Listings of new Manhattan studios see sharp decline

Finding a new studio in Manhattan is getting more difficult by the year.

Listings for new studios account for only 4 percent of total listings units in Manhattan, a decrease from 15 percent in 2013, according to data from Corcoran Marketing Sunshine Group cited by the New York Daily News. As of last month, 30 studios were on the market. During the same month in 2012, that number was 161.

“It’s amazing. You have all these people with decent budgets who want to buy studios and there’s absolutely no inventory for them,” Corcoran broker Dianne Howard told the newspaper. “There are literally only about two projects to choose from.”

As a result, studio prices are skyrocketing. Developers are finding, however, that they can get a higher per-square-foot price for larger apartments, which cost less to build than the smaller units.

The median price for a new studio apartment in Manhattan increased by 60 percent in the last year, to $930,000, the newspaper reported. The median price for a one-bedroom unit in a new development rose by 30 percent. Meanwhile, the median price of a two-bedroom apartment dropped by 11 percent.

While the availability for traditional studio apartments — in the vein of Carrie Bradshaw’s pad in “Sex and the City” — may have fallen, it doesn’t mean everyone is looking to live large. Around the country, people are moving into so-called “tiny homes,” which are units between 200 and 800 square feet. [NYDN] — Claire Moses