real estate

Manhattan Rents Soar Thanks to Newly Employed People and Their Precious ‘Jobs’

The Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town apartment complex is seen from Waterside Plaza October 19, 2006 in New York City. MetLife sold the massive Manhattan complex of 110 apartment buildings for $5.4 billion to Tishman Speyer, with the sale expected to close later this year. The sale ended a high-stakes bidding war and residents are worried they will soon be priced out of what is now a middle-class apartment complex.
A lot of apartments. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

The median rent price in Manhattan surged 10 percent in September from a year ago and is up 3.2 percent from August, according to a new report. It now sits at $3,195, just below the all-time high set in 2006, which it’s expected to surpass early next year. So what’s behind the soaring rent prices? 

Improving employment in the city has increased demand for leasing …. Newly hired potential tenants are competing for housing in a market already crowded with would-be homebuyers who are lingering in their apartments because they can’t get a mortgage, he said. New York City added 77,400 jobs in the 12 months through August, according to the state Labor Department.

So the improving unemployment rate is what’s raising the city’s rent prices? Ugh, thanks for nothing, formerly jobless people. Now we know how the Romney campaign feels. 

Manhattan Rents Soar Thanks to Jobs Surge