Bjarke Ingels’ West 57th Street project in New York (developed by The Durst Organization) has just started renting apartments (March 1).
Since I’m in the rental business, I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at the rents – though I tend to obsess over all buildings and not just rental ones.
Firstly, the project has a total of 709 apartments and 178 different unit types because of the architectural variations in the building. Of these units, 142 of them (20%) have been designated as affordable and were offered up via a lottery to people who fall within certain incomes ranges.
Here are the affordable rents via 6sqft.com:
I don’t know the exact numbers, but Curbed New York speculated – based on what was seen at other buildings on the west side – that the total number of applicants for these 142 units may have reached over 100,000!
For the market-rate units, the average monthly rents are as follows (via Curbed NY):
Studio: $2,770
One-bedroom: $3,880
Two-bedroom: $6,500
Three-bedroom: $11,000
Four-bedroom: $16,500
I wasn’t able to find average unit sizes (to calculate per square foot rents), but I estimate the overall average unit size to be around 1,000 square feet.
940,000 sf (total gross floor area) - 45,000 sf of retail x 0.80 efficiency (lower than average because of the shape of the building) / 709 units = approximately 1,000 sf of rentable area per unit. That’s just my rough guess based on what I could find online.
Based on the Curbed comment section though, there are certainly some smaller units:
If anyone has any additional figures, please share them in the comments below. I think there are a few subscribers to this blog who are involved in the project.
Image from via57west.com
One aspect of the Toronto housing market that I’ve been paying close attention to is the adoption of multi-family dwellings by both long-term end-users and families.
I’ve written about this before (here and here, over a year ago) and have argued that here in Toronto we are at an inflection point. Multi-family dwellings – both rental and condo – are evolving to now target these new customer segments. Whereas previously, the new construction multi-family housing market was heavily geared towards investors and first-buyers. And often it was simply a stepping stone towards a single family home.
Now, every city and real estate market is different. And I have heard many people in U.S. cities say that Millennials are simply deferring what we saw with previous generations. At the end of the day they (or we, I’m a Millennial) are going to move to the suburbs and buy that car. The current trends we are seeing around city living and reduced driving are just that – short-term current trends.
But I think it’s worth reiterating: I do not believe that the status quo is what’s happening right now in Toronto. And I’m sure it’s also happening elsewhere. Time and time again I speak to developers in this city who are starting to shift at least some, and in some cases all, of their focus towards end-users, families, and larger units – particularly for new mid-rise product in the “neighborhoods.”
And if you think about it, this makes perfect sense.
The average price of a detached single family house in Toronto is well north of a million dollars. So when a developer brings to market a 1,200 sf family sized apartment at $600 psf ($720,000) or even at $700 psf ($840,000), that home now becomes a relatively “affordable” option in many desirable areas of the city. Particularly if you value location amenities and your time (i.e. shorter commutes) over raw quantity of space. I know I certainly do.
I know this isn’t going to appeal to everyone. But there is a big market here. Get ready.
What are you seeing in your city? Let us know in the comment section below.
Just a few days ago, The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco published an interesting research study where they argue that this U.S. housing boom is different than that of the early 2000s.
During the last boom, U.S. home prices peaked in 2006 and then dropped about 30% in the wake of The Great Recession. Since then prices have rebounded – almost to their pre-recession levels. This has some people asking whether this story is headed towards the same ending.
“We find that the increase in U.S. house prices since 2011 differs in significant ways from the mid-2000s housing boom. The prior episode can be described as a credit-fueled bubble in which housing valuation—as measured by the house price-to-rent ratio—and household leverage—as measured by the mortgage debt-to-income ratio—rose together in a self-reinforcing feedback loop. In contrast, the more recent episode exhibits a less-pronounced increase in housing valuation together with an outright decline in household leverage—a pattern that is not suggestive of a credit-fueled bubble.”
And here’s the chart:
Source: Flow of funds, Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), CoreLogic, and BLS. Data are seasonally adjusted and indexed to 100 at pre-recession peak.