The Manhattan Residential Rental Market

Today's NY Times Real Estate section cover story was titled, " What's Next?" It covered the Manhattan residential real estate market and focused mainly on the residential sales market but also made a reference to the current residential rental market. I took an interest in one paragraph that mentioned that the "December rental market (actually) fell." The article referred to the December report released by The Real Estate Group of New York that showed rental prices decreased month over month. Some anecdotal information the article mentioned included landlords offering incentives to renters. These incentives ranged from paying broker's fees to one month free rent. What is interesting is that I have not seen this behavior from landlords since 2002 - 2003. Since 2004 the Manhattan residential rental market has grown tighter each year. Now it seems to be pausing. The down turn in 2003 was caused by renters leaving rental apartments to become home owners as they purchased apartments. This took place as the purchase price for apartments became less expensive than renting due to the obscenely low interest rates orchestrated the grand maestro himself, Greenspan. Today's weakening Manhattan residential rental market seems to reflect the sudden drop off that the economy is going through. Very interesting that Manhattan is feeling it so soon and we are not even officially in recession yet.