Apartment sales and rentals in New York

Apartment sales and rentals in New York

A year ago, sales and rentals in New York plummeted, and some specialists predicted the city’s decline. An unexpected twist caused the sales and rental markets to grow and exceed pre-pandemic prices. More apartments began to sell in Manhattan, sales also increased in Brooklyn and Queens.

Over the summer, with remote workers seeking larger spaces, homes across the country sold at the fastest rate on record: an average of 15 days on the market. The New York real estate market has started to grow again and is poised for further gains this year. The road to recovery can be winding.

New York City was one of the first to record high rates of infection and death during the pandemic, so it is still gaining steam. Manhattan had record apartment sales, the most in more than three decades.

New York’s abrupt rebound was fueled by the group that left the city at the start of the pandemic: wealthy renters and shoppers with the means to move, but since July, thanks to the city’s gradual reopening, migration has started to improve in many of the affluent neighborhoods that led the exits, according to a November Comptroller report.

The renewed confidence is having a huge effect on luxury sales, which for years had lagged behind the rest of the market. The coronavirus pandemic-driven discount, as dramatic as it was for a subset of New York renters, was short-lived, leaving some renters struggling to find new housing. In January 2021, the median rental price in Manhattan, including concessions, sank to its lowest price during Covid,

During 2022, even higher profits could be had, for several reasons. Recent sales have been driven almost entirely by local and national buyers, unlike previous runs driven by international investors. Foreign interest is likely to boost sales in the city.

Political changes, including the prospect of a higher limit on state, local and property tax deductions, as well as an increase in conforming loan limits in high-cost cities like New York, could also push prices higher. Also, there is already evidence that buyers are raising prices for Manhattan sales.

As Manhattan gains momentum, the surrounding boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens are rising to new heights. The median sales price of apartments in Brooklyn hit a record high in the third quarter.

In Long Island City, Queens, the neighborhood near Manhattan, sales also hit record highs. While the market appears bullish, hundreds of thousands of renters remain at risk of losing their homes when a state moratorium on evictions ends in mid-January.

As of mid-November, the New York State Emergency Rental Assistance Program has helped many households pay their overdue rent; the governor has requested nearly $1 billion more, which could help an additional 72,000 applicants. But there are at least 120,506 applications that have not been approved and, as of mid-October, more than 590,000 households statewide had not paid their rent and had little confidence in their ability to keep up, he said.

Yoselyn Gomez, a longtime tenant in the Concourse section of the Bronx, has been unable to pay rent on her two-bedroom apartment since the start of the pandemic; she lost her job in customer service shortly before the pandemic and contracted the virus in April 2020. After applying for emergency help in June, she received a notice that some of her back rent will be covered, but even with her new job – a temporary position at a department store – said he won’t be able to keep up.

Unlike the so-called exodus of mostly wealthy renters at the start of the pandemic, the next wave of departures could be permanent. “People moved here because they didn’t have a choice, in terms of affordable housing. If they can’t afford to live here, they won’t be able to stay in New York anymore.”

The risk falls on Black and Latino renters in parts of the Bronx, Staten Island and Queens, home to a large share of essential workers who remain vulnerable during the pandemic. A March study found that landlords sought eviction four times more often in neighborhoods with the highest death rates from Covid-19.