Manhattan rent hit a record $5,000 as apartments vanish from the market

The median rent on a new lease in Manhattan hit $5,000 in July, a record, up 6.4% from a year earlier. Brooklyn set its own record at $4,500, a startling 17% jump. The figures come from appraiser Jonathan Miller and the trade publication The Real Deal.

Only about 6,000 new leases were signed in Manhattan in July, down 20% from a year ago. Brooklyn saw roughly 3,000, down nearly a third. Records usually get set in a hot market with lots of activity. This one got set in a market where the apartments are disappearing, which Bloomberg summed up as prices hitting a high while listings all but vanish.

Where the apartments went

Miller points to two forces pulling units off the market, and the first is mortgage rates. New Yorkers who would normally buy can't afford to at current rates, so they stay put in their rentals, and the apartments that would have turned over simply don't.

The second is newer and more specific. The 2025 FARE Act shifted most broker commissions from tenants to whoever hires the broker, usually the landlord. Miller thinks some landlords are holding units off the market while they work out how to avoid paying that fee, which starves the listing pool further. Fewer listings, same demand, and the price does the only thing it can.

There's a third thread tied to City Hall. Mayor Zohran Mamdani won a rent freeze for stabilized apartments, and some landlords whose buildings mix stabilized and market-rate units are said to be raising the market-rate rents to make back what the freeze costs them, so the tenants who aren't protected end up absorbing the increase.

Our data points the same direction

Miller's $5,000 is a new-lease median, so it runs higher than a citywide typical that blends every existing lease. On our broader measure, the typical New York City rent is about $4,133 a month, and it's up roughly 15% over the past year. Both show that rent is climbing fast and the city has run short of the supply that would slow it.

The summer usually cools into fall as moving season ends. Miller isn't betting on it this year. "I think that rents will continue to rise since mortgage rates are expected to rise," he said, citing tariffs, higher energy costs and a shift at the Federal Reserve.

This is the second record New York has set in as many months. We covered the June highs in how the squeeze is spreading to the outer boroughs, and you can see the full picture by borough in our New York City rent breakdown.

Sources

• The City Reporter, Manhattan and Brooklyn Rents Hit Record Highs (August 13, 2026), reporting data from Jonathan Miller and The Real Deal

• Bloomberg, Manhattan Rents Hit $5,000 Record While Listings All But Vanish (August 13, 2026), for the inventory decline

• RentDataNow New York City rent data, anchored to the Zillow Observed Rent Index, June 2026