Manhattan home prices fluctuate by neighborhood

Several Manhattan neighborhoods saw sizable rent drops or increases in April, according to the monthly rental market report from the Real Estate Group New York.

The steepest decreases came in Gramercy Park, Chelsea and Tribeca. Non-doorman one-bedrooms in Gramercy Park saw a 9.7 percent drop in rents, and two-bedrooms in Tribeca saw a 9.4 percent decline in prices. Non-doorman two-bedrooms in Chelsea saw a 9.2 percent drop. The largest year-over-year change was a 10.4 percent drop in doorman studio rents, to $2,300 this month from $2,567 in April 2008.

Several neighborhoods saw price increases, according to the report. On the Lower East Side, doorman two-bedrooms were up 7.4 percent, to $4,143 from $3,857. In Midtown West, prices for non-doorman two-bedrooms went up 7.4 percent, to $2,773 from $2,582. And in Harlem, rents for doorman two-bedrooms were up 7 percent to $2,908 from $2,717.

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Daniel Baum, COO of the Real Estate Group, said in the report that he is “cautiously optimistic” about what will happen in the city’s rental market during the upcoming peak season. But because hiring has decreased significantly, the increased rental demand that usually comes during the summer “will not have the same pronounced effect” on the rental market as usual.

The Real Estate Group report is based on 10,000 Listings For Properties Below 155th Street and priced under $10,000, from the firm’s database. The data covers the period from mid-March to mid-April.

Citi Habitats, in a quarterly market report released yesterday, found that rents dropped around Manhattan in the first quarter compared to the first quarter of 2008. TRD