A study by the RentCafe real estate blog concludes that the highest average rents currently charged anywhere in America are in Battery Park City, from Vesey and Chambers Streets. Using data compiled by RentCafe’s sister company, Yardi Matrix (a data analytics tool for real estate professionals), the site concludes that rents in zip code 10282, which covers northern Battery Park City, average at $5,924 per month.
On the whole, Manhattan took eight of the top ten spots nationwide (with various enclaves in Midtown, the West Village, and the Upper East and Upper West Sides) trailing northern Battery Park City slightly. (The remaining two slots in the first ten went to neighborhoods in San Francisco.)
Elsewhere in Lower Manhattan, Northern Tribeca (zip code 10013) averaged $4,422 per month, while Greenwich South (zip 10006) tallied $3,283, and the Civic Center/Seaport area (zip 10038) posted average rent of $3,859.
The study, which was limited to 125 zip codes around the United States, did not include data from four of Lower Manhattan’s eight residential communities: southern Battery Park City (10280), southern Tribeca (10007), southern FiDi (10004), or eastern FiDi (10005). If these had been included, it appears likely that several more Downtown neighborhoods would have joined northern Battery Park City on the list of the ten most expensive rental districts in America.
These numbers jibe with data compiled by the Downtown Alliance for its analysis of real estate activity in Lower Manhattan for the first quarter of 2017, which found a median rent for all Downtown apartments of $3,581, up three percent from same period in 2016. This was a heftier increase than in any of the other Manhattan neighborhoods surveyed by real estate consultant Miller Samuel/Douglas Elliman.
The sticker shock associated with rents for Lower Manhattan apartments appears to arise from the convergence of several factors. The first of these is Downtown’s emergence as a thriving residential community in the years following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Second, historically more affluent districts (such as the Upper East Side, between Fifth and Lexington Avenues) have proportionally fewer rental units and more owner-occupied apartments, such as cooperatives and condominiums. Third, what rentals remain in those areas are often rent-controlled or rent stabilized. And fourth, the boom in new residential construction in Lower Manhattan also means that very few of the rental apartments here are subject to any form of affordability protection, since these programs apply most to older apartments.
To view the original study on which this article is based, please browse:
www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/real-estate-news/expensive-zip-codes-u-s/