Already-too-damn-high New York City rents are increasing more quickly than those in other parts of the nation — threatening to make apartments here downright unaffordable for those in the lowest income brackets, a new report says.
Average apartment rents in the Big Apple jumped by 67.2 percent between 2000 and 2012 — to $ 1,167, a price that includes lower-cost rent-stabilized and public-housing dwellings, according to the report by city Comptroller Scott Stringer.
In the rest of the nation, rents rose by 50.1 percent over the same period — hitting an average of $ 773 per month.
“The pressure on rents is a classic example of supply and demand, with both population and the economy rising and growth in the housing stock lagging behind,” said Mark Willis, executive director of the NYU Furman Center, one of the city’s leading real-estate research institutes.
According to the report:
- The jumps were most pronounced in the city’s new center of political power, Brooklyn, where the young and hip shelled out an average 77 percent more for a place to sleep over the past decade.
- Manhattan and The Bronx saw roughly 65 percent increases in average rents, Staten Island 63 percent, and Queens trailed at 55 percent.
- At the same time, real median income — which compares salary changes with cost-of-living adjustments — dropped by 4.8 percent over the same period.
“Rents are going through the roof, incomes are going down, and that’s where you’re having the affordability crunch,” Stringer told The Post.
The report comes in the wake of ex-Mayor Bloomberg’s effort to build or preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing, and a week before Mayor de Blasio is set to release an ambitious plan to add or preserve another 200,000 affordable units in the next decade.
The report said gentrification alone wasn’t responsible for the city’s skyrocketing rents, but that in certain neighborhoods a migration of wealthier residents was having a hefty impact.
In Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn — two of the hottest neighborhoods — average monthly rents shot up by 76.1 percent, from $ 737 to $ 1,297.
The spike was accompanied by the third highest influx of residents citywide — nearly 7,600 — who earn at least six figures.
Over the 12-year period, the higher-income crowd gravitated to Brooklyn and Manhattan, while the other three boroughs had net losses.
The Chelsea-Midtown area saw the highest influx of six-figure earners, but only a 28 percent jump in rents.
Brooklyn Heights and Fort Greene had fewer of the well-off, but rents in those neighborhoods shot up 58 percent.
The report found that those earning between $ 20,000 and $ 40,000 (in inflation-adjusted dollars) spent 33 percent of their income on rent in 2000. By 2012, that figure had jumped to nearly 42 percent.
“Although most New Yorkers probably feel that housing in the city is too expensive, it is primarily those earning under $ 40,000 who literally may not be able to find an apartment they can afford,” the report concluded.
Stringer called for an emphasis on creating affordable units for those earning less than $ 40,000, and for a large investment in public housing — which accounts for more than half of apartment rentals under $ 600.
He also called for greater city intervention at financially troubled properties with many rent-stabilized apartments — a concern City Council member Dan Garodnick (D-Manhattan) emphasized in a separate report released Tuesday.
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