Off peak apartment hunting is a luxury many New Yorkers can never have, but those who can often hope to land a much sweeter deal relative to their peak season peers. Specifically, off peak hunting means you plan to sign an apartment lease during a typically low traffic time of the year, such as the middle of the winter. The logic is, although no one really wants to move in the painful cold of the winter, it is far preferable to competing with a huge wave of incoming Wall Street analysts and other fresh university graduates during the hustle of the summer. Today Rent Hop explores the basic question: Are apartments cheaper or easier to obtain in the winter months?
The chart below shows the leasing activity of each month as a percentage of the full year, taking publicly available statistics from one of our Manhattan-exclusive landlords and aggregating across all of the buildings under management. According to the data, the amount of leasing activity in the month of July is 257% of the leasing activity in December, and more than the leasing activity in October and November combined! In fact, the six months from March through August claims 62.2% of all the leasing activity, almost double the six months from September through February.
Of course, this doesn’t mean rents are necessarily lower in the off peak months. Although the demand is lower, the supply of available apartments tend to be lower as well! However, should you find a vacant apartment that meets your needs, the landlords are certainly more willing to negotiate, knowing that a suitable renter may not come along for another few weeks. Even if you can not obtain a lower rent, you may be able to take possession of the unit earlier or later than what the landlord originally intended, pay a smaller deposit, or land other perks.
If your lease expires in the middle of the peak season, you can try to sign a 6-month or even 18-month lease with your landlord, in order to get the off-peak season. Best of all, if you sign a one year lease on the off peak season, you will be off peak again the next year when your lease expires, discouraging your landlord from raising rents too quickly.
Right now, as we move into off peak season, some of our landlords are offering excellent perks on top of their no-fee apartments. Claridge House (201 East 87TH ST), run by Milford Management, is offering one month free rent on top of their no fee apartments.  Stonehenge is offering one month of free rent for one of their one-bedroom units at The Olivia (315 W. 33rd St.), one month free for a two-bedroom at The Ritz Plaza (235 W. 48th St.), and one month free for several of their three-bedrooms at Stonehenge 65 (360 East 65th Street). Another excellent Midtown no-fee apartment is a junior-one at Central Park Mews (117 W 58th ST), managed by ATA Enterprises.
