Brooklyn’s rental market hit a new milestone in February, but not the one renters were hoping for.<\/p>\n
The median rent in Brooklyn climbed to a record high of $4,296 last month, a 7.5% jump from a year ago, according to the Corcoran Group’s February 2026 rental market report.<\/p>\n
Every apartment size saw record or near-record average rents. Three-bedroom units were up 20% year-over-year to $7,621, tying the highest average ever recorded for that unit type. One and two-bedroom averages also hit new all-time highs.<\/p>\n
The report shows the number of available units rose 6% across Brooklyn, compared to last year. But apartments are sitting empty for an average of two months, which is 32% longer than a year ago, and the longest stretch in three years.<\/p>\n
Gary Malin, chief operating officer of the Corcoran Group, said the numbers reflect a market that has priced out a significant portion of renters.<\/p>\n
“It tells you that although it’s available, and although people would love to live in these neighborhoods, the cost is very expensive,” Malin said.<\/p>\n
Leasing activity is up sharply across most of the borough. Roughly 1,166 leases were signed in February, up 39% from a year ago.<\/p>\n
Carroll Gardens, Gowanus and Red Hook saw the most dramatic surge, with new leases jumping more than 200% year-over-year, driven in part by an influx of new rental buildings in Gowanus.<\/p>\n
Leases in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill were also up sharply, rising 127%. Greenpoint and Williamsburg remain the borough’s priciest neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
Malin attributes the high rent prices to a shortage of available housing, and points to rent legislation as an unintended contributor.<\/p>\n
“It’s really a supply issue and a legislation issue,” Malin said. “If you can work on those two things, it will make things more affordable. More competition means prices do need to come down.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brooklyn’s rental market hit a new milestone in February, but not the one renters were hoping for. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[11524,7352,23268,6722,98,100,99,12749,4308,3012,464,2422,9,24,63,18392,71925,1424],"class_list":["post-177798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-apartment","tag-apartment-building","tag-apartment-complex","tag-apartments","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-carroll-gardens","tag-clinton-hill","tag-fort-greene","tag-gowanus","tag-greenpoint","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-red-hook","tag-rent-hikes","tag-williamsburg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}