DRAMATIC NEW RENT
HIKES ‘UNSUSTAINABLE’
After rare drop in price during pandemic, housing
costs climb to record highs, frustrating locals
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COURIER L 2 IFE, MARCH 11-17, 2022
BY BEN BRACHFELD
Housing prices are once
again climbing to record
highs in New York City after
seeing substantial decreases
during the pandemic, and
many tenants renewing leases
are being left on the hook for
enormous increases in rent
that they did not foresee when
renting their apartment at the
height of COVID-19’s rampage
through the city.
In Brooklyn, average rent
prices peaked in April 2020,
at the height of the pandemic
in the city, at $3,533, according
to real estate fi rm Douglas
Elliman, which produces
monthly reports on rental
prices in Manhattan, Brooklyn,
and northwest Queens.
Afterwards, rents tumbled
substantially citywide as hundreds
of thousands of people
fl ed the fi ve boroughs for less
crowded locales to ride out
the pandemic, leaving landlords
with an unexpected glut
of vacant properties. Rents in
Brooklyn bottomed out in January
2021, when the average
rent was $3,008 according to
Douglas Elliman. That month,
vacant housing inventory had
increased by 150 percent over a
year prior.
It was only short-lived, however,
as rents have been on the
increase ever since as mass
vaccination and testing made
the pandemic a less deadly,
all-encompassing threat in the
eyes of many, leading many
who left to return. In Brooklyn,
average rents in January
of this year were $3,162,
up 5 percent from their nadir
a year ago. The increase has
been most pronounced in studio
Tenants and activists walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan Housing Court ahead of the expiration
of the eviction moratorium. File photos by Adrian Childress
apartments, according to
January report from Douglas
Elliman; average studio rent in
January was $2,567, up over 25
percent from $2,050 in January
2021. Vacant housing inventory
is down 86 percent from last
year.
The increase has been even
more massive in Manhattan,
where rents are almost back
to where they were before the
pandemic. Average rent in January
in Manhattan stood at
$4,570, a massive 16.9 percent
increase from the $3,909 average
in January 2021.
Last summer, New York
overtook San Francisco as the
most expensive city in the US,
according to apartment search
website Zumper. The Big Apple
has maintained its lead over
the Bay Area tech hub, with
one-bedrooms renting for an
average of $3,100 in New York
versus $2,930 in San Francisco
this month, according to
Zumper.
Sales, meanwhile, never
quite took the tumble that
rents did in Brooklyn: Douglas
Elliman’s fourth quarter 2021
report for Kings County pegs
the average home sale price at
$1,178,237 — an 11.7 percent increase
over the fourth quarter
of 2020, for co-ops, condos, and
1-3 family homes. Sales prices
fell dramatically during the
second and third quarters of
2020, but quickly rebounded to
continue an upward trajectory.
Everything is too damn
high
While New York is no
stranger to exorbitant housing
costs, it has not been alone in
seeing a dramatic rise in dwelling
prices. Real estate analytics
company CoreLogic reports
that nationwide, home prices
increased by an average of 19
percent this January over last.
The increase in housing prices
echoes increases in items such
as groceries and gasoline, owing
to rates of infl ation not seen
in America in decades and
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