NYC Rents Have Stopped Dropping After Pandemic Free Fall: Study

NEW YORK CITY — A yearlong run of falling rent prices in New York City amid the coronavirus crisis ended in April, according to a new study by StreetEasy.

But the low pandemic rents New Yorkers got used to could still stick around longer.

The upcoming summer renter season likely will look different because of high unemployment, a glut of apartments on the market and other pandemic-related changes, said Nancy Wu, an economist with StreetEasy.

“This means that city renters can take their time to move, and rents will creep back up slowly,” she said in a statement.

The latest StreetEasy study — "NYC's Rental Market Is On The Mend" — found that April's city-wide rent index increased $4 from March.

Though miniscule, it's the first increase in 12 months, the study found.

The median asking rent in the city was $2,499 in April, still far below the pre-pandemic April 2019 level of $2,800, according to the study.

Available apartments also shrank by 26 percent from the pandemic's height, the study found. Rental availability is typically a sign of interest and, along that line, StreetEasy also reported rental listing views were up 110 percent from April 2019.

"While this is a significant turnaround, rental inventory is still incredibly high relative to a typical spring renter season," the study states. "For context, there were nearly 15,000 more rentals available on StreetEasy in April 2021 than there were in April 2019."

Rents fluctuated in a borough-by-borough look. Manhattan and Queens rents were up from March, while they remained flat in Brooklyn, according to the study.