Brownsville Rental Searches Surge As Tenants Skip Manhattan: Study

NEW YORK CITY — Renters are skipping over searching for apartments in pricey Manhattan in favor of cheaper digs in places such as Brownsville, according to a new study.

Apartment searches in Brownsville jumped 45 percent in July over the same point last, a StreetEasy study released Monday found.

Other neighborhoods in south and east Brooklyn and central Queens saw similar spikes in interest, which the StreetEasy study tied to pandemic-era discounts ending in Manhattan, where about 44 percent of tenants have been priced out of their apartments.

"Among the top 10 neighborhoods with the strongest year-over-year increases in search volume in July, five were in Brooklyn and four were in Queens, but only one neighborhood – East Harlem – was in Manhattan," the study states.

The average rent in Manhattan stood at $5,113, according to another recent analysis by Douglas Elliman. StreetEasy found the typical, or median, rent in Manhattan that month was $4,200.

The typical rent in six popular Manhattan neighborhoods — Chelsea, East Village, Greenwich Village, West Village, Lower East Side, and SoHo — all saw drops in number of apartment searches.

"The average median asking rent of these six neighborhoods was $4,852 in July, 15.5% above the borough’s median asking rent," the study states. "A tempering of rental search growth in Manhattan suggests hopeful renters are looking elsewhere in search of a more affordable unit."

By contrast, the typical rent in Brownsville stood at $2,197, or about 35 percent of Brooklyn median asking rent, according to StreetEasy.

The study argued that Manhattan's sky-high prices is forcing renters to search for apartments far away from that borough's business districts.

The most affordable neighborhoods with the highest year-over-year growth in StreetEasy searches were: