Manhattan apartment rents spike

By Tom Acitelli, The Real Deal

As if the sales prices of Manhattan apartments weren’t high enough, the cost of rentals in the city’s central borough continue to increase, too. The average rent for a Manhattan apartment is $2,461 a month, according to mid-year estimates released Thursday by Citi Habitats. That’s a 2.2-percent increase from the first half of 2004.

Studio apartment rents jumped the most up 4.2 percent from the first half of last year to the first six months of 2005. Perhaps the silver lining in this increase is that most studio rentals during the first half of the year happened around Wall Street and Battery Park, an area still trying to entice fresh residents in the shadow of September 11. The increase was due to conversions of luxury rentals in buildings such as 63 Wall Street and 90 West Street, according to Citi Habitats.
more