For months, rents have been steadily rising in New York, to the point that many tenants, among those who should have renewed their leases, prefer to leave the city, reports the BBC website:
“There just aren’t enough accommodations available. Competition has stiffened and apartments now go to the highest and most responsive bidder.”
Lauren Odioso, 25, shared a three-bedroom apartment in upper Manhattan with three roommates. But last April, the rent suddenly went from $2,600 [2 400 euros] per month at $5,200 [4 850 euros] monthly. “I personally should have paid $1,733 [0000 euros]an increase of nearly $900 [840 euros] compared to the previous amount. I understood right away that staying was not an option.”
In May, Lauren left New York permanently for Cleveland, Ohio, where she found accommodation with her partner for much less.
“Finding another apartment, what stress!”
During the pandemic, Shea Long, 30, had found a one-bedroom apartment in midtown Manhattan for an unexpected price: 2,150 dollars [2 000 euros] per month. She was glad she didn’t have to share it with a roommate. But last April, when she wanted to pay online as usual, she saw a message telling her that her rent was going to go up to $3,650. [3 400 euros] from June – an increase of 60%.
Unlike Lauren, Shea has no real choice but to stay – and this time to urgently find a roommate who will help pay the new rent. Trying to find another apartment would currently be too difficult, she explains, and she would probably not have much to gain after adding up the moving costs, the security deposit and the first month’s rent. “All that stress! It is not worth the trouble.”
Rents will continue to rise
Throughout the Covid crisis, landlords multiplied commercial gestures to retain their tenants, so many residents left the city to try to escape health restrictions. But since then, the trend has reversed: new arrivals are more numerous than before the pandemic, attracted by the rebound in economic activity and the reopening of universities.
New York tenants are no longer in a strong position to negotiate:
“If the current tenant can’t or won’t pay the landlord’s asking price, the landlord knows someone else will take over.”
And the worst is that the rise will continue, if we are to believe the experts, as long as the supply remains much lower than the demand. Professor of economics at New York University, Sam Chandan recommends urgently converting the offices freed up by telework into apartments. A solution that could put 14,000 homes on the market, but that would be expensive for New York City.