No Surprise...Manhattan Rents on the rise...

Manhattan rents rise, with room to go higher

July 08, 2011 12:00AM By Adam Fusfeld

The Manhattan apartment rental market has been heating up for months, and second-quarter market reports released today by residential brokerages Citi Habitats and Prudential Douglas Elliman show skyrocketing rents. Now, the question is how long the rent increases will continue.

The Citi Habitats report, which covers all transactions brokered by the firm in the second quarter and takes concessions into account, shows a year-over-year increase in price of about 10 percent for Manhattan apartments. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan was $2,672 and two-bedroom units averaged $3,757 per month, up 9.2 percent and 10.8 percent, respectively, from the second quarter of 2010. But three-bedroom apartments experienced the largest price increase over last year -- 11.3 percent -- and now rent for $4,985 on average.

The most expensive area was the West Village where one-bedroom rents reached $3,457, followed by Soho and Tribeca where one-bedrooms netted $3,454 on average. The least expensive areas were Upper Manhattan and the Upper East Side, where rents averaged $2,621 for a one-bedroom apartmen
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