Broker describes unit’s ‘efficient footprint’ and ‘motivated natural light situation’ in listing that received more interest than any property in the building’s history
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK — A 90-square-foot room in a Hell’s Kitchen building, listed by a real estate broker as an “intimate pied-a-terre with efficient footprint and motivated natural light situation” at $3,800 per month, received 47 applications within its first 48 hours on the market, according to the listing agent, who described the interest as “very strong for the asset class” and “indicative of robust demand in the micro-unit segment,” and which housing advocates described as “indicative of a housing crisis severe enough that people are competing to overpay for a room the size of a parking space.”
The Unit in Question
The apartment, which is technically classified as a single room occupancy unit rather than a conventional apartment and whose listing therefore operates in a regulatory gray area that the broker characterized as “a flexible zoning context,” measures 90 square feet excluding the bathroom, which is shared with one other unit on the floor. The listing includes photographs taken with a lens that an architectural photographer consulted by this publication described as “extremely wide-angle, almost certainly a 10mm equivalent, which is a legitimate technique for showing rooms that would otherwise look like what they are.”
The listing description, quoted here in full because it is a document that deserves to exist permanently in the historical record, reads: “Intimate pied-a-terre in prime Hell’s Kitchen location. Efficient footprint maximizes intentional living. Motivated natural light situation with east exposure (note: morning sun, creative shadow afternoon). Steps to theater district, world-class dining, and the pulse of Manhattan. Shared bath creates community. High ceilings (8.5 ft.) create vertical spaciousness. Ideal for the discerning New Yorker who values location over excess. Utilities: tenant responsible. Broker fee: one month’s rent. Available immediately.”
The “high ceilings create vertical spaciousness” line was noted by several applicants, one of whom, in their cover letter, said they had specifically appreciated the description because it was “technically accurate while doing enormous work.”
The 47 Applicants
The broker confirmed that forty-seven completed applications were received, that twenty-three applicants offered above asking rent to improve their chances, and that three offered to pre-pay six months in advance. The highest offer was $4,400 per month from an applicant who described themselves in their cover letter as a “location-first person who works in finance and is away most weekends,” a profile the broker described as “essentially ideal for the unit.”
The New York Daily News contacted six of the applicants who agreed to be interviewed. All six described themselves as frustrated by the housing market. All six acknowledged that $3,800 for 90 square feet was “objectively insane.” All six said they had applied anyway because, as one put it, “the alternative is continuing to look and I have been looking for four months and this is the first thing I could maybe afford in a neighborhood where I could actually get to work.”
Housing Context
New York City’s apartment vacancy rate stands at 1.4 percent, the lowest recorded in fifty years, according to data from the city’s Housing and Vacancy Survey. The average rent for a Manhattan studio apartment is $3,400 per month. The average rent for a one-bedroom is $4,200. Median household income in New York City is approximately $70,000 per year, which at standard affordability benchmarks suggests that a New Yorker earning median income can afford approximately $1,750 per month in rent, a figure that rents as a category stopped making contact with somewhere around 2018.
“The math does not work for most people,” said Dr. Kim Park-Stevens of the NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, in what may be the most understated description of the New York housing market in academic circulation. “The supply is insufficient. The affordability gap is significant. The regulatory environment has not kept pace with demand. The unit you are describing is a symptom of a system operating at an extreme.”
The unit was rented to the finance professional who offered four months’ advance payment. She has been in residence for three weeks. She says it is fine. She is away most weekends. The remaining forty-six applicants are still looking. The city, per official communications, is working on the housing situation. The situation is working on the city at roughly the same pace.
The Housing Rights Initiative, a nonprofit that monitors New York City’s rental market for regulatory violations, flagged the Hell’s Kitchen listing as potentially non-compliant with the city’s loft law and SRO regulations governing minimum habitable space and shared bathroom requirements. The organization submitted an inquiry to the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development asking whether the unit had been properly registered and whether the shared bathroom arrangement met code. HPD confirmed receipt of the inquiry and said it was “under review.” The unit has been occupied for three weeks. The tenant says it is fine. She is away most weekends. HPD’s review is expected to conclude before the end of the fiscal year, which ends in June, which is three months from now, by which point the tenant will have paid $11,400 for a room the size of a parking space that was, while she was parking herself in it, technically under regulatory inquiry. She is, she reiterated when contacted, fine.
Covering New York’s housing in miniature at The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine.
Also competing for space at The Onion | Gothamist | NewsThump
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/nyc-90-square-foot-apartment-3800-month-47-applications-manhattan/