Less Luxurious
Manhattan renters are seeking smaller, less luxurious units. That’s pushing up prices for apartments in buildings without doormen more than in buildings that have lobby attendants. The median rent for a unit in a non-doorman building climbed 3 percent last month from a year earlier to $2,727, while the median for buildings with doormen rose only 0.4 percent to $3,836, Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman said.
The luxury-apartment market, the top 10 percent of all rentals by price, was the only category with a decline in prices. The median rent in November fell 1.4 percent to $8,537.
“Complaining about high rents in Manhattan is nothing new, but now it’s becoming more visceral to tenants,” said Miller, who’s been tracking the apartment market since 1991. “We’re hitting the point where affordability is really becoming a much bigger issue than it has been in the past.”