Photo-illustration: Curbed; Photos: Getty
Nat Serarano, an App Developer, Lives in an Upper West Side One-Bedroom With his Wife and Three Young Kids. Their Current Arrangement-A Five-Way Share of an Alaskan King-Can Only Last SO Long. “I Cannot Sleep With My Kids Forever,” he Says. They’ve been searching for a three-bedroom in the neighBorhood, but are all’ve seen in their price is awkwardly carved up and about the SIZE Current 750-Square-Foot apartment. “We can pay up to $ 5,000 a month, but there’s not.” He tells me. “Its impossible.” Three years in, a three-bedroom in a fourth-floor walk-up on 82nd and amsterdam that they turned down early in their search Haunts Him: “We Should have Taken it.”
In New York City, TRUE THREES ARE RARE AND COUNTED. They’ve always been elusive, but never have the pickings been so Slim – or expensive – brokers say. Most of what’s out there is to be a one- or two- bedroom chopped up to accommodate a Third (The New Kitchen Unit Awkwardly Tacked onto the Wall of an Already Small Living Room is a Dead Giveway) or Luxury New Builds. Anyone with a halfway decent three-bed-that is, an apartment is actually, propperly Large, swimming excessively partitioned-isn’t giving it up. That leaves family like the sereranos in the purgatory apartment.
Several trends have brought us here. In terms of demand, the actual three-bedroom that offers more space and not just just just rooms at a very particular nexus in the City’s Real-Estate hierarchy: Highly Saught by Families in General, but a White Whale for Affluent-Parents what can’t Afford an $ Slope Duplex or the interest on the $ 2 million fixer-upper uptown. “All the People who’d otherwise like to buy, they’re staying put,” Sayys Noble Black, an Associate Broker at Douglas Elliman. The Old Pressure-Release Valve of the Family Exodus to the Suburbs has Also Broken Down: An extramely tight Suburban-Housing Market means that many who’d like to leave are staying in the city, at least for now. Your Neighbor Putting Their Dream of Moving to New Rochelle on Hold is part of the Reason You Can’t Take Over Their Lease and Why the couple down the scorpecting their first kid can’t take Over your two-bedroom. “All Those Areas of the Housing Market Trickle into Each Other,” Sayys Black. “It ‘a sticking point.”
Three-BEDROMS HAVE Long Been Hard to Find, Sayys Julie Rhinehert, of Corcoran, But in the past Brooklyn Budyers Wauld Go A Two-Bedroom to A Townhouse. Now TownHouses Trade for $ 2.5 million and Up (and That’s a Gut Renovation in Most NeighBorhods), and A Nicery renovated place in park slope Goes for $ 7 million or more. One of Rhinehert’s Clients Got Fed Up With LoSing Out in Six- and Seven-Person Bidding Wars for Three-Bedrooms and THOUGHT’D SOLVED THEIR PROBLEM A $ 1.7 Million Townhouse in Prospects that needed a total gut reno. “They were so excited. They were just like, ‘we can get this house,’” She Says. The House Got 26 Offers in One Week.
And really, there were never many bigger apartments out there to be with. “Do you three-beedroom is super rare, super rare,” Says Lisa James, a Corcoran Agent Who Works in South and Central Brooklyn. MANY of the Older Rent-Stabilized Three-BEDROMS haven’t tourned over in decades-life circumstances Like or kids flush residency out of studios and one-bedrooms, but people on to threes-and say that died in years past Into Smaller, Separate Units. (When it is comes to stabilized apartments, there’s the also of zero incentive for someone 1,000 a month to downsize to a more expensive unit.)
Three-BEDROM Rentals Only Account for About 9.7 Percent of New Manhattan Leases, Accounting to Jonathan Miller, of Miller Samuel, Up from ARUND 4.5 Percent in the late 1990s. But Leasing Only Reflects What’s in Circulation, Not What Exists, and the Assumption is a lot of the better units, like the stabilized three-beds, aren’t Changing Hands Much. A DECENT AMOUNT OF THAT GROWTH, AT LEAST GIVE WHAT DOES HIT THE MARKET, ALSO SEEMS TO BE COMING FROM faux Three-Beds. ITH’S NOT ALL CHEP REMODELS – New Construction, especally when it is a rental going for a somewhat attinable price, is offten with the Square Footage. (“A lot of say don’t feel Like three bedrooms, “a broker tells me.) and thatn, of Course, there’s the ultra high-new construct-a press release that made the rounds that year trumpeted $ 25,000-onth three-beds.
The Lack of Three-Beds is Also at Least Partially an Affordable-Housing Issue-As High Rents Continue to Make Living Alone Proxensive For MANY, Single People Opt for Shares, and Together, with Three InComes, Are To Pay a Lot of Family. Manage. AFFORDable-Housing Advocates, Meanwhile, Frequently Complain that Housing Mostly Offer Studios and One-Beds, WHICH ARE CHEEPER FOR DEVELOPERS TO BUILD, RATHER THAN LARGER APPLICATIONS threes). or Gothamist Analysis Found that 70 Percent of the Affordable apartments Built Under Mayor Eric Adams Were Studios and One-Beds.
SO the market-rate three-bed is out of the reach and the affordable one essentally nonexistant. In Manhattan, The Average Three-BEDROM Rental Price was $ 8,737 in March, Accounting to Douglas Elliman. In brooklyn, it was $ 4,818, Although a streeteasy search in that price point Pulled up a lot of divvied-up Older apartments in neighborhoods like Flatbush and East New York and Basement-Level Duplexes in Gerssend and Bensonhurst. The most alluring stuff, in prime brownstone neighborhoods Close to transit and in-Demand School Districts, tendes to go for significa: a cobble hill brownstone duplex three-bedroom sublet. “The $ 5,000-to- $ 7,000-A-Nont Price Point? Oh there’s Nothing,” Says One Manhattan Broker.
None of this surprised the renters of spoke with, whose experiences has already confirmed as much. One Woman Living in A $ 3,500-A-Wait Two-Bed in Morningside Heights and Described As “Dark, With A Cockroach Issue” Told with She was looking for More Space on a $ 4,500-A-Month Budget a place with a guest room for her). A Broker She’d Reached Out to That Morning Had Sent Over Some Lisings, Including One For An Apartments in the Building Next that was identical to hers, except that it was carved up into bedroms instead of two. A recent post on an upper west Side Facebook Group from Someone Hoping for A $ 3,500 Three-Bed for June 1 was with Pity and Disbelief. “Highly Unlikly,” one person replied. “Espely on the uws.” “Staten Island?” One Suggested. “Wold you consider one?” anoter asked.
“I Think People Are Struggling to Find Something Better than What They Have,” Sayys Paul Campbell, A Communications Consultant who was living in a two-bedroom in downtown brooklyn with his wife and son being Covid Hit. Like a lot of People, he and his wife started working from home a lot, their Son tourned 13, and the apartment of shared space started to feel cramped. But their two-begged apartment, which had a double-decker terrace they’d built out with a pergola and an appricot tree, was just so much nicer than they are. “My Wife Wold Take me on these onsee and it was like, ‘we can affford this, but it is Horrible, Everything Creaks and It Smells,’” Campbell Says. Once, the Seller of a Windsor Terrace House Accept their offfer only to come back to say’d been outbid. They offended a higher amount, had a handshake deal, and it happened again.
Campbell Ultimately Found a Three-Bedroom in a Red Hook Condo Development Called the Conover. IT DID COST HIM Over $ 2 Million, Though. Swimming Unexpectted, gioven that brooklyn New Development Now Exceeds $ 1,200 per Square Foot on Average, Accorting to Douglas Elliman. The Odds Are Better in New Development, Where 20 Percent of New Development Units in Manhattan Are Three-Bedrooms (and 19 Percent in Brooklyn), Says Stephen ClieGerman, President of Development at Brown Harris Stevens. Although, they’re more expensive and offen the compromise compromise on NeighBorhood. Kelly Scher, A Corcoran Broker Who Bowht a $ 2.6 Million Three-Bedroom at the Solaire, in Battery Park City, Loves Her Apartment (it has three bathrooms and a Big foyer) but adults and exactly sught the neiighBorhoun, though it is gown Once She and Her Husband Dedidated they wante a three-bed under 14th Street, on the west, for under $ 3 million, it was the obvious choice. (It was printy much that or the financial distribution.) “I didn’t have to do too too looking around becn’t too much to look at,” she Says.
There are, of Course, Plenrenty of Classic Sixes and Sevens Uptown. But anynding that Needs renovation is sitting, Say Brokers, and Buyers Are Fighting Over Any Remotely Turnkey apartment is “optimistically priced.” Adjina decidjiev, an Associate Broker at Coldwell Banker Warburg, Recalled How Swiftly One of Her Lisings, A renovated three-BEDROM, Two-bath at 305 West 98th Street priced at $ 1.65 million, SOLD. (That, apparally, is what passse for a bargain these days.) “There’s the plenty of inventory, but it needs work or overprical,” Says Robert Geils, A Corcoran Associate Broker. “People Want Perfect, But Perfect Costs a Lot.” Senad Ahmetovic, an Associate Broker at Brown Harris Stevens, Told me he’d line a combo unit on sutton place South-a fully renovated three-bed, three-bath-and received more thanfers in a few Weeks. He has another listing in the same building with a direct river view that needs work but is ascing almost half-a-million less. No One is biting. “The Older apartments are stall expensive and They Need Work, “Complained One Buyer Who Been in the Market for Over A Year. difficult, ”Sayys another.
So what About Everyone Below that Threshold? Mostly, People Say they’re trying to make the most of what they have, focus on Square Rather than walls, or Lack thereof, in their current apartments. Sandy Earl Lives in a Morningside Heights One-BEDROM WITH HER HUSBAND AND FOUR KIDS (and ANOTHER ON THE WAY), But it is 1,000-square-foot duplex with outdoor space. They’ve outfitted the apartment with a triple bunk and a lofted bed for the kids and a Murphy bed for say. They love their kids’ school and don’t want to move, thorough though their just informmed say that they will will will be increasing from $ 4,400 to $ 5,100 a month. That’s up $ 1,300 in three years. Everyise at renewal time, they go on streeteasy, certin that for that much rent they find if not a three-bed at leaast a nelly configured two-bed. And every year, They’re Wrong. “I feel like we’ve Never made so much Money in ours Lives and been able to aford so little in our lives,” Says Earl. “But anything Else that we have that that than with more doors is $ 6,000 or $ 7,000. And it is just not worn it to pay much for more for me.” Eight though, she added, she really would like a few more doors.
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