The market for five-figure rentals may be improving faster than the market for small apartments, some real estate agents say. According to the New York Times, many high-end clients are often choosing to rent rather than buy.

Data from Streeteasy.com shows that more apartments priced over $10,000 per month were leased this May than in the same period in 2010 and 2009. Apartments in that bracket also went off the market faster and without price cuts.

“If you’re purchasing something at $20 million plus and you have those funds in some sort of account that’s bringing a good return,” it does not necessarily make sense to invest it all in an apartment, said Margaret Bay, vice president at Brown Harris Stevens. [more]

The Saudi royal family rented seven Waldorf-Astoria apartments last week for $210,000 a month, marking, according to Crain’s, “an all-time record for the city post recession.” The blockbuster deal includes apartments on the 37th through 41st floors of the legendary hotel (it wasn’t immediately clear which specific units were snapped up), which will provide housing for 29 people. While the family wasn’t working with any broker exclusively, Peter Acocello and Olivia Negron, who joined Prudential Douglas Elliman earlier this year, represented them on the deal, while Margaret Bay of Brown Harris Stevens was the listing broker. Gary Malin, president of rental brokerage Citi Habitats, reacted to news of the deal by telling Crain’s he’d “never heard of rent north of $200,000 a month.” [Crain's]

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From left: the “Cole Porter Apartment,” Cole Porter and agent Margaret Bay

A
$140,000-per-month rental listing hit the market today at 100 East 50th
Street, according to Streeteasy.com, likely ra [more]

Oliver Stone is considering using a $140,000 rental unit at Waldorf Towers in a movie

A six-bedroom, 6,000-square-foot apartment at the Waldorf Towers at 100
East 50th Street is on the market for $140,000 a month. If it rents, it will mark the highest price ever paid for a rental unit in the city. Cole Porter and Frank Sinatra have both lived
in the unit. Filmmaker Oliver Stone is reportedly considering it for
use in a film. Margaret Bay of Brown Harris Stevens, who has the
listing, said the last tenant left in April after renting the apartment
for five months, and it has been rented on a per-day or per-week basis
since then. [more]