scorecard
  1. Home
  2. life
  3. The monthly median rent for a studio in Manhattan this summer hit an astonishing 11-year high, and the city's prices are driving people away in droves

The monthly median rent for a studio in Manhattan this summer hit an astonishing 11-year high, and the city's prices are driving people away in droves

Libertina Brandt   

The monthly median rent for a studio in Manhattan this summer hit an astonishing 11-year high, and the city's prices are driving people away in droves
Thelife2 min read

Manhattan Skyline

REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Living in New York City will cost a pretty penny.

Regardless of the size of their apartment, renters in Manhattan are bound to spend a not-so-pretty penny.

According to a market report released by the real-estate brokerage Douglas Elliman, the median rent for a studio in Manhattan in July and August was $2,700. That number, as Bloomberg reported, is the highest its been since June 2008.

Read more: NYC rents just hit a 3-year high, and the city's prices are pushing everyone from millennials to wealthy Wall Street bankers away

As Business Insider previously reported, one year's worth of rent in Manhattan is more than three-quarters of the country's average annual salary, which is $47,060. Even in Inwood, the cheapest neighborhood in Manhattan, the average monthly rent is more than $1,600.

But Manhattan isn't the only borough seeing outrageously high rents.

In June, Brooklyn's median monthly face rent hit an all-time high of $3,000. To put the extremity of that price into perspective, nearly 80 years ago, the cost of rental housing in most places in Brooklyn ranged from $20 to $49 a month - that translates to around just $350 to $700 in today's dollars.

The high cost of living is driving people out of the city

New York City's sales market, like its rental market, is also outrageously expensive. In fact, prospective buyers who earn the city's average annual household income of $62,000 must save $3,100 per year for 36 years in order to afford a 20% down payment on a median-priced home, which, as of June, is $558,000.

And the wealthy are feeling the heat too.

According to a SmartAsset study, New York is the No. 1 state rich millennials are moving away from. The study, which defined rich millennials as people who are younger than 35 with an adjusted gross income of at least $100,000, found that 14,915 of them moved out of the state from 2015 to 2016.

Business Insider's Katie Warren previously reported that wealthy New Yorkers looking to avoid the city's high taxes can save more than $1 million by moving to Florida.

READ MORE ARTICLES ON


Advertisement

Advertisement