Manhattan rents reached a record high in February and so have bidding wars for rental units

Winter in New York City often enjoys a cooler real estate market, but not this year. Renters in Manhattan were met with record-high rents in February, with a median rent of $4,500 — a 6.4% uptick from the same time last year.Prices also rose in Brooklyn and Queens as vacancy rates tightened, a new report from Douglas Elliman revealed.

Everyone, from renters to agents, is feeling the heat. “The fact is, there’s not a lot of room to negotiate,” Douglas Wagner, BOND New York’s director of brokerage services, told The Post.The early bird no longer gets the worm when it comes to applications, either.It’s all about who can offer more, according to Laurel Ferrera, an agent at Keller Williams NYC.

Units are advertising at low prices to whip up interest, Ferrera said in an email, and then taking as many applications as possible. “A place on the Upper West Side that was initially marketed at $3,700 for a one bed, one bath ended up being rented for $800 above asking,” Ferrera wrote.“The agent told me, ‘The people who got their apartment [are] willing to go higher if needed.’”A quarter of Manhattan deals in February sparked bidding wars, the Elliman report found, also marking a record high.

Experts blame the increased competition, in part, on an uncertain economy, skittish homebuyers and back-to-office mandates. Ferrera’s recent client, Alex K.— who didn’t reveal her full name for privacy — thought starting her apartment search in February would give her the upper hand.

She was quickly disabused of that theory. “I’d always heard that winter is a lot easier to find places,” she told the Post.“But everybody just seems to want to come back to the city now.”Alex, who is moving from California to New York for work, said she and Ferrara looked as more than a dozen apartments across Brooklyn and Manhattan.

In the process, she ended up in four separate bidding wars. One of the bid-upon units was a Cobble Hill one-bedroom that, Alex s...