Manhattan Apartment Rents Hit $5K Average For First Time Ever

Rents in New York City continued their steady climb upward, shattering new records again in June.

Average rents in Manhattan hit $5,058 per month for the first time, according to data from appraisal firm Miller Samuel, increasing 30% from last year. Median rent also spiked again, going up to $4,050 per month after a record-breaking month in May.

The vacancy rate is below 2%, and even when factoring in concessions, the median net effective rent was $3,995 — a 28% jump from this time last year. Less than 2% of leases in the borough included some form of free rent, though 14% had concessions.

The median price of a studio is $2,900 in Manhattan, while a three-bedroom is going for a median of $6,900. By neighborhood, median rents saw the biggest increases downtown, with the rents going up nearly 30% to hit $4,600.

It was a similar story in Brooklyn, with the median rent climbing again to a record high of $3,266. Bidding wars were taking place in more than 1 in 5 leases for the fourth month in a row, and landlords are offering fewer and fewer concessions. The average rental for a Brooklyn studio is now $2,824, while the average three-bedroom was going for $5,454.

Queens also saw massive gains, though it remains significantly cheaper than Manhattan and Brooklyn. There, the median net effective rent hit $2,973. A studio in that borough was at a median of $2,650 and three bedrooms and above leased for a median of $3,500.

This new data represents an enormous reversal from the worst of the pandemic, when rental prices plunged amid a mass exodus from the city. In September 2020, rental listings would advertise multiple months of free rent with no broker fee, and the vacancy rate was at over 5%. At one building, a landlord was offering to pay for laundry costs on a $2K per month apartment. But by summer last year, the market was back to fever pitch and the era of deals was over.