NYC rents and inventory dipped in October

Median rent dropped by 3%, and 27K apartments are available

(Getty, iStock)

Rents across the city continued their downward spiral in October, even as the number of apartments on the market began to wane, an analysis by The Real Deal found.

In Manhattan, the median rent fell to $3,100, a 3 percent drop since September. The number of listings sunk to 19,500, just below the 20,000 apartments listed the month prior. It’s the second consecutive month where inventory declined in the borough.

Brooklyn saw a similar decline in both prices and inventory. The median rent fell 3 percent to $2,615 from $2,700 the month before. The number of apartments for rent dropped nearly 6 percent to 5,600 from nearly 6,000 in September.

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In Queens, prices dropped more substantially to $2,200 from $2,295, a 4 percent dip. Inventory shrank by a mere 2 percent to about 2,200 apartments.

Neighborhoods that saw the biggest price drops included Soho, Tribeca, Greenwich Village, Gramercy Park and parts of the Upper East Side. In Brooklyn, the biggest losers for landlords were Red Hook, Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn Heights, Fort Greene and Gowanus.

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A relationship between asking price and inventory was not clear from the data.

TRD’s analysis also looked at which brokerages had the biggest market share of active rental listings last month.

Compass, the Corcoran Group and Douglas Elliman agents represent the lion’s share of available rentals. Together, their agents handled more than 31 percent of the more than 27,000 apartments listed in the three boroughs last month.

Brown Harris Stevens and Move NYC Real Estate round out the top five brokerages, with about 4 percent each of apartments listed throughout the three boroughs.

Zooming in on individual boroughs, the top three brokerages also hold the most listings in Manhattan and Brooklyn. In Queens, however, the top-performing firms are Astoria-based Sterling23 and Living New York, a firm that specializes in landlord representation.