Vacancy Rate

Even concessions seem to be lower than the recent peak.
http://www.millersamuel.com/charts/manhattan-landlord-concession-market-share/

Where is he pulling his data from? There is no central listing database and if a developer has a rental building with 600 vacant units they still generally only officially list a handful.

Do not know but he knows data better than most. Assuming no changes in the unlisted invertory which does not make it to his data, impact on YOY number would be a wash. I will check with my contact at CityHabitat for on the ground feel.

The feedback I got is that market is much better now. Same source who I checked with every 6 months for last many years.

And nicer rentals stronger than the lowest end 1 bed room around 3k.

30, Would love to hear from your sources in rental market.

What I have heard is the market is typical for this time of year and "everybody is still giving concessions." Also "better for brokers because so much stuff no longer on streeteasy."

In addition "People at the bottom end choosing Brooklyn over nasty Manhattan low end units."

Since Miller himself stated that there are tons of new rental units coming on the market 2018 thru 2019 I'm not sure YOY numbers would be a wash, and on the odd chance he uses StreetEasy or a system which pulls from Streeteasy, the numbers would certainly be skewed.

I am just giving you whatever data he is publishing. I do not have a better source of data. Would appreciate alternate hard data rather than entertainment / buzz generating articles from reporters which may be low on facts.

Here are official comments from Gary Malin of Cityhabitats who was bearish on rentals for a while. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/heathersenison/2018/06/14/reports-nyc-rental-market-heating-up-as-prices-rise-vacancies-drop/amp/

Here are official comments from Gary Malin of Cityhabitats who was bearish on rentals for a while. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/heathersenison/2018/06/14/reports-nyc-rental-market-heating-up-as-prices-rise-vacancies-drop/amp/

And one month later this is what they were saying
https://ny.curbed.com/2018/7/12/17563940/new-york-rental-market-reports-june-2018

So concessions up yoy but vacancy down which means concessions are working.

One metric I use to judge how the Manhattan rental market is doing is to look at Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village. Since there are over 11,000 units the Law of Large Numbers comes into effect in terms of judging whether the number of vacancies here is a true indicator of the market or just an outlier. Also, they "spot price" the units, changing prices daily depending on vacancy rate. The "usual" amount of available units they seem to tolerate seems to be 120 to 160. Back at the end of June, vacancies rose to 240, so they adjusted prices downwards and we're able to bring that number down to 160 by mid-July. But now a couple of weeks later, the number has risen to 259 and they have slahed prices again.
Example https://www.stuytown.com/no-fee-apartments-nyc/1-bedroom-apartments/7-peter-cooper-road/14-e
This unit is a top floor 1 BR at $3,550. As you can see, a 2nd floor 1BR in the same building was at $3,740 back in May:
https://streeteasy.com/rental/2380342
To me this is a good indicator as to what is actually going on in the rental market today.

30, How many free market? Even if much smaller than 11000, it is good indicator for rental market. I also look at 300 Mercer St as well with no vacancies.

Streeteasy shows 35.
https://streeteasy.com/for-rent/stuyvesant-town

The VAST majority of Stuyvesant Town / Peter Cooper listings are not on Streeteasy. Look here https://www.stuytown.com/no-fee-apartments-nyc
It is updated real time (as soon as an application is accepted on a unit it is removed)

"How many free market?" is not answerable in a meaningful way because there are actually zero free market. Even what look like market rate units are Rent Stabilized, it's just that the registered rents are far above market and they are actually leased at preferential rent.

Understand. Out of curiosity, do you just count the listing on the Stuy Town website or is there a smarter way!

Understand. Out of curiosity, do you just count the listing on the Stuy Town website or is there a smarter way?

If a smarter way exists, I don't know of it. The only trick I use is that the listings show up 20 at a time so you can page through and multiply by 20. My guess is that Stuyvesant Town management doesn't want it to be too easy to track that number for business reasons. I'm sure any programmer could easily write an app to scrape and track the data, but my skill there pretty much stopped on mainframes.

Would you agree that the methodology used is a decent metric?

I do. It is certainly a large enough sample size and has existed for more than 5 years in its current condition. Any rent destabilization will not add than many units.

I counted appx 120 available anytime in August. Many fewer available right away. I do not know what the historical statistics are but it is certainly a good indicator if one is keeping track of data.

What do you think of a lack of vacancies in 300 Mercer? Rents are not cheap there even though it is 2-5% lower that the recent peak. When I rented there, there were always a few apartments available as the management aimed for their pricing to be such that there are a couple of vacancies.

As far as I can see, there has been a 20% turnover there in the last year, which isn't exactly low, and there is no way of knowing if all the units are still making it to Streeteasy (I could certainly see them listing units 90 days before they were available under the old model, but now waiting till closer to the available dates, and some of them getting rented in the interim and thus never making it to Streeteasy).

I guess I am saying that in both cases, as well as most other buildings, it's become a lot less reliable to use Streeteasy listings as a guage of rental availability/vacancy.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-09/rents-are-falling-in-willamsburg-as-new-yorkers-flee-the-l-train

Good article. Where are these people going or are they staying put with lower rent?

Don't have a handle in where they are going yet. My guess is a bunch are moving to either LIC or downtown Brooklyn, but that's not based on any actual data.

Most will probably stay put with lower rent and take the new city buses to take them across 14th street.

My guess is that commuting from Williamsburg, etc. to Manhattan is going to be a disaster.

To follow up on where they are going to move to:
https://ny.curbed.com/2018/7/13/17568586/nyc-rental-market-concessions-downtown-brooklyn-long-island-city