Brooklyn Rental Market More Stable Than Manhattan
Good news from the New York Observer about the Brooklyn residential rental market: Evidently the smaller properties and more diversified owner base is making for smoother sailing than in Manhattan where a few large companies are being forced to offer increasingly sweet incentives: For now, most of Brooklyn’s smaller landlords are living in a world…
Good news from the New York Observer about the Brooklyn residential rental market: Evidently the smaller properties and more diversified owner base is making for smoother sailing than in Manhattan where a few large companies are being forced to offer increasingly sweet incentives:
For now, most of Brooklyn’s smaller landlords are living in a world apart from the rough-and-tumble Manhattan market, where rents are already falling in several neighborhoods, and panicky property owners are slashing rents, sometimes by hundreds of dollars, and offering any incentive they can think of to help put tenants in their units. In Brooklyn: not so much.
Have any brownstone owners had to rent out their garden apartment recently? How did it go?
Brooklyn Rent Check [NY Observer]
you also have to take into account the seriously changing demographic of manhattan these days to begin with. you can either pay thru the nose and live below 96th street or move to harlem, washington heights, and inwood. i mean yeah it’s sort of always been that way, but there is absoltely ZERO diversity below 96th street and it gets worse the further down you go. yeah it would be great to live in downtown manhattan (34th – houston) but do you really want to live in an overcrowded area that is only these days filled with trustafarians, sex in the city-in-training girls, and frat rats? no. it’s just not fun, at all. and i don’t say that because i can’t afford to, i say that with a weird sense of pride that it’s GREAT that i can’t afford that.
*rob*
benson….I also heard recently, but forgot the details, that there would be changes to the stabilization rules if vacancies were to remain above 5% for a period of time. Anybody know the exact details??? I assume that even if this were to trigger a change, the political hacks would be all over it. Letitia James would be up in arms.
There is one interesting ramification to the weakness in the rental market, or at least some segments of it. As you may know, the rent control law was brought about by a post-WWII housing “crisis” – a “crisis” that has now lasted almost 60 years. The “crisis” was a shortage of housing, and the evidence was a vacancy rate of less than 5%. If indeed rents are falling in a significant sector of the housing market, it would indicate a surplus of inventory.
I will be amused to watch NY’s hack politicians contort themselves to explain that there is still a housing “crisis” in our city, as empty apartments sit waiting for tennants.
I’m not saying the these high rises are substitues for a brownstone apt with period details – but won’t prospective/current tenants be expecting prices to go down? I think alot of you landlords will have some serious negotiating to do with your tenants in about 6 months-one year. I think in the grand scheme of things, many people would prefer a brownstone apt, but if they could get something for the same price with more ameneties in a better location, they will bite.
ditto in Bed Stuy, MM.
Seems to me we are talking about apples and oranges in terms of types of rentals.
In your more affluent markets, the people who can afford to choose where they live are going to go to those apts they are attracted to. If you want to live in a brownstone, especially one with period details, you aren’t even going to look at a new construction building, and vice versa. If your heart is set on a brand new, modern building, the brownstone apartment could be free and you wouldn’t take it. Any large building landlord perks are nice, but not the deal maker.
In a less affluent market, where you live where you can, and money is the first, last, and only consideration, those landlords, large and small, are in the catbird seat, and have no real incentive to do anything in terms of lowering prices: they have an apartment, and the renters will come. In my neighborhood, prices are not going down, and no one I know, including some broker friends, is having any problem renting a decent brownstone apartment for a fair market price for this neighborhood.
that cant be The What. post was less than 5 paragraphs.
A lot of people i know would rather rent in a nice brownstone home with a neighborhood feel, rather than a high rise condo where everyone including the doorman know your buisness. There is really no sense of community in those brand new high rise condos.
A friend recently rented a well-maintained garden-level apartment with access to a nice garden in prime Fort Greene for $2800. I was shocked she got that much. She’d started at $3k and got no takers, so lowered it. It’s a one-bedroom plus office.
The move-in date was Jan. 1, I think, so this is recent.