.2 percent, followed by
suburban Virginia and New York City, according to Reis.
Effective rents declined 1.5 percent in Las Vegas during the
year and grew the least in Orlando, Florida; and Colorado
Springs, Colorado.
New York had the lowest apartment vacancy rate in the first
quarter at 2.8 percent, followed by New Haven, Connecticut; and
Minneapolis, the report said. Memphis, Tennessee, had the
highest vacancy at 11 percent, followed by Jacksonville,
Florida; and Houston.

Homeownership Declines

With the foreclosure rate at a record 4.63 percent in the
fourth quarter, thousands of homeowners have been forced into
apartments. Homeownership in the U.S. dropped from a peak of
69.2 percent in 2004 to 66.5 percent at the end of 2010, with
each percentage point representing about 1.1 million households,
according to the Census Bureau.
Developers have stepped up rental projects in anticipation
of rising demand. AvalonBay Communities Inc., the second-biggest
publicly traded U.S. apartment owner, started 11 developments in
2010 with a combined 2,446 apartment units.
Still, new construction has been uneven. Starts on
multifamily homes, including townhouses and apartments, tumbled
46 percent in February to an annual rate of 104,000, after
reaching a two-year high in January, the Commerce Department
said March 16.

LICcomm, you don't need to go around insulting where other people live, especially if they live in Manhattan. And your fixation on stevejhx is just bizarre.

Why do we care about national vacancy rates for this thread? Are people moving from Dallas to NYC in droves?

it mentions NYC vacancy rates