Manhattan median rent rose to $5,000 as inventory plunged 39 percent in July
- Scarce Manhattan inventory led to a 19 percent drop in lease signings
- Brooklyn median rent reached $4,500, as per The Real Deal Report
There are far fewer listings in Manhattan to go around and the lack of inventory is “restraining the number of rental transactions,” noted Jonathan Miller in The Real Deal Report.
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The New York City rental market can’t escape the effects of the city’s sales market.
When mortgage rates crept up throughout the month of July, they likely pushed discouraged buyers into rentals. It’s a phenomenon that’s been occurring ever since mortgage rates began rising from historic lows in early 2021.
Many buyers who have sold a property are opting to rent, at least temporarily, rather than take a loan at a higher rate. In other cases, renters who would otherwise have become owners remain in the rental market.
That steep competition for rental units contributed to higher rents in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and a lack of listings hurt leasing activity last month, according to The Real Deal Report, a new partnership between the real estate industry news site and Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of appraisal firm Miller Samuel.
Manhattan listings plunge 39 percent
In Manhattan, median rent was $5,000 last month, an increase of 6.4 percent from July 2025, and average rent (which is more skewed by luxury rental properties) reached a whopping $6,306, up 14.7 percent from a year ago.
Luxury rents surged at a higher rate; the median rent for the top 10 percent of the market increased 31 percent to $13,750.
There are far fewer listings to go around. Manhattan inventory fell sharply year over year, dropping 39.3 percent from a year ago and “restraining the number of rental transactions,” the report said. The number of new signed leases in Manhattan was down 18.8 percent last month on an annual basis, according to Miller’s report.
Brooklyn signed leases drop 29 percent
In Brooklyn, higher interest rates are shrinking the new development pipeline, as per The Real Deal Report.
Both median and average rents reached new highs compared annually: median rent reached $4,500, a jump of 16.9 percent. Average rent was $4,871.
Listings were also down sharply, The Real Deal Report said, a drop of 26.7 percent, which constrained leasing activity. The number of new signed leases in Brooklyn last month was down 29 percent compared to July 2025. Luxury listings were down even more, plunging by more than half, the report said.
Shorter days on market in Manhattan
Gary Malin, chief operating officer at Corcoran, noted in his firm’s rental market reports for Manhattan and Brooklyn that Manhattan median rents “remain plateaued.”
“[I]ncreased demand for apartments in the borough, coupled with reduced supply, has created a pressure cooker,” Malin wrote. “Too many would-be tenants are seeking a shrinking number of available apartments. The city desperately needs to unlock or build more rental housing,” he said.
The average Manhattan apartment took 33 days to find a tenant in July, down 8.3 percent month-over-month and 3 percent annually. “Scarce available inventory continues to shorten marketing times,” the report said.
The Manhattan vacancy rate was 1.56 percent in July, a slight increase from June. Three out of every 200 Manhattan apartments were available for rent at the end of the month, the lowest July level since 2019, Corcoran’s report noted.
Conditions in Brooklyn were slightly more moderate.
Leasing activity rose annually for the smaller unit types but cooled for larger apartments. Studio and one-bedroom leasing activity increased annually by 7 percent and 13 percent, respectively, while two-bedroom leasing fell 12 percent and three-bedroom signings eased 1 percent, the report said.
Few concessions in Good Cause buildings
Apartment listings and review platform openigloo revived its rental market report, which offers snapshots of open violations, renewals above the Good Cause rent threshold, and tenant ratings in addition to citywide median rent trends.
The report found that Brooklyn offers the most rent concessions (typically months of free rent). Nearly 20 percent of listings in Brooklyn came with a concession, an average of 1.7 month’s free rent—the largest concession of all the boroughs. Concessions are the rarest in Manhattan, only 4.2 percent of listings came with some sort of deal sweetener.
The Bronx is getting expensive, openigloo found. In July, median rent increased by 25 percent to $3,000 compared to July 2025.
In buildings where Good Cause applies, just 4.2 percent of July listings advertised a concession, typically a small amount that worked out to be just $267 a month.
