Ex-luxe renters feeding buying wave?

“It’s a sort of real-estate symbiosis: The luxury rental market feeds the sales market, and the sales market opens apartments in the tight rental market.” As rents across Manhattan continue to skyrocket and the vacancy rate shows few signs of rising substantially, more and more tenants who were shelling out top dollar for high-end rentals are instead shelling out top dollar for condos and co-ops. The recent trend, according to landlords and brokers, is resulting in more luxury rentals coming onto the market. “I speak to a lot of the landlords — East Side, West Side, pretty much everywhere,” said William MacLeod, the director of listings at the brokerage Mark David & Company. “A lot of the tenants in the high-end luxury buildings are moving out to purchase apartments.” more [NYO]