Finding an apartment in New York City used to be frustrating; today it’s downright wild.
This summer, renters are engaged in an unprecedented battle for a roof over their heads in a city where landlords call the shots and drive prices to astronomical heights.
Take Aurielle Catron, a 29-year-old security engineer, who fought her way through the New York jungle to find a two-bedroom apartment in Bushwick. After months of brutal searching and 52 viewings, Catron landed a rent-controlled fourth-floor apartment with no elevator for $3,200 a month.
It wasn’t her dream apartment – it lacked a laundry room and an elevator – but after losing a bidding war that saw the price of a $2,800 apartment skyrocket to $3,600, she was simply relieved to have a place she could call home.
“People say, ‘Hey, if you give me this apartment, I’ll pay $200, $500, $600 more than the asking rent,'” she told Bloomberg, which reported on today’s general rent battle. “I can’t compete with that.”
But it’s not just about losing offers. For 49-year-old Amber Melhouse, there was more at stake. She was evicted from her Brooklyn apartment when the landlord raised the rent by $1,350 a month – too much for her after her divorce – and her search for a smaller apartment became a nightmare scenario.
She arrived half an hour early for a studio tour, only to find a line of four people in front of her and a crush forming behind her. The spot was gone before she even had a chance to apply. Now she’s staying with friends, considering giving up her small pet-grooming business, and wondering if she’ll have to leave New York altogether.
“I feel like this whole apartment search was a test of whether I’m meant to stay in New York. Is this New York’s way of kicking me out?” Melhouse told the outlet. “I don’t want to leave because my whole life is here.”
This brutal rental market isn’t just a collection of horror stories – it’s the cruel reality for thousands of New Yorkers this summer. Bidding wars, outrageous rents, and lines of desperate apartment seekers snaking around the block are the new normal. And have been for several years.
According to Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel, the tide turned in favor of landlords immediately after the pandemic.
“The landowners regained control and were able to dictate increasingly favorable terms to the landlords,” he said.
In fact, some of these tactics are downright dirty tricks. Real estate agents foment bidding wars by listing apartments too cheaply, attracting crowds of prospective buyers to view them, and then choosing the highest bidder or the tenant with the best financials.
“There are too many TikTok agents now trying to do things that go viral,” Keyan Sanai, an agent at Douglas Elliman, told Bloomberg. “At the end of the day, we’re in the sales business. But 80% of the competition in the rental market is real.”
This summer, college graduates are flooding into the market and mortgage rates are so high that they can’t even think about owning a home. This puts a lot of pressure on renters.
For some, like Cornell graduate Matthew Braganza, finding an apartment was more stressful than hunting for a job.
Although he landed a solid accounting job, Braganza had to overcome a few hurdles – providing personal references, his LinkedIn profile and a cover letter – to stand out from the crowd. After looking at nearly 100 apartments, he gave up living alone and now shares a Lower East Side apartment with three roommates.
“Finding an apartment was harder for me than finding a job,” Braganza said. “It felt like I was competing with a million people.”
Agents like Thomas Hollingsworth of Compass are taking advantage of this desperation. He requires college certificates from applicants who have barely rented a flat or who have a low income.
“If you were a straight-A student, we’re much more likely to trust you to be successful in your job and pay your rent,” Hollingsworth said. “If you dropped out of school or got straight-A grades, we’re much more cautious.”
And don’t think that bidding wars are completely natural. Some agents play it unfair, holding back-to-back viewings and scheduling appointments just minutes apart, creating a frenzy that drives rents up even further.
Bill Kowalczuk of Coldwell Banker Warburg acknowledged that this tactic almost always drives offers above the asking price. It’s the kind of strategy that’s making New York’s “Wild West” market more chaotic than ever.
Rent madness reached a new peak in June, when bidding wars broke out in Manhattan and Brooklyn, with nearly a quarter of all new leases in both boroughs going into the madness.
Hollingsworth himself set up a “simple” fourth-floor studio without an elevator on Second Avenue in midtown Manhattan for $2,000, which attracted 100 people and 20 applicants and which he eventually rented to someone who offered $2,075 and who was “generally pleasant” to work with.
One applicant who offered only $25 more but proved difficult was passed over, saving the landlord from a potentially problematic tenant, Hollingsworth said.
