Manhattan rents wont budge from record highs as house hunters keep scrambling for shelter: If you snooze, you lose

Despite a flood of new rentals and longer listing times in March, New Yorkers continued to duke it out for apartments at near-record prices.Rental market activity swelled across New York City last month.High prices and minimal vacancy rates stubbornly persisted, despite higher inventory, a new report by Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel revealed.Manhattan rents remained at record highs, Brooklyn bidding wars persisted and Queens lease signings surged.Mahmoud Ammar, a critical care pharmacist, learned the hard way how difficult it has become to find the right apartment for the right price.

Ammar, who works from home, had a lease with a roommate ending on April 1.He began his hunt for his very own one-bedroom in late February. Ammar and his agent, Tim Cass of Corcoran, spent multiple weekends touring two to three apartments per day, plus some tours scattered through the work week.

Ammar had a budget of $3,000 to $3,500 and the desire to live solo in Midtown West. But he kept losing out on the good ones, affordable one-bedrooms became a pipe dream and nearly every landlord wanted immediate occupancy.  “It became stressful because I knew I’d be moving out in three weeks, and I still didn’t have an apartment,” Ammar told The Post. At $4,471, Manhattan’s median effective rent — which factors in landlord discounts and concessions — tied for the highest on record, up annually for the sixth time.Despite pricing pain, new lease signings rose in March, a month not typically known for its rental activity.

The data signals a difficult rest of the year for hopeful renters.“Typically you look at the beginning of a month for the start of the following month, but in this environment, you have to take it as soon as you see it,” Cass said.“We missed out on several properties because Mahmoud hesitated.”Cass said historically the market heats up around Mother’s Day in May.

That’s not the case anymore.“It’s happening much, much earlier now, as we ex...