New York Renters Are Now Paying the Price for the ‘Covid Discount’

Abstract

Runaway rents are not only putting pressure on newcomers to the city, but also uprooting existing renters who did not plan to go apartment hunting this summer. Facing massive rent increases, some are doubling or tripling up with roommates, while others are moving to more affordable neighborhoods, fueling competition in areas like Queens, where the number of available apartments fell for the fifth consecutive quarter, to under 9,000, according to StreetEasy. At Waterside Plaza, a Midtown complex with 1,470 units, market-rate renters who signed leases during the pandemic are facing 50 percent rent hikes while those who moved in earlier are seeing their rents go up by 15 to 20 percent, according to State Assemblyman Harvey Epstein, a Democrat from Manhattan. The real estate industry points to a persistent housing shortage exacerbated by a dearth of new construction and an influx of new renters as causes for the spiraling rents. New York is also recovering from a two-year rental slump when landlords watched their rent rolls dwindle as thousands of New Yorkers left the city during the lockdown, driving up vacancies and pushing down rents. Rents "Are going to have to start to come down because nobody can afford these apartments at those rates." In June, the Rent Guidelines Board, which regulates rent on the city's roughly one million rent-stabilized apartments approved an increase of 3.25 percent for one-year leases, and 5 percent on two-year leases, the highest increase in almost a decade. A search of the apartment's rental history shows its highest rent, $4,700 a month, was in 2017.