New theory: As the stock market continues to go down, down, down, Manhattan’s apartment vacancy rate will go up, up, up. Back in August, before Lehman Brothers imploded, the vacancy rate was 1.39 percent in Manhattan, according to statistics from Citi Habitats. Their February report, available here (PDF), indicates a 2.46 percent vacancy rate, Read More
The seemingly irreversible slide in Manhattan rents continued into January, according to a report (PDF) released today by Citi Habitats. Rents flopped almost across the board from December, with the exception of two-bedroom apartments, which saw an insignificant $4 increase on average.
The year-over-year decline in average rents is much more pronounced, with rents Read More
Last Saturday, the Corcoran Group’s Harlem office, at the intersection of Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 120th Street, was closed for the day. Listings for million-dollar townhouses and hundred-thousand-dollar apartments papered the office’s windows, concealing a barren and blacked-out room filled with desks and computer monitors.
Corcoran announced in late January it would shutter the Read More
Citi Habitats released its November rental market report today (PDF here), showing a continued rise in vacancy rates across all Manhattan neighborhoods, and, while rents continue to soften, there hasn’t been a very significant decline.
In October, the Financial District/Battery Park City was the only area to report a vacancy rate of over Read More
"We are dealing with a much different market than the same time as last year,” said John Parsegian, a senior vice president at Halstead Property who specializes in the luxury rental market.
Indeed. As rental market reports heap seemingly endless piles of bad news on an already jittery industry, it’s becoming Read More
Rents these days! For all this chatter about a recession, it’s still awfully expensive to live in Manhattan.
Taking a quick gander at the average rents for Manhattan neighborhoods in Citi Habitats’ October rental report, two things become abundantly clear: Most people can’t afford to live in Soho/Tribeca and all spendthrift renters need to Read More
The worm is finally turning in Manhattan’s winner-take-all apartment universe. According to the Manhattan-specific October rental market report released today by Citi Habitats (PDF here), vacancies are up and rents are down, all of which is playing to the advantage of renters who have been at the mercy of not terribly merciful brokers and Read More
This much we know: In Manhattan, there is a growing supply of empty apartments that, due to a combination of overpricing, bad timing and lack of demand, cannot find tenants willing to sign the dotted line. This is unfamiliar territory for landlords, who have conducted business in an environment that, for the past several years, Read More
From The Real Deal:
A flailing former Citi Habitats sales agent, Leif Lopez, was busted for allegedly scamming an apartment hunter out of $100,000 in a phony transaction negotiated at Starbucks.
Lopez, who was arrested Monday on charges of second-degree grand larceny and is being held in lieu of $7,500 bail, stole $100,000 Read More
You wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy. Yet it’s something that has to be done many times a month in Manhattan: the hunt for an apartment to rent.
But the hunt’s no worse here than in L.A. or even Boston. Really.
It just seems that way because of the grim news often batted around Read More
