Landlords Jacking Up Rent In These NYC Neighborhoods

NEW YORK CITY — When New York City tenants say "the rent is too damn high," some landlords apparently view it as a challenge.

Landlords have jacked up rent by 50 percent or more for a small, but still significant, portion of tenants recently surveyed by openigloo.

Data provided Patch by the rental review site shows that 8 percent of 1,500 market-rent tenants reported those sky-high increases when their leases are up for renewal.

The jacked-up rent is effectively an eviction notice, said Allia Mohamed, CEO and co-founder of openigloo.

"The comments from that portion of renters are, ‘We’re being forced to move,'" she said.

Those steep increases are thankfully rare across the city — roughly 70 percent of landlords overall have kept rent hikes at 4 percent or less, according to openigloo data.

But that's not the case for tenants in a select handful of prime neighborhoods.

Rent hikes of 50 percent or more overwhelmingly are clustered in these neighborhoods, data shows:

• East Village
• Gramercy
• Lower East Side
• Murray Hill
• Upper West Side
• Williamsburg

And those tenants aren't happy, as shown by openigloo complaints provided to Patch.

“Despite our building having mold issues and poor heat, the landlord raised our rent by 50%," a Gramercy tenant commented.

"I got quoted a 50% increase (2600 to 3900, it was only 3200 pre-COVID) and had zero luck negotiating," an Upper West Side tenant wrote. "Lots of turnover as the company appears to not want to keep tenants."

Mohamed said the problem neighborhoods are all areas that saw an "exodus" during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said openigloo has tried to help tenants negotiate lower rents, or halt hikes altogether as many of those staggering increases were presented outside the legal window to do so.

But, still, many tenants are bailing from their neighborhoods to greener pastures where they don't have to fork over so much green.

"We are seeing this influx to the outer boroughs, Queens and Brooklyn, for things that are cheaper,” she said.

"Cheaper" is relative when it comes to New York City rent nowadays, however.

The city is now the most expensive rental market in the nation, with prices reaching new records almost on a monthly basis.

The typical apartment in Manhattan costs $4,000 a month, for instance.

Mohamed, however, said there are some bright spots. She said the survey showed that most landlords are being reasonable when it comes to renewals.

Renters have tools to find good apartments, she said.

"This data is really showcasing is that there are good landlords out there,” she said. “It’s important to connect people and their properties.”