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Housing Market Turns Sour in Mid-August?
Cognisseur
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Another apartment searching related question...
We were in New York City a couple weeks ago looking at a bunch of apartments to get a feel for what's in our price range. We want to move in either August 1st or 15th, not sure yet. So we told the real estate agent showing us a few apartments that and he tried to convince us that it's a terrible idea. According to him, all the best places are gone by August and all that's left are the crappy places so we should sign July 15th or something to make sure we still get one of the nice places. He went on to say that mid-August to September is somewhat of a panic period among real estate agents because most sales occur during the summer and they need to get rid of their stuff fast.
How does that relate to my getting a place by July 15th? I have no idea. Honestly, it seemed like he was making somewhat of a point in favor of waiting until mid-August when suddenly real estate agents would slash prices out of desperation.
I also don't believe most good places will be gone by August. Not only because the market is shit and lots of places remain unsold. Here's how I see it. Imagine I rent from this guy starting July 15th (I won't). Next year, my lease expires, I move on, and what happens to the apartment? Well, he can't have tenants move into it until August 1st at least, maybe even August 15th or September 1st. So if my "nice apartment I got because I rented before August" only becomes available in August-September next year, it seems to break the argument that good apartments run out during certain months.
So in short, I have a few questions:
1. Is there any truth to what the guy said about it being harder to find a nice place in August/mid-August as compared to July when theoretically sane people aren't looking to rent yet? If so, how much weight should I place on it in this economy?
2. Is there incentive to actually do the opposite and intentionally look to seal the deal around August 15th because real estate agents will be desperate, placing lower prices on apartments, and more willing to haggle? Is there any truth to that component either -- that real estate agents desperately want to get rid of stuff before September?
3. My girlfriend and I are moving to New York City because we both got accepted to graduate schools there. Classes start September 1st. If we sign a lease for August 15th, will that give us plenty of comfortable room to move in and settle down and figure out where everything is and how it works, or should we sign for August 1st?
Thank you!
We were in New York City a couple weeks ago looking at a bunch of apartments to get a feel for what's in our price range. We want to move in either August 1st or 15th, not sure yet. So we told the real estate agent showing us a few apartments that and he tried to convince us that it's a terrible idea. According to him, all the best places are gone by August and all that's left are the crappy places so we should sign July 15th or something to make sure we still get one of the nice places. He went on to say that mid-August to September is somewhat of a panic period among real estate agents because most sales occur during the summer and they need to get rid of their stuff fast.
How does that relate to my getting a place by July 15th? I have no idea. Honestly, it seemed like he was making somewhat of a point in favor of waiting until mid-August when suddenly real estate agents would slash prices out of desperation.
I also don't believe most good places will be gone by August. Not only because the market is shit and lots of places remain unsold. Here's how I see it. Imagine I rent from this guy starting July 15th (I won't). Next year, my lease expires, I move on, and what happens to the apartment? Well, he can't have tenants move into it until August 1st at least, maybe even August 15th or September 1st. So if my "nice apartment I got because I rented before August" only becomes available in August-September next year, it seems to break the argument that good apartments run out during certain months.
So in short, I have a few questions:
1. Is there any truth to what the guy said about it being harder to find a nice place in August/mid-August as compared to July when theoretically sane people aren't looking to rent yet? If so, how much weight should I place on it in this economy?
2. Is there incentive to actually do the opposite and intentionally look to seal the deal around August 15th because real estate agents will be desperate, placing lower prices on apartments, and more willing to haggle? Is there any truth to that component either -- that real estate agents desperately want to get rid of stuff before September?
3. My girlfriend and I are moving to New York City because we both got accepted to graduate schools there. Classes start September 1st. If we sign a lease for August 15th, will that give us plenty of comfortable room to move in and settle down and figure out where everything is and how it works, or should we sign for August 1st?
Thank you!
Cognisseur on
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That said, you have to remember that there are lots of schools in NYC, and the apartment rental market does tend to go into an inflation period right around August/September when all the new freshmen flood the city. You will pay more for apartments during these months (and have less available inventory). Same thing happens in spring, right after graduation, as lots of newly graduated people entering the business world move into the city.
The best apartment deals happen in mid-winter (jan-feb) since no one wants to move then. But since you're starting school, you'll need to move during the "hot" period. But tell the broker to drop the BS, and show you apartments for Aug 1st. That's what you're paying them for.
Not a Dive After All
By VIVIAN S. TOY
FOR $1,000 a month, most New Yorkers expect to rent little more than a tiny cramped space devoid of light and charm.
But recent graduates with budgets under $1,000 can easily find suitable apartments in Brooklyn or Queens, and real estate agents say that in the current market, $2,000 is even enough for a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan south of 96th Street.
Hamilton Heights, in northern Manhattan, has three-bedrooms for $2,200. Two-bedrooms for $1,600 can be found in Astoria, Queens, and Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Two-bedrooms can also be rented in Park Slope for about $2,000.
And these are all apartments with actual bedrooms for each renter — not something that has been carved out of a living room. And in some cases, there are separate dining and living rooms, renovated kitchens and bathrooms, maybe even a washer-dryer.
Recession or not, thousands of 20-somethings will be arriving in the next few months with their diplomas and entry-level salaries in hand, looking for their first apartments.
The rental market’s peak season, from May to September, is driven largely by these graduates and new hires. In 2007, more than 32,000 graduates ages 22 to 28 moved to the city, and their median salary was $39,655, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
In the midst of the recession, real estate agents predict the number will be lower this year.
“We don’t expect to see a normal summer, where rents are driven up by people bidding up,†said Marc Lewis, the president of Century 21 NY Metro. “A lot of college kids are not finding jobs, and landlords are competing for a smaller pool.â€
Danni Tyson, an agent with Halstead Property, sees much the same picture. Recent graduates have already started to turn up, she said, “but they’re not coming with the kind of money they had last year, where Wall Street gave them $60,000 a year and $10,000 in moving fees.â€
But since those generous bonuses helped drive up apartment prices in past years, graduates with limited funds may actually benefit from the current weakness in the finance industry.
“It’s a great time to be a renter,†said Gary Malin, the president of Citi Habitats, which specializes in Manhattan rentals, but also has listings in Brooklyn and Queens. “The vacancy rate is higher than it has been, and rents are down across the board.â€
In Manhattan, where the average rent for a studio is $1,774, many landlords are offering to pay brokers’ fees. Some are also throwing in a month or two of free rent. Rents in some buildings have dropped by 20 percent from last year. But prices in Harlem, Brooklyn and Queens — places where people priced out of many Manhattan neighborhoods have long gone for better value — have not decreased as much, Mr. Malin said.
The new arrivals can learn from the experiences of those who arrived a year or two ago, and have figured out how to navigate the rental market here, which can be bewildering to outsiders.
Cailin McDuff and her two roommates, Katie Nagrotsky and Jessica Bolen, decided to share a three-bedroom apartment in Hamilton Heights, a historic section of Harlem roughly between 132nd and 153rd Streets west of St. Nicholas Avenue. All three are public school teachers in their first year with Teach for America; each makes an annual salary of about $45,000.
They split $2,195 in rent for three bedrooms and a living room large enough to have 20 of their closest friends over for a picnic dinner. Their apartment is a fifth-floor walk-up, but it has hardwood floors, exposed brick walls, an up-to-date kitchen with stainless-steel appliances, and what all three women refer to as their “pride and joy†— a combination washer/dryer in the renovated bathroom.
“Being a first-year teacher and having a dishwasher and a washing machine is unheard of,†said Ms. Nagrotsky, who teaches English at a middle school in East Tremont in the west Bronx.
Ms. McDuff, who led the house hunt, teaches at a middle school near Yankee Stadium, and had already lived in Hamilton Heights for a year. So she knew the apartment was a good value the minute she saw it. But in 2007, when she moved to the city, she was taken in by online ads that claimed properties on 106th Street were really on the Upper East Side.
“Initially I was unsure about Harlem, because you don’t hear the best things about it as an outsider,†said Ms. McDuff, a 24-year-old from North Carolina. But she has become one of the neighborhood’s biggest boosters.
“I feel safer here than I would at York and 81st,†she said, “because there are so many people out here on the streets, even at 2 or 3 in the morning.â€
Her share of the rent is $750 a month. “I have friends who are spending $1,000 to $1,100 a month to live in a shoe box farther downtown,†she said, “but I have an extra $300 a month to put away, and on a teacher’s salary, that makes a difference.â€
The state of the market probably helped Roseanne Baker and her roommate, Miriam Goldberg, avoid a rent increase when they recently renewed their $2,200 lease for a two-bedroom two-bath apartment on the western edge of Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Ms. Baker and Ms. Goldberg both teach in Brooklyn schools — Ms. Baker in Red Hook and Ms. Goldberg in Crown Heights — and they found their apartment through TeacherSpaceNY, a real estate agency that caters to teachers on tight house-hunting schedules and even tighter budgets.
Ms. Baker started her search last summer on Craigslist, but she said she shifted gears when “we went to a place that was advertised as the Brooklyn Heights area, but it ended up being right near a housing project where an undercover cop came up to us and basically told us we could not take the place because there were drug dealers and prostitutes all around.â€
Their apartment is in a part of Park Slope that borders Gowanus and is partially industrial, “but we’re half a block to the subway,†Ms. Baker said, “and it’s a safe area where we can go out and have fun and still be close to work.â€
For recent graduates and students who live in the boroughs, proximity to subways is usually a top priority. Marine Ravera and her brother, Loris, who are both college students, had hoped to live in Park Slope, but with a strict $2,000 budget, they found the area too pricey.
Their agent, John Wescott, who is associated with Corcoran, urged them to consider Sunset Park, where two-bedroom apartments in brownstone buildings rent for $1,500 to $1,700. Last summer, he helped them find a two-bedroom on 56th Street for $1,600, well under the amount that their father had agreed to pay.
“At first, I was wary of how far it is,†said Ms. Ravera, who is 22 and graduates this month from the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising, a fashion business college in Manhattan. “But I’m two blocks from the N train, and my friends on the Upper East Side take as long to get to Midtown Manhattan as I do.â€
Having dealt with a 15-minute walk to the subway from his apartment at 82nd Street and East End Avenue in Manhattan for two years, Eric Snider, a middle-school teacher, has decided to use a subway map to focus his search for a new apartment this summer.
Mr. Snider, 23, teaches at a public middle school in the Bronx, but is transferring to a charter school in Bushwick, Brooklyn, in the fall, and hopes to move to Williamsburg, near either a J or L train stop. He recently started perusing ads and has seen listings that would keep rent for him and a roommate between $800 and $900 a month.
“I don’t care where it is, as long as it’s close to the train,†Mr. Snider said. “I can’t deal with an hourlong commute anymore.†The $800 a month he expects to spend is quite a savings from the $1,200 he pays for one of three bedrooms in his current place on the Upper East Side.
“There’s something to be said for living in Manhattan,†he said, “but it’s really a lot of money and it’s tough to make ends meet.†Having visited friends in Brooklyn and the Bronx, he has concluded that “there are a lot of great places that are much more affordable, and you can be close for getting to the places you want to go.â€
Many new arrivals in New York network a bit, depending on the old college ties for guidance.
Maggie Hawryluk, a freelance publicist, graduated from Hofstra University last year. She decided to look in Astoria because she knew some Hofstra alumni who had settled there. She shares a $1,600 two-bedroom with another Hofstra graduate, a dancer who works as a waitress when she’s not auditioning.
“I guess it’s the same idea as immigrants — they find ways to stay near one another,†Ms. Hawryluk said. “When I’m out on the weekends, I’m constantly running into people that I know from college, and it’s nice to see a familiar face.â€
Gregory Fiasconaro, an owner of Dynasty Realty in Astoria, said that 20-somethings had transformed 30th Avenue in recent years. “It became the place to eat and all the kids sit outside with their computers and work,†he said. “Astoria is the mecca right now. So help me, it’s as good as New York, or better.â€
But for those who believe it’s Manhattan or bust, brokers say that now might be the moment.
Noël Genao, a real estate agent who recently graduated from Fordham University, has been helping fellow graduates with $1,000 budgets look for apartments in Manhattan.
“A year ago, you would find listings in this price point and when you got there, it would be in the basement with no light,†said Ms. Genao, who works as an assistant to Victoria Shtainer, a senior vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman. “But now you can find legitimate, nice apartments with true bedrooms, as opposed to closets played off to be actual rooms.â€
She has shown her friend Michael Robinson several two-bedrooms in Hell’s Kitchen for $1,900. Mr. Robinson works as the front desk manager for the Equinox fitness club in Columbus Circle and is eager to move out of his apartment in Hamilton Heights to be closer to work.
He pays only $700 a month to share a two-bedroom right now, but is willing to shell out more to live below 96th Street.
“I don’t need a fancy building and I’ll pay beyond my means for the location,†he said. “Because in Harlem, it’s just a place for me to sleep; I socialize and work in Midtown.â€
Mr. Robinson, 24, has his fingers crossed that he’ll be moving at the end of the summer.
“I can type in my search criteria now and see 50 listings in Manhattan,†he said. “I weed them down to maybe five real possibilities, but they are definitely there and two years ago, they weren’t.â€
Well, would there be any real difference, choice-wise/price-wise to get a place for August 1st versus August 15th? I plan to live there for a year, maybe even up to 4 years, so I DO want a nice apartment. On the other hand, I don't want to throw away half a month's worth of rent for nothing (~$650).
NYC housing is a brutal, brutal market...and it's not without a good deal of luck that you find the right place.
Inwood/Washington Heights. Anywhere from like 175th-200th is fine.
Most of the ones we saw had fully renovated kitchens and bathrooms which was quite nice. We saw several that were all owned by Vantage. Apparently they bought like 40 buildings, completely gut-renovated them all, and then the housing business went bad. So now they have tons of vacancies but they keep listing high prices for their places. According to one real estate agent we spoke with they're quite willing to take lower offers to the degree that a $1500 place can be accepted for like $1300.
Outside of that company, we saw a few others that also looked quite nice in the $1300 range. I feel kind of elitist though... I entered the search assuming I'd find crap, and some was. But there are so many gut renovated places for cheap that I kind of expect a newly renovated kitchen and bathroom from any place I'm willing to consider now, haha.
I dunno, I wouldn't live up in WH, but that's just me...it might fill up before classes start, it might not...haven't been up that way in a long time, but the reputation is ghetto.
Girlfriend is going to Columbia, I'm going to Yeshiva (but over in the Bronx). And from what I hear, WH used to have a relatively bad reputation but has since much improved. Anyway, from walking around there myself it seemed pretty nice. Pretty much 100% Hispanic (all Dominican Republican I'm told), but it looks like a pretty okay area.
I don't want to overstate the case...it could be fine...but if you and your girlfriend are not Hispanic I might make sure the neighborhood has at least SOME white population before you become urban pioneers. I have friends that that didn't turn out so well for.
Just do some research beforehand.
you and your GF will be prey, just FYI.
We're not entirely new to town... we've both lived in Jersey our whole lives so it's not like it's a new setting. Anyway, pretty much everyone from Yeshiva lives in that area along with a lot of people from Columbia and CUNY. I don't know how bad it used to be, but I've talked with a few people who have pretty reasonable experience in moving around NYC and they seem to say it's significantly better than it used to be.
I know Washington Heights/Inwood is a pretty big stretch of territory though, so are you guys thinking of a specific area? Because the people I talk to say that the further North you go the better it is, and the places we're looking at tend to be around ~190th-200th, which is pretty high up there and doesn't look that bad.
-Edit-
I searched up and down the web just now about safety in Washington Heights/Inwood, and most people said the following:
1. There's a good deal of gentrification going on there, especially in Inwoods, which makes locals a little unhappy because the rents will go up (except in this awesomely bad economy).
2. There are some sketchier blocks and some quite nice blocks, but it's on a block to block basis rather than areas.
3. If there's any "area" that's nicer, it's West of Broadway rather than East of Broadway.
I don't suppose there's a site where I can somehow figure out which are nicer blocks and which aren't? Kind of a long-shot. I'll also go myself at night sometime soon to check it all out but I don't know how well I'll be able to tell how sketchy it is unless I see a guy getting stabbed in front of me.
http://nyc.everyblock.com/crime/filter/by-precinct/precinct-34/
http://nyc.everyblock.com/crime/filter/by-precinct/precinct-33/
The 34th precinct covers Inwood and northern Washington Heights. The 33rd precinct covers southern Washington Heights. The statistics isn't very detailed, but it's to give you a general idea of how many and what types of crimes are being committed.
Best thing to do is canvas the neighborhood if you want an idea of the area. You can probably do a google earth and do a street view from the comfort of home, but it won't help you figure out if the block is well lit at night if your main concern is safety.