What to Know
- A record number of rentals saw their prices slashed in Manhattan and Queens, and Brooklyn wasn't far behind
- Some of the biggest cuts were in Prospect Park and Northwest Queens
- The cuts come as median rents have stagnated in Manhattan and Brooklyn and have dropped in Queens
Asking rents are seeing record cuts across the city, and now’s the time to think about grabbing an apartment if you’re searching in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.
That’s according to StreetEasy’s latest quarterly analysis of the sales and rental markets, which shows rents remained flat — or, in the case of Queens, even dropped — over the final few months of 2017.
In the fourth quarter, rents in Manhattan only rose 0.1 percent — or $5 — to a median of $3,125, while rents in Brooklyn ticked up just 0.4 percent to $2,524, according to StreetEasy. That's Brooklyn's slowest pace for rent growth on record.
Meanwhile, rents in Queens dropped 1.3 percent year-over-year to a median of $2,066. StreetEasy says that’s the first quarter Queens showed a rent decline since it began tracking rents in the borough in 2012.
Rents have been plateauing in high-end buildings in recent years amid a construction boom that's oversaturated the luxury market, but now “there’s a broader trend of rents topping out across all price points,” StreetEasy Senior Economist Grant Long says.
The data comes as good news to renters looking to snag an apartment in the notoriously pricey New York City market. “The slowdown is forcing landlords across the city to cut deals, and renters now have the most negotiating leverage in years,” Long said.
Local
A record number of rentals saw a price cut in Manhattan and Queens in the final quarter of 2017, with 34 percent of Manhattan rentals and 28 percent of Queens rentals seeing their prices slashed, according to StreetEasy.
In Manhattan, the most rent cuts were in Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village, Morningside Heights, and Lincoln Square.
In Brooklyn, the most cuts were in Downtown Brooklyn, Dumbo, and Cobble Hill.
In Queens, where rent cuts reached an all-time high, the most cuts were in Corona, College Point, and Long Island City.
