Photo: Robert Clark
Even though Manhattan’s rental market is cooling for the first time in a decade, the borough was recently named home to country’s three most-expensive zip codes for renters.
That’s according to listing site RentCafe, which examined rental data from its sister site Yardi Matrix for every state and zip code in 125 major markets. The average rents used were from March 2017.
Battery Park City, located in lower Manhattan, claimed the top spot with an average monthly rent of just under $6,000 as the country’s most expensive zip, or as RentCafe put it the zip code with “the most outrageous rents.”
Given its proximity to Wall Street, Battery Park City appears to be an ideal spot for financial execs. The area also boasts a wealth of waterfront properties with stunning views and plenty of green spaces to lure those renters with deep pockets.
Lower Manhattan is also a booming area for new construction developments, which come with luxurious amenities — and high price tags.
Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Upper West Side neighborhoods rounded out the top three, where average rents came in at $4,898 and $4,892 respectively.
As if housing the three costliest rental markets wasn’t bad enough for NYC renters, eight of the top ten priciest zip codes were also located in Manhattan, as well as 16 of the top 20. Rents may be cooling, but clearly they’re still high — and the cause isn’t just a shortage of inventory.
“The demand for Manhattan rental housing has always been and continues to be strong, which certainly keeps rent prices at this high level in spite of the new supply,” RentCafe researcher Nadia Balint told BuzzBuzzNews.
The recent boom in new construction hasn’t quenched the demand for housing in the borough, either.
“Manhattan has really ramped up apartment construction post-recession, with the highest numbers of new apartments being completed in 2015 and 2016. In total over 25,000 new apartment units were opened since 2010 in large-scale buildings of 50+ units in the borough,” Balint says.
Prices in Manhattan will likely continue to remain high once the number of new construction units tapers off, and demand remains at elevated levels.
Meanwhile, three San Francisco, CA, zips made the top 20, as well as one from Boston, MA.
On the flip side, renters looking to spend as little as possible on monthly housing expenses should consider packing their bags and heading to Wichita, KS, where the average rent is about $400 per month in two zip codes.
Click here to read the entire report.
