Another day, another record

From CNBC:

The average Manhattan rent just hit a new record of $5,588 a month

Rents in Manhattan hit a new high in July, as higher interest rates and low supply continued to drive up prices.

The average monthly rent in July was $5,588, up 9% over last year and marking a new record. Median rent, at $4,400 per month, also hit a new record, along with price per square foot of $84.74, according to a report from Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman. It was the fourth time in five months that Manhattan rents hit a record.

Despite a loss in population during the pandemic, average rents in Manhattan are now up 30% compared to 2019. Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, the appraisal and research firm, said August rents could mark a new record because it is typically the peak rental month as families look to move before the start of the school year.

“We could see another month of records,” Miller said.

Manhattan’s soaring rents have continued to defy predictions of analysts and economists. The borough’s population dropped by 400,000 between June 2020 and June 2022, according to U.S. Census data. While experts say the population has increased since last year, they say it is still likely below 2019.

What’s more, offices in Manhattan remain less than half occupied due to remote work. According to Kastle Systems, New York offices were only 48% occupied at the end of July.

Yet despite the population loss and rise of remote work, Manhattan rents continue to soar. Brokers say the lack of apartments for sale, due to higher interest rates, have forced many would-be buyers to rent. Younger workers also have flocked to the borough since the pandemic.

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40 Responses to Another day, another record

  1. dentss dunnigan says:

    first

  2. leftwing says:

    Dentss, back to 1st…the cosmic order is restored.

  3. leftwing says:

    Re: Phoenix yesterday….One would think that an adult stranger engaging in discussion of personal sexuality with a minor child is a literal definition of sexual predation.

  4. Phoenix says:

    LW,
    You will have to ask a teacher. They seem to be experts on that subject.

  5. Fast Eddie says:

    48% of office buildings are vacant and the rents are at historic highs. I’m trying to wrap my head around this one. You’re working remotely and insist on paying nauseating prices to live in Manhattan instead of renting a few train stops away and saving yourself a nice chunk of change.

  6. 3b says:

    Fast. I agree , makes no sense, but it appears to be that’s what’s happening.

  7. Libturd says:

    Anything can happen in the short run.

  8. Fast Eddie says:

    I was down the shore last week and have been trying to catch up with work this week. The worst thing about vacations is opening your emails and slack messages when you return. So, it’s been about two weeks since I’ve ridden my bicycle which I generally do about 4 or 5 times per week. I rode a few blocks away and not only does a particular house have an ‘Under Contract” sign on the lawn, it wasn’t even for sale when I left. So, in a matter of days, a ‘For Sale’ sign was posted followed by attorney review followed by the under contract sign.

    Owning real estate in the tri-state area is the new winning lottery ticket. I’m also seeing condos and townhouses purchased last year currently listed with a 50% increase in price. They’ll sell, just as four walls with a Pall Mall and Schlitz aroma and pink bathroom with a rusted, moldy tub will sell. And don’t forget the retro exhaust fan on the wall next to the stove, that’s become a selling feature, too. It says 1965 all over again.

  9. Fast Eddie says:

    3b,

    For renters, I would suggest they sub-lease their apartments and double the price. In fact, anyone that has as much as an extra bedroom need to rent it out. We’re all truly prestigious now and money is the only thing that matters.

  10. Fast Eddie says:

    Buy now or be priced put forever.

    Word.

  11. Phoenix says:

    “We’re all truly prestigious now and money is the only thing that matters.”

    Yup,

    And we will park our pontoon boat wherever we like. Cause we have money..

    Haha. Try that in a small town:

    https://twitter.com/IBYG_CRYPTO/status/1688344740817735680?s=20

  12. Libturd says:

    DNA quarterly report was quite unimpressive. Looks like their bio security revenue is drying up. I wonder how long before they claim to be mining crypto?

  13. Fast Edward says:

    Consumer prices rose in July more than expected.

    Make Poverty Great Again!

  14. Juice Box says:

    Phoenix – Videos you posted yesterday. Not what is seems as usual, perhaps another thing people forgot because of Covid how to operate a business on a dock.

    Here is my take on it. First thing I noticed right away. Arguing on a dock. Did you ever spend any time in a marina? They were too cheap to hire a dockmaster, that is why there was a brawl. The smaller boaters were accosted and threated by the captain’s mate of another larger boat for refusing to move at a free public boat dock. There were several small boats docked there and the large party boat full of what is said to be several hundred passengers waiting on the river wanted to dock and take all those smaller boaters spots so they could unload and get the next group of several hundred waiting paying customers out onto the next river cruise scheduled to depart ASAP.

    This could have all be settled if there was a proper dockmaster. They seemed to have event workers or security on hand to handle the waiting crowds but no dockmaster for handling two large party boats and the other smaller craft.

    The fist should have never flown or using weapons as well like chairs. I see someone took a swing at a Karen with a chair too as she was sitting on the ground and defenseless. There is now a legal go fund me for the chair operator who now is a social media star as the cops are looking for him. I am surprised there was no gunfire. Laws down there as of January 1st permitless concealed carry is legal in Alabama.

    Lesson here is never park your boat at public dock like this, there are plenty of crazy people around marinas public and private. I had my share of run-ins at marina’s over seemingly nothing..I no longer own a boat thankfully.

  15. Phoenix says:

    Company too cheap? Not the workers fault. Rich people too cheap to pay for a dock slip.
    None of this surprising.

    Bottom line is boat owner and his friends attacked the dock worker. They ganged up on a man doing his job.

    As for the chair lady, our military or police would just consider her ” collateral damage.”

  16. Libturd says:

    ‘merica!

  17. 1987 Condo says:

    Well, it could be worse:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/opinion/india-modi-conflict-zone.html?searchResultPosition=1

    “Indian social media is a brutal place, a window on the everyday hatred and violence that has come to colonize the country in the nine years since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government came to power. But the images from the northeastern state of Manipur that began circulating in July were shocking even by those low standards.

    A video clip showed two women being sexually assaulted as they were paraded, naked, by a crowd of men who later gang-raped one of them, according to a police complaint. The horrific scene was part of an explosion of ethnic violence since May that has turned the small state into a war zone, killing more than 150 people and displacing tens of thousands.

    The state has a long history of ethnic animosities that predate Mr. Modi’s rise. But the fuse for the current unrest in Manipur was lit by the politics of Hindu supremacy, xenophobia and religious polarization championed by his Bharatiya Janata Party.”

  18. BRT says:

    Juice, when I lived in Wall, we had access to a local dock on the Manasquan river for the entire neighborhood. The people who lived on the water acted like it was theirs. Any time we went fishing in high school, we had to tell some yuppy in a collared shirt to f off.

  19. Phoenix says:

    On other forums, there were comments that some people from this family had some inappropriate posts in their online forums. If that gets introduced as evidence it should become even more entertaining.

  20. Phoenix says:

    BRT

    Are you surprised that the wealthy act privileged like they did in this case?

    “do you know who I am?”

  21. Fast Eddie says:

    “do you know who I am?”

    Mo Green?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAs5ypkzvOU

  22. Libturd says:

    I’ve been thinking about the FED and inflation and interest rates. It has become clear as day, they are going to keep raising until housing busts regardless of inflation in the rest of the economy. Otherwise, they would have stopped by now as the trend is showing that we are clearly going to overshoot that 2% number in everything else besides maybe energy.

    Now it’s an election year coming up and Biden, regardless of the fact he won already, is going to want an upward stock market so he’ll be sure to pressure the FED to at least stop raising rates, or push for cuts.

    Either way, Powell gets man of the year this year and then they’ll want his head on a pitchfork the following.

    And here’s something else that is more obvious. The moment the FED says they have inflation where they want it, the market is going to go absolutely bonkers to the upside and valuations will need to be reconsidered among the backdrop of FED that is going to have to lower the interest rate to fight the coming deflation.

  23. 3b says:

    Lib: Will need a real housing bust, and not just a modest decline.

  24. Libturd says:

    Yes.

  25. Fast Eddie says:

    Otherwise, they would have stopped by now as the trend is showing that we are clearly going to overshoot that 2% number…

    In what decade?

    It has become clear as day, they are going to keep raising until housing busts…

    Perhaps when we hit a 15%, 30-year mortgage rate, housing prices will decline slightly around here. No, I’m not kidding.

  26. 3b says:

    Lib: Core CPI at 4.7, is still a long way from the Feds 2 percent target.

  27. Juice Box says:

    3B – Core PCI is going to come down big time. Biggest component is Rents and Owners Equivalent Rents like 45%.

    Fed paper I posted the other day says disinflation coming. Powell has put us on a course where housing will lead the way down again as borrowing is just too damm expensive.

  28. Fast Eddie says:

    Core PCI is going to come down big time.

    In our lifetime? Small observation: A can of black olives was 49 cents three years ago, now it’s more than $2. Oh wait, silly me, core inflation doesn’t include food and energy. Other than freezing to death or starving to death, everyone’s doing fine. Two weeks in Disney, here we come!!

  29. Libturd says:

    It’s the trend. I’m watching. Pull up a chart. We are dropping as quickly as we were going up initially. And nothing the FED can do will impact energy (and apparently housing).

  30. 3b says:

    Juice/ Lib: We shall see, if housing does lead the way, then it will have to be a real correction, not like last time, where in my view the Fed put a floor under it.
    Housing needs to viewed as consumption, and a potential long term investment , not the get rich scheme it has become over the two decades.

  31. Juice Box says:

    3B -It’s always until the next crisis. The clock on that started ticking in April of 2020 when Powell fired up ZIRP again and the printing presses with huge amounts of QE. We are passed that for almost a year and a half now since QE ended.

  32. AshesNowThereWentMyPlans ForHawaiiRetirement says:

    Libturd,

    Where I think things might get interesting (credit to Wolf Street) is that the massive amount of debt the Treasury is issuing is heavy toward 10-20-30yrs bonds (increase supply=decreased bond price=increase interest yield) vs since the financial crisis which they purposely kept limited the supplies of those type of long term bonds (decrease supply=increase bond price=lower interest yield) and they were playing with short term treasuries and notes.

    Seems people were expecting the correcting of the inverter yield curve to occur by manipulation/dropping short term interest rates. What the powers that be are doing seems to correct the inverted curve by increasing the long term rates.

    So the Fed/Treasury gets the cake and eats it too by having the power to play around with short term rates to meet any event or political need. Plus the use of long term bond inventory for sale to kill off excess debt based RE and other speculation.

  33. Libturd says:

    Ashes,

    Interesting theory about the short and long ends of the inversion and they sound plausible. Regardless, I love seeing our economy still chugging along so strongly even with these significantly increased lending rates. For a change, the FED has bullets.

  34. Juice Box says:

    Lib – Yes It’s all housing and about to take a massive nosedive.

    The nerds at the Fed will tell management to keep raising rates and they will get it to the 2% target but it will be more like a -10% correction before even the next crisis hits.

  35. ExEx says:

    There of course are those who say housing is a no-brainer solid as a rock* investment.

    *fingers crossed

  36. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Game is rigged people. Just understand that when you play.

    It’s like SOFI. Getting slammed. Why? Because the big money boys don’t want to buy yet. That’s how bs the game is. Big boys get to come in buy cheap stocks and drive them up for easy profit. If big boys ignore a stock, doesn’t matter how good that stock is, they will run it into the ground by not supporting it. That’s how rigged the stock market is. It’s 2023, stop wasting your time with fundamentals, and instead try to be one move ahead of these f’ks. You are small and ninble, use it to your advantage if you want to win. Don’t put in big buy orders if you like a stock, buy it slowly, or they will ear you up and spit you out for easy profit.

  37. The Great Pumpkin says:

    What do i mean by one move ahead? Technology and innovation so good, they can’t f’ing ignore it.

  38. The Great Pumpkin says:

    It’s almost as if inflation was really just all about Covid waves inducing a supply chain shock

    https://twitter.com/mark_dow/status/1689624974410293248?s=46&t=0eaRjeKWHSIY8WCyPT4KMg

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