In the third quarter, Brooklyn rents dropped, year over year, for the first time in a decade. Yet the 2.5 percent price decline was modest, spurred by discounting in expensive northwest neighborhoods, like Williamsburg, while rents held steady in less affluent parts of the borough, like East New York.
Even with considerable price cuts, the discounting will mean less for the tenants who need it the most. Mr. Kowalczuk warns that common concessions, like two or three months of free rent on a one-year lease, are a temporary perk, and new tenants should carefully consider if they can afford the unmitigated rent the following year.
And the coronavirus has made clear that rent relief is not proportional to need. In a StreetEasy analysis of neighborhoods with the fewest Covid-19 cases, rents in wealthy neighborhoods, like SoHo in Manhattan, dropped 4.3 percent from February to September. In the hardest hit neighborhoods, like Corona in Queens and Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, rents actually rose 0.2 percent.
Despite the considerable discounting in Manhattan, which is expected to persist for months or longer, breaking the $3,000 threshold remains mostly symbolic, since citywide, the median rentwas $1,467 a month, according to the New York University Furman Center.
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Manhattan Hits A Virus Milestone: Median Rent Below $3,000
