naked notes

For as long as many of us can remember, New Yorkers have been putting up temporary floor-to-ceiling walls in their apartments to squeeze in an extra roommate and reduce their share of the rent.  Brilliant right?  You create a new room by walling off your living room and voilà… Jimmie moves in; he has a room to himself; you no longer have access to the kitchen; Jimmie has no access to the bathroom; but your share of the rent has been cut in half!

With the high average rent in Manhattan, subdividing a room and adding a roommate is certainly a way to bring down the rent.  But although these temporary floor-to-ceiling walls are commonplace, they usually violate NYC building code.  For various reasons the New York Department of Buildings has begun to investigate and look for violations more so than they have in the past.  Unless you and your landlord have jumped through several hoops - hired an architect, prepared plans, applied for approval, etc - it’s likely that you’re in violation.

If you’re not sure whether your temporary wall or room partition complies, ask your landlord (who you should have initially asked permission for the wall.) And if she or he is not sure, call 311 and request an inspection from the Department of Buildings.

If you have to take down the wall, at the very least there are always privacy screens and noise-cancelling headphones…

Category: NY Apartment LifeNo Comments.

Curious about the answer to the question, “what is the average rent in Manhattan?” The answer, unfortunately, are those annoying two words, “it depends.” To demonstrate, we’ve compiled numbers from two leading brokerages in NYC.  See for yourself just how much the answer “depends”:

The Real Estate Group of New York (TREGNY) reports the following in their Manhattan Rental Market Report™:

Studio (with doorman): $2,367

One Bedroom (with doorman): $3,428

Two Bedrooms (with doorman): $5,327

Prudential Douglas Elliman, which doesn’t break-out data of doormen versus non doormen units, reports the following in their Manhattan Rental Market Overview:

Studios (doorman & non-doorman): $2,417

One Bedroom (doorman & non-doorman): $3,094

Two Bedrooms (doorman & non-doorman): $5,021

What do these numbers tell us?  They tell us that there is no exact number; different data sets and different ways of calculating will always arrive at different numbers.  But by looking at the above numbers, you can get a good range of answers to the age-old-question, “what is the average rent in Manhattan?”

Not satisfied?  Just want one final answer?  Prudential Douglas Elliman blends all their Manhattan apartments and gives us one number.  According to their report, the overall average in January, February and March of 2010 was:

$3,812

Does that $3,812 number seem about right?  Take a look and check out rents on all the latest Manhattan Apartments at Naked Apartments.

Category: NY Apartment LifeNo Comments.