The recession is over! And because of that it's even more expensive to live in Manhattan. Compared to 2009, 2010 rents jumped 6.2% for studios, 7.2% for one bedrooms and 5.2% for two bedrooms. And because of the economic bounceback, real estate brokers and landlords aren't offering things like one month free rent or waived broker fees like they were when the economy was bad worse. However, the Manhattan vacancy rate was 1.34% in December, up from 0.88% in July. Not that brokers would lower prices; we wouldn't want any riff raff moving in.