New York Rents Hit Record High Despite Mamdani’s Pledge to Lower Costs
Oct 27, 2026 at 10:03 AM EDT Defying Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to make New York housing more affordable, rents continued climbing across the city this summer. Median asking prices reached their highest level since Realtor.com started tracking data in 2019 between July and September. Rents across New York City hit a record high of $3,785 in the third quarter of the year, according to the latest Realtor.com data, up $162 from a year ago. It is $816, or 27.5 percent, above its pre-pandemic level. This shows how prices have soared in the city since the health emergency, while failing to come down as they have in other parts of the country. For rental units in smaller homes, the median asking rent rose 7.1 percent to $3,662—the sharpest increase in all segments as "affordability-minded renters" compete "for limited options," said Jiayi Xu, senior economist at Realtor.com. The cost of…
