New York City’s rents continued to soar in the month before Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor.
According to new data from Miller Samuel Inc. and Douglas Elliman, the median rent for all new Manhattan apartment leases in October was $4,600, up by 7.1% from one year earlier. October’s median rent marked the third-highest figure ever recorded for that market. In Manhattan’s luxury real estate market, median prices reached $11,995, a 20% year-over-year spike.
Elsewhere in the city, the median rent on an apartment lease in Brooklyn was $3,850, up 6.9% year-over-year and the third-highest level ever recorded. In Northwest Queens where Mamdani resides, the median rent was $3,598, up 7.4% from October 2024.
Although Mamdani pledged to enact a freeze on rent-stabilized apartment while bringing in other socialist-tinged policies including city-run grocery stores and free buses, his messaging did not seem to scare off residents prior to his election.
“You can’t have rising rent prices and leasing activity if there’s an exodus from the city – it shows just the opposite,” said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, in a Bloomberg interview. “Housing affordability is getting worse.”
