Manhattan rents reach another record high

Average rent in Manhattan reached $5,270 in April, up over 9% from year earlier

Manhattan rents reached a record high in April for the second month in a row, according to a new report.

Median rent rose to $4,241 last month, up 1.6% from March, according to data from real estate agency Douglas Elliman and appraisal and consultant firm Miller Samuel. That's up 8.1% from a year earlier when median rent was $3,925, according to the data.

Rents rose above pre-pandemic levels beginning in the fall of 2021 and first peaked in the summer of 2022, Miller Samuel CEO Jonathan Miller told FOX Business.

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"Since then, prices have moved sideways with some modest gains coming close to new highs and occasionally breaking through to a new record, such as we saw in the last two months," he said.

The downside is that because market activity doesn’t peak until August, "It is possible we may see a few more records broken in the coming months," Miller said.

East Village New York City rent sign

A sign is posted outside an apartment building in the East Village neighborhood of New York on July 12, 2022. (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Average rent in the Big Apple reached $5,270 in April, up 3% from March and more than 9% higher than a year ago. 

For one-bedroom apartments, average rent rose 0.5% to $4,289. That's up 3.8% from last April when rent for one-bedrooms averaged $4,132.

Average rent for two-bedroom apartments reached $6,189, up 1.3% from March and up 9.2% from a year ago when rents averaged $5,665. Rents for three-bedroom units surged 4.8% to $10,211. That's up 15.9% from a year ago when rents averaged $8,809. 

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On top of that, concessions paid by landlords also fell to their lowest level since November 2019, exacerbating renters' woes, according to the report. 

Real estate sign NYC

A real estate sign in Manhattan in August 2022. (Daniella Genovese/ Fox Business)

However, the data also underscored how these high prices are forcing an onslaught of renters to stay where they are.

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According to the data, the number of new leases dropped roughly 20% in April from a month prior. Compared to a year ago, the number of new leases dropped nearly 14%.