Manhattan Ave. Rent: $2,000 a Month, for a Studio

[Herman Munster]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8QBRDP80&show_article=1

NEW YORK (AP) - If you're looking for a Manhattan apartment, be prepared to shell out about $2,000 a month—unless, of course, you'd like a bedroom to go with it.
Studio apartments in New York's most expensive borough went for an average of $1,995 a month last year, according to an analysis released Friday by Citi Habitats, a Manhattan rental brokerage firm. That's up from $1,659 in 2002.

The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment shot up to $2,737, compared to $2,227 in 2002, and two-bedroom apartments climbed to $3,893, from $3,198 in 2002. Three-bedroom apartments saw the largest percentage increase: more than 36 percent, from $4,059 in 2002 to $5,534 last year.

The increase did nothing to decrease demand. The overall rental vacancy rate for Manhattan last year was less than 1 percent.

The report reflects that "we're the center of everything," said Citi Habitats spokesman Christopher Dente. "There's a lot of relocation—thousands of people are coming in."

[JacquesMolay]

1. Everyone I know in the Big Apple lives ...

.. in Brooklyn.

[OneMoreDemocrat]

6. I do too.......

and I wouldn't really want to live in Manhattan even if it was affordable.

There are too many cool places in Brooklyn and Queens.

[Ron Green]

2. And the rich get richer and the poor...

can eat shit and die.

:grr:

[BurtWorm]

3. And very few of those thousands who are relocating to Manhattan can actually afford it.

But the luxury condos keep going up and the bubble just keeps on expanding.

[wildhorses]

4. wonder where all the pieces will land when the bubble bursts?

:shrug:

[northzax]

12. a large percentage of those condos

are being bought by foreigners. Sure, prices keep going up, but if you get paid in Pounds, New York is a hell of a lot cheaper than London.

[BurtWorm]

21. You're right about that.

:patriot:

[demnan]

5. This makes me glad I have a mortgage

paying 1,200 a month 30 miles from DC on a small condo in the 'berbs.

[ben_meyers]

7. Even if you can afford the rent

where do you park the buggy? $225,000 for a 18x9 parking space?

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3374094

[CottonBear]

8. Yikes!

My mortage is less than $400/month for a 2 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath townhome in Georgia.|

You must have to make a fortune to even think about living in Manhatten.

[Zensea]

9. I live in a studio in Manhattan and my rent is $1000 a month

That average is a bit misleading.
There are a lot of places in Manhattan where you can find studios for $1000 at current market rates in not bad neighborhoods.
Plus, if you live in Manhattan you don't have to own a car which cuts at least $500 out of your budget a month.
No insurance premiums, no gasoline cost or car payments.

[BlooInBloo]

11. Rent-controlled?

[Zensea]

13. Nope

... rent-stabilized, which is different than rent-controlled.
That's what I meant when I said it was market rate though.
I rented it two years ago, so that is at market rate.
It had just been remodeled. I had been living in the same building before that with an under the table sublet at $575 a month, but when they caught on they jacked the rent up to market level -- but in order to be able to do that they had to provide me with a remodeled apartment to justify the rent increase.

If it was rent-controlled it would be less. I know someone who has a studio in the Village that they started renting 20 years ago and their rent is around $600 a month. The market rate on their place would probably be about $2000 if not $2500 if it wasn't rent controlled.

[aquart]

14. And stabilized goes up every one or two years depending on lease.

[BlooInBloo]

15. Ah. Rent-stabilized.

[Zensea]

17. I'm not saying it's a cake walk though!!

I've been here over a decade.
The first few years I'm very lucky I survived & it took me until I'd been here about 6 years before I began to find the deals. I lived in some real dumps in the Bronx for a couple of years for example.
Someone coming into this city fresh from the hinterlands would have a good chance (if good is the right adjective) of having a very hard time finding something affordable.
I still think the stats are a bit misleading though both in regards to Manhattan and in that Brooklyn and the Bronx and Queens are part of New York City too. (Staten Island too legally anyways:evilgrin:

[HockeyMom]

18. My Mom's rent in Chelsea was $400 a month in 1993

This was for a TWO bedroom which was rent controlled. I grew up there. I could kick myself that I didn't keep it when she passed away. Actually, I could kick myself that I didn't buy it when it went co-op in 1988 for $150,000. You could probably add another zero to that price for what it would be worth today.

Who knew back then???

[frazzled]

20. The good old days ...

Back in the early to mid 70s, I had a rent-controlled apartment on Thompson St., between Houston and Prince ... $68 per month. It seems sort of remarkable now.
But then, butter didn't cost $4.59 a pound back then either, nor gas $3.79 a gallon.

I'm glad to hear you can find a studio for $1,000. My son is moving to Manhattan in the fall for grad school, and for the first year will have his rent subsidized through the university in a shared apartment in Stuyvesant Town. He was planning to move to Brooklyn after that, but if he wanted to stay in Manhattan, perhaps it might be a possibility. He will be paying almost that much to share a 600 sf. apt. with someone he doesn't even know.

[Warpy]

16. No parking tickets, no street cleaning hustle, no having to dig it

out of the snow twice a week in the winter...

The best bet is to rent a car wherever you're going when you have to travel.

A car in the city, any big city, is an extreme luxury, not a necessity.

[BlooInBloo]

10. Not sure if that's better or worse than Palo Alto.

[TreasonousBastard]

19. That sucks, but you gotta understand two things...

in 1981 I rented a large studio in a new building in downtown Manhattan for about $400 a month, and that was one of the cheapest apartments in the building. Figure inflation over 26 years and see what that would be now.

And, Manhattan, like much of the country, just isn't seeing new rental apartments coming to market. In fact, for years landlords have been warehousing them hoping for "better times" or just turning them into co-ops to cash out. Last year Manhattan had over 100 co-ops with asking prices over 10 million.

Truth is, nobody wants to be a landlord any more-- it's the bottom of the barrel in real estate profits and top of the heap in aggravation.

[Catchawave]

22. I wonder what the rent would be for

Sex and the City girls', Seinfeld and the Friends' apartments?

When my daughter was in college she shared an apartment in Alphabet City with 3 girls on 1st Ave w/brick wall view, 2bdr/1bath-kitchen combo (I kid you not), about 300 sq feet for $2500/month.

[Vinca]

23. Wow - I hope utilities are included! nt