For much of spring 2020, New York City was the heart of the COVID pandemic. Hotspots popped up in New York before much of the rest of the nation. Scenes from New York hospitals dominated the news. The governor and the mayor held widely-watched daily news conferences. And as rents froze and residents fled the city, New York’s average rent prices dropped precipitously.
A year and a half later, the Big Apple is coming back, slowly. One of the biggest indicators is lease prices. As New York average rent prices rise, month to month and year to year trends demonstrate a slow return to pre-pandemic economic levels.
Using average rent prices from rent.com, we compared price movements from month to month between February 2020 and June 2021 as well as year to year during the recovery months over that same time period, both in New York City and nationally. Based on these numbers, is it clear to say that New York’s average rent prices are rebounding? Not yet completely, but New York sure is on the way back.
How rent changed each month through the pandemic
Is New York back? You be the judge. New York’s average rent prices are most certainly rebounding as they are elsewhere, but in New York City, the optics are starker.
The pandemic hit New York hard during the spring and summer of 2020. But as the epicenters of the crisis moved to other parts of the country in the fall, New Yorkers first saw the light at the end of the tunnel. That’s reflected in New York rent prices which recovered briefly in October and November, a phenomenon that the nation as a whole didn’t experience.
The New York recovery was short-lived, as cases shot up again. As the pandemic dragged into winter 2020, New York’s average rent prices fell again.
Then as the vaccine began to roll out in February 2021, rents started to recover both nationally and in New York City. Price increases rose each month from March 2021 to the present.
New York average rent prices reacted to the pandemic
Much of the trend in New York mimics what has happened nationwide, only on a much more exaggerated scale. For one-bedroom units, rents generally dropped the first few months of the pandemic. Then more recently, rates started rebounding in the city and coast to coast.
Nationally, two-bedroom rents ebbed and flowed much like one-bedroom units did, with minor exceptions. Prices everywhere dipped from July to August and increased as the vaccine became available after the inauguration. New York City saw similar movements. But prices for two-bedroom apartments stayed much steadier in the city.
New York average rents for two bedrooms dropped month to month both in August and December. They also saw a recovery spike in a hopeful October. But rents for those two bed units changed relatively slightly each other month until April 2021. That’s when vaccines started finding arms, and rents — and hope — jumped.
Rent changes in New York outpaced the rest of the U.S.
The difference is scale. Over the course of the pandemic, rents nationwide fluctuated a few degrees month to month.
One-bedroom rents increased 2.39 percent and two bedrooms rose 2.88 percent from June to July 2020, the last month before the floor dropped out. The very next month, rents plunged 3.15 percent for one-bedrooms and 2.47 percent for two, the biggest dip of the pandemic. The recovery peaked in April 2021, with rents up 3.30 percent and 2.83 percent, respectively.
But while New York’s trends were similar, the sheer scale of the ups and downs was anything but steady. At its greatest low from July to August, rent prices for one-bedrooms plummeted 25.18 percent and almost 10 percent for two. That’s a 22 percent and 7.5 percent difference from what’s reflected nationally.
We are seeing the same in the recent rebound. The recovery also hit its peak in April in New York along with the bulk of vaccinations. Nationwide that peak was around 3 percent. But in New York, that April price increase was 18.17 percent for one-bedrooms and almost 30 percent for two.
Comparing year to year rent changes to track the recovery
On different scales, New York’s average rent prices mostly echoed what was happening to the country overall when analyzing the changes from one month to the next. Increases and decreases follow a vague timeline of the pandemic.
But it is a truer test to compare monthly changes from the prior year to its corresponding pandemic month. What were rents like in the before times, and what happened during the same time of year twelve months later? How does this show the rate of recovery in New York compared to the rest of America?
For the purposes of this study, the beginning of the end of the pandemic occurred in February 2021. That’s when vaccines started to become widely available and the economy slowly opened. That narrows our report to the five months of 2021 since the start recovery until June, the month with the most recent data available.
When comparing those five months to those from the year prior during the initial wave of the pandemic, an interesting story emerges.
Comparing the start of the pandemic, start of the recovery
For both one and two bedrooms, nationally there were true increases year to year every month from February to June. This does show a bit of a rent price recovery. But in the grand scheme, the recovery around the country has been slow.
For one-bedrooms, the biggest increase was in May at just 5.23 percent. For two, it peaked at 6.62 percent in February, steadily decreasing since.
New York City is a much different story. The pandemic washed over New York early in the crisis. Many left the city and didn’t renew a lease. Vacancies were up and lease prices were down.
However even as 2021 improved, cautious and careful New Yorkers didn’t rush back to normalcy. City residents lined up en masse to get vaccinated, at a rate of 70 percent of adults as of mid-July. Not everyone moved back to the city who had fled, while rent prices slowly increased. But once again, at a different scale.
While rent prices increased by 1.29 percent for a one-bedroom and over 6 percent for a two from February to February nationally, New York’s average rent plummeted 33 percent and 18 percent, respectively. A year later, the recovery was starting at a much different place in New York.
A meteoric rise in New York average rent in spring 2021
Only four months later, rents for one-bedroom units in New York had recovered by another 17 percent. As of June, rent prices rose just 10 percent down from the year prior. But while they were up nationally and down in New York, nationwide it was pretty steady, up just over three percent from February to June 2021. Rents may still be down for one-bedrooms in New York, but the recovery is much steeper.
For two-bedrooms, New York saw a similar rocket rise in rent prices year to year between February and June. From down 17.8 percent by year in February, prices swung to a 15.3 percent increase from 12 months ago in April and rising to its peak so far in June. Rents in June 2021 are up 30 percent over June 2020, a nearly 50 percent rise in increase over four months.
What the rent recovery means for you
From Broadway shows to in-person classes to crowds at bars and clubs, New York feels back. For renters, prices for one and two-bedroom apartments are starting to feel like they did before March 2020, for better or worse.
As residents deal with a host of housing issues from deciding whether to move back to the city to face the end of rent freezes and eviction moratoriums, the path upward trajectory of New York average rent prices is an important performance indicator.
What happens elsewhere around the nation is one story. But among the eight million people and their personal rent stories in the City that Never Sleeps, one bit of normalcy — good or bad — means sooner than later people will again be complaining that the rent is too damn high.
If you’re looking for where the rents have stayed in your budget, see all the great New York listings on Rent..
