AFAIK all the sources below are taking their source of information from listings. I think we are all aware of numerous buildings which are only officially listing a fraction of actual available units. As such it seems to me that everyone is undercounting the real number.
There were more than 67,300 units available in July across the city as it tries to rebound from the coronavirus outbreak.
www.nytimes.com
Manhattan Vacancy Rate Climbs, and Rents Drop 10%
There were more than 67,300 units available in July across the city as it tries to rebound from the coronavirus outbreak.
The number of apartments for rent in New York City has soared to the highest rate in more than a decade, a sign that a notable number of residents have left the city because of the outbreak, at least temporarily, potentially creating a new obstacle to reviving the local economy.
There were more than 67,300 units available in July across the city, according to StreetEasy, the most apartments available in any month since the listing site started tracking rental inventory in 2010.
In June and July combined, more than 120,000 apartments were for lease, a nearly 26 percent increase over the same months in 2019.
The surge in supply has driven down rental costs across the city and forced landlords to offer generous concessions, including up to three months’ free rent and paying the expensive fees brokers command.
The spike in available units has been most stark in Manhattan, where office towers are mostly empty, residents with second homes have largely not returned, and many retail stores are closed or have gone out of business.
The median rental price there in July was $3,167, a 10 percent drop from July 2019, though New York still has some of the highest rental rates in the world.
The vacancy rate in Manhattan climbed to 4.3 percent in July, the highest percentage in at least 14 years and surpassing past records set in June and May, according to Jonathan J. Miller, the president of Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants.
“The pain to the New York City economy is profound,” Mr. Miller said. “Record vacancy over the past 14 years, coupled with both a rising market share and amount of concessions provided by landlords, all tell the same story that outbound migration from Manhattan is real.”
People have, of course, migrated in and out of New York City for years; the city has attracted eager young professionals while leading families looking for space to decamp to the suburbs. It has rebounded from past challenges, including after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Great Recession in 2008.
Lower Manhattan was mostly abandoned after the attacks, but has been reborn with new office and apartment towers, and has more residents than before.
But this time there is a specter of uncertainty that is unlike anything in recent memory, analysts said. The city’s latest unemployment rate, which was
released in June, was over 20 percent, double the highest rate during the Great Recession and approaching levels not seen since the Great Depression.
And even as New York has contained the virus and bucked forecasts that cases would increase as it reopened, there are fears of a second wave as colder temperatures arrive and people spend more time indoors.
“This will go on in the rental market as long as Covid lasts,” said Nancy Wu, an economist at StreetEasy, noting that the market has also been hurt by some colleges not offering in-person classes in the fall. “The biggest impacts on the economy are yet to come.”
More than any large American city, New York is made up of millions of renters, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck and pay a significant portion of their monthly income for an apartment. Because of that, fluctuations in the city’s rental market can reveal a lot about the city’s economy.
Since the pandemic struck in early March, millions of New Yorkers have lost their jobs and have been unable to pay rent. Those who could pay some rent dipped into savings and depended on the $600 weekly federal stimulus, which greatly exceeded New York State’s unemployment benefits but expired at the end of July.
Landlords have said they are struggling to pay their own bills, too, and can only survive so long without reliable rental income.
Still, while many companies of all sizes have extended work-from-home arrangements, tech giants, including Facebook and Amazon, have bet big on the city’s future.
Amazon announced on Tuesday that it would create 2,000 jobs in Manhattan for employees who will work out of the Lord & Taylor Building on Fifth Avenue, which it acquired for about $1 billion in March.
But the pandemic has triggered a large outward flow.
Starting in March and picking up steam in June, when restrictions were gradually lifted in New York, moving companies have reported unprecedented business. They are relocating people not only within the city, as rental and sales prices have decreased, but are also packing up for people returning to their childhood homes.
“There are people this year I remember from moving last year that are coming back to us and saying, ‘I’m moving out of the city this time,’” said Zach Horn, head of sales at
Metropolis Moving in Brooklyn. “We had moved them three or four times in the city, and this year they are heading home.”
Mr. Miller said apartments will most likely continue to flood the market as people who are struggling financially do not renew their leases.
“Looming evictions and landlord mortgage defaults are going to be significant,” Mr. Miller said.
This month, the state’s chief administrative judge, Lawrence K. Marks, said evictions could restart on Oct. 1 after being on hold since the start of the pandemic.
The
market report by Mr. Miller, created with the firm Douglas Elliman, found that rental inventory was at least at an 11-year high in Brooklyn and the highest in Northwest Queens in at least six years. The median rental price in that part of Queens, which includes Long Island City, has dropped to $2,424 a month, down nearly 15 percent from July 2019.
Eric Benaim, the chief executive of Modern Spaces, which employs about 100 brokers who focus on Brooklyn and Queens, said that demand had remained relatively high in those areas among people relocating from Manhattan.
“They want access to Manhattan but don’t want to be in Manhattan,” Mr. Benaim said.
He said that the high rental inventory also reflects the fact that landlords held on to their units in April and May, when brokers could not show listings in person, and then released them onto the market in late June.
“I was worried in April, when I was locked in my home,” he said. “As soon as we opened up, we started getting really busy, and we are doing a lot better than we thought.”