See How Your Rent Stacks Up With 'NYC Rent Calculator'

NEW YORK CITY — Prospective renters in New York City have swimming in deals since the coronavirus struck — and a new tool aims to help them score better bargains.

The "NYC Rent Calculator" by openigloo — an app that allows tenants to review and rate apartments and landlords — lets tenants see how if they would pay more or less rent than their neighborhood.

A $3,500-a-month three-bedroom apartment in Park Slope, for instance, would be a great deal. That price is $943 less than the neighborhood's average for apartments that size, according to the calculator.

Allia Mohamed, the company's CEO and co-founder, said the tool helps provide tenants with a "full picture" going into rent negotiations.

"You don’t get what you don’t ask for," she said.

Rents across New York City have dropped sharply amid the COVID-19 pandemic — between 15 and 20 percent, Mohamed said.

The renters' market appears to have fundamentally shifted what many New York City apartment shoppers are looking for.

Mohamed said users have done about 10,000 calculations on the rent calculator since it launched in the past month. She said a significant portion of those were queries about one-bedroom apartments in Brooklyn, specifically Bed-Stuy, Williamsburg and Bushwick.

"People are sort of ditching the bigger roommate scenarios,” she said.

The rent calculator pulls thousands of data points on 2020 rents from Zillow and other resources, including openigloo's own set, Mohamed said.

One of those sites — Zumper — this week released a national rent report that indicates New York City's rent prices are back on the rise.

In April, the city's rents on one-bedroom apartments rose 1.6 percent to $2,500, according to the report. Two-bedroom prices were $2,680 on average, a 5.1 percent increase, the report states.

New York City's average rent for a one-bedroom remains the second-highest in the nation, only behind San Francisco, according to Zumper.