This piece about the national unemployment rate dropping to 8.8% was good news. Since all economics is local, I'm even more pleased to see that it's 8.7% in New York State. It's slightly higher in New York City, but the data includes all five boroughs, not just Manhattan. The Bronx, which has a ridiculously high unemployment rate, skews the numbers.
According to this chart, unemployment in Manhattan is less then 8.0% While still high, it's lower than it was last year.
A few days ago Business Insider ran the following chart that also implies an increase in hiring.
This is the private payrolls diffusion index. When the breadth of industries adding jobs is as wide as it is, payrolls will advance.
All this means that as a tenant -- in Manhattan -- you can't belly ache that the economy is bad and therefore the rent shouldn't go up. (I've been getting a lot of that lately.) If people are employed, then their $3000 apartment from two years ago is now going to be $3200 or more, because the owner can clearly get $3200 from a new tenant.
There's another, more basic reason for rising rents in Manhattan: inflation. Prices go up over time. You don't need a Ph.D in economics to know this. Landlords are running a business, not a charity. To think that rent will never go up, despite the rising cost of heating oil, basic maintenance, local taxes, etc. is silly. While you may be renter, the owner is just that -- a building owner -- and he is absorbing all the costs of owning real property. If a boiler needs to be replaced or a roof patched, it will be reflected in your rent -- recession or no recession.
And that, mes amis, is why the brief, halcyon days on lower rents in Manhattan is finished.
