NYC, Jersey City Rents Shatter Another Record

Rents keep soaring in and around New York City, and they’re showing no signs of coming back to earth any time soon.

The median asking rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the five boroughs hit a record $3,900 this month, according to rental marketplace Zumper’s latest report, up 3.2 percent from May and 8.8 percent year-over-year. Two-bedroom units followed a similar trend, climbing to $4,240, up 6 percent from last month and 7.3 percent from the same period last year.

The spikes are even more dramatic on the other side of the Hudson. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Jersey City is now $3,370, an annual increase of 29 percent and the second-priciest of all 100 cities tracked by Zumper, surpassing San Francisco and Miami. For two-bedrooms, the city’s median asking rent stands at $3,960, a whopping 45 percent year-over-year hike.

Those gains stand in contrast to most markets included in the report. Nationally, the median asking rent for a one-bedroom unit is $1,504, consistent with May and up 5.8 percent year over year, the smallest annual hike since 2021. Median rents in 46 of the top 100 cities declined from May to June, while 42 cities saw increases and the remaining 12 were flat month-over-month.

“This deceleration is, generally, good news for renters, but it does come with caveats,” Zumper CEO Anthemos Georgiades said in a statement. “Many cities are still stabilizing after long periods of sharp increases during the pandemic’s Great Migration, and though rents are softening, they’re still at record highs in many markets.”

Prices are poised to keep rising in the tri-state area as net migration to New York rebounds, recently approved price hikes for rent-stabilized units take effect and the expiry of the 421a tax break limits supply.

Other markets that saw the largest rent increases this month include Memphis (up 6.4 percent), Fresno, California ( 6.3 percent) and New Haven, Connecticut (6.3 percent). Others such as Tallahassee, Austin and Tulsa saw an unexpected cooldown given the busy summer season, according to Zumper’s analysis. Across the country, multifamily construction starts last year reached their highest level since 1986, but high interest rates and hesitant investors may curb some of that additional inventory.