UES Rents Keep Climbing As More Inventory Doesn't Bring Relief: Study

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Even as the number of available apartments has continued to rise on the Upper East Side, renters still have not seen any relief, according to a new study by StreetEasy.

That's because many of the newly available homes are being given up by tenants whose pandemic-era leases are expiring, leaving them to face dramatic rent increases, according to the study.

The study, released last week, found that at least 34 percent of New York City's listed apartments had discounted leases during the pandemic — only to return to the market now at historically high prices.

That trend has been most notable in Manhattan, where rental inventory rose by 33 percent between the first and second quarters of 2022. But a full 44 percent of that inventory was freed up by tenants who were priced out of their suddenly-expensive apartments, according to StreetEasy's analysis, which examined rental listings across the city during the year's second quarter.

The Upper East Side, too, has seen a growth in its inventory, as Patch reported in June. The latest data shows that inventory continued to rise between May and June, with 328 new apartments coming on the market.

At 2,337 available units as of June, the Upper East Side's inventory is now around where it stood in October 2021, before the huge surge in demand caused inventory to drop and rents to start skyrocketing.

But that hasn't brought relief to the neighborhood's tenants. The Upper East Side's median asking rent stood at $3,395 through the second quarter of this year — a $120 increase from the previous quarter, and a whopping 41.5 percent increase over the same period last year, when it was just $2,400.

StreetEasy economist Kenny Lee explained that landlords have begun amping up prices in a mass wave — with asking rents jumping about 20 percent citywide — and left tenants of formerly-discounted homes with a tough decision to make.

"Either pay painfully higher annual rent," Lee said, "or...[face] an incredibly hot market in terms of options."

The current situation stands in pointed contrast to the COVID-19 pandemic's early days, many New Yorkers fled the city and landlords lowered rents to entice new tenants, Lee said.

The sky-high prices in Manhattan — which were the most expensive in the city during this year's second quarter — prompted many renters to flee to Brooklyn and Queens, Lee said.

The release of StreetEasy's study last week came one day before the Legal Aid Society made an alarming announcement about the growing number of evictions across the city — with data showing evictions have tripled from 104 in January to 315 in June, for a total of 1,313 so far in 2022.

The growing number of evictions prompted attorneys with The Legal Aid Society to press lawmakers Tuesday to pass a "Good Cause Eviction" bill that would provide additional protections, especially against massive rent hikes, for tenants in unregulated apartments.

"New York's eviction machine is ramping up," said Judith Goldiner, attorney-in-charge of the Civil Law Reform Unit. "This is indeed a crisis, especially with rent amounts reaching unprecedented levels."

Patch reporter Matt Troutman contributed.