Is Your NYC Apartment Overpriced?

There’s nothing worse than settling down into a new place only to find out after the fact that you got a bad deal compared to your neighbors. This trap is an especially easy one to fall into when you live in New York City—StreetEasy’s latest market report, which pulls data from public recorded sales and listings from real-estate brokerages in the metro area, revealed that rents in three boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens) are rising at their fastest pace since 2016. In other words: Apartment hunting is only getting trickier.  

The biggest jumps occurred in the most expensive areas of each borough, with northwest Brooklyn (aka Williamsburg, East Williamsburg, and Greenpoint) experiencing the quickest overall rent-price growth since last year. Whether you want to take a leap with a significant other or are ready to leave your days of three-plus roommates and tiny studios behind, you’ve probably thought about signing a lease on a one-bedroom. Knowledge is (bargaining) power, so we took the liberty of scoping out the cost situation in some of the most popular neighborhoods (pulled from the list of all 144). Plus, we did the math and came up with the annual salary you’d have to earn to live comfortably in each using Zillow’s handy rent affordability calculator. Read this before you decide where to focus your search—and bring it along when you meet with your broker.

There’s no time like the present for a change. Move now or forever hold your peace. 

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