NEW YORK CITY — Apartment rental inventory in one borough in New York City has been on the decline for two years straight, a new market report detailed.
According to StreetEasy’s February market report, Manhattan’s 24-month decline in rental inventory is the longest consecutive streak recorded by the listing platform.
While 2025 saw the most new rentals created in the last decade in the city, with nearly 19,000 new units — Just 13.8 percent of those new units were in Manhattan or 2,575 in total.
By comparison, Brooklyn saw 11,167 new units, more than four times that of Manhattan. In Queens, 3,644 units were added.
Only 2.8 percent of all Manhattan rentals on the market in 2025 were new construction, according to StreetEasy.
New York City rental inventory fell 5.5 percent from a year ago to 25,989 units in February.
Manhattan led the decline in the city’s inventory with a 3.5 percent drop in February.
Rental supply in the borough has not kept up with surging demand since the onset of return-to-office policies in 2022, leading to declining vacancy rates and accelerating rent growth, according to the report.
In 2025, one in five new rentals in the Bronx was new construction, the highest in NYC. In Brooklyn and Queens, 12.6 percent and 11.5 percent of rentals were new construction.
Due to the limited new construction units in Manhattan, the median asking rent for prewar buildings increased by 10.4 percent year-over-year to $3,975, while rents for post-2010 units stayed unchanged at $5,600.
You can read the full StreetEasy report here.