Although most of the NYT real estate section stores are complete fluff pieces, this trend definitely seems to be true.

225 Grand filled up very quickly even though the rents are high and the apartments themselves are unremarkable (and another building like it is going up behind Gulls Cove).

And I have friends in 70 Greene who will be facing a $500 a month rent increase (!) when their leases expire. Crazy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/rea ... 89-9lrdcKTqvMQ21U1ALHJRSQ

"People are willing to pay astronomical rents, especially for elegant New York City properties,? said Gary Malin, the president of Citi Habitats. ?There?s a huge demand for luxury rentals, but also a lack of inventory, especially because there?s so little new construction"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/rea ... .html?hpw=&pagewanted=all

The reality is that most co-op boards are against subletting in their buildings, Mr. Saft said. ?When people are spending a million, two million, five million on an apartment,? he said, ?they don?t want the building being used as a hotel where people are constantly moving in and out.?

maybe they will finish 30 Columbus Avenue once and for all

A Rising Rental Market in the North

By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
Published: November 17, 2011

IT appears another housing boom is under way, but just for rentals.

Ground was recently broken on the RiverTrace at Port Imperial in West New York.

In northern New Jersey, where several big new buildings opened in the last few months, agents are describing the pace of leasing as ?incredible? and ?vigorous,? words that haven?t been used about the for-sale market in about five years.

Earlier this month, developers broke ground for three more rental buildings ? one in condominium-heavy Fort Lee, another in Jersey City?s historic Paulus Hook neighborhood, and a third at Port Imperial in West New York, with each expressing blazing confidence in the market.

Even investment analysts are sounding kind of bubbly. ?Should the current positive trending continue,? said Brian Whitmer, the director of Cushman & Wakefield?s metropolitan area Capital Markets Group, ?we could be on pace to revisit prerecession conditions in the near term.?

The average vacancy rate has been tightening, and the average rental rate creeping upward, since the spring of 2010, according to a market report published this month by Cushman & Wakefield.

By the end of this year, the average vacancy rate is expected to fall to 2.4 percent ? depths it hasn?t reached since 2007, Mr. Whitmer said. In the first nine months of this year, the average rent rose by 1.2 percent. It is headed back toward peak level of 2008: $1,968 a month.

Of all counties in northern New Jersey, Hudson has the highest average rent, $2,614 a month, according to the market report. And two of the recent groundbreakings were in Hudson.

The Roseland Property Company began work on RiverTrace, a $120 million waterfront tower at Port Imperial, the huge complex stretching into three towns along the Hudson. It will house 316 studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom rental units. And the BNE Real Estate Group started work on Warren@York, a 139-unit structure named for its corner site in Paulus Hook. It was originally planned to be a condominium.

BNE also broke ground in Bergen County, on another building previously planned to be a condominium. This one is called 2050Central, also after its address at the junction of Central Road and Central Avenue. Its 194 apartments will be the first new rentals put up in Fort Lee in decades, said Lisa Macchi, BNE?s executive vice president for sales and marketing.

Ms. Macchi and her counterpart at Roseland, Debra Tantleff, who is the vice president for development, spoke of ?seriously pent-up demand? for condo-quality rentals.

?For such a long time,? Ms. Tantleff said, ?there was no activity, no new product, just turmoil in the marketplace.? When Monaco Towers, Roseland?s 540-unit complex in Jersey City, opened last spring, company officials, and developers from other companies eager to build, exulted at the pace of leasing: 100 units a month in the first few months.

?That is representative of a change in mind-set of the overall marketplace,? Ms. Tantleff said. ?If somebody is going to make a move at this point, a lot more people are choosing to live in a rental than in a home.?

Mr. Whitmer of Cushman & Wakefield echoed the view that attitudes had generally shifted. ?We may continue to hear that the economy is shaky and employment uncertain,? he said, ?but landlords simply are not seeing the same level of apprehension in renters today as they did two and three years ago. The trend of doubling up with a roommate is no longer the dominant circumstance, since studios and one-bedrooms are in the highest demand.?

Monaco Towers, originally planned as condos, is pitched at the high end for rentals: studios start at $2,600 a month. At Harrison Station in Harrison, a slightly less high-end project that opened after Labor Day, leasing also seems to be happening at a smart pace, given that it is the first ?luxury? rental in a so-called emerging market.

?In the first nine weeks, we had 107 applicants, and 63 have already moved in,? said Jacqueline Urgo, the president of Marketing Directors, the Manhattan-based agency that is handling leasing for Ironstate Development, the builder. ?This is absolutely incredible considering that a neighborhood was being created from scratch.?

In its first phase, Harrison Station has two buildings with 275 units set next to a PATH station and across from the New York Red Bulls soccer stadium, which opened last year.

Rents start in the $1,200s for studios, the $1,500s for one-bedrooms, and the $2,000s for two-bedrooms. No-fee amenities include 24-hour doormen, an outdoor pool, a lounge, and a gym and volleyball court.

Another large rental, the Vue, the housing component of the Gateway Transit Village, will begin leasing at the end of this month in downtown New Brunswick near the Rutgers University campus. It is the residential component of a 24-story mixed-use tower set across the street from the train station, and connected to it by a ?skywalk? across College Avenue.

The Vue has 150 apartments on Floors 9 through 20. There are 42 condominium penthouses on the top floors. One-bedrooms rent for $1,710 and up; two-bedrooms start at $2,270.

The building resulted from a public-private partnership between Pennrose and the New Brunswick Development Corporation, known as Devco, a nonprofit building arm for the city of New Brunswick.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/rea ... north.html?ref=realestate