We're still making fun of people for moving to Brooklyn, but we're eating rice and pinto beans five times a week for the privilege: according to a report released by New York City's largest real estate firm, Manhattan rents went up in January, a time when you can typically count on snagging a deal. "While a few more landlords used incentives to attract clientele…building owners were able to charge more than they did during December, which is unusual for this time of year," Citi Habitats president Gary Malin says in a release. Malin is more blunt speaking to the Times: "Everything at this point is going in landlords' favor." more ›

The Real Estate Group of New York released its August data on the Manhattan rental market yesterday, "Renters have been able to take advantage of relatively bargain prices, which continue to significantly lag in year-over-year trends, while this flurry of activity has led to decreasing inventories around Manhattan good news for landlords and property managers." Notably, in non-doorman buildings, rents for studios dropped 8.03% vs. August 2008, while one-bedrooms were down 5.92% and two-bedroms fell 8.24%; in doorman buildings, studios were -7.09% (vs. August 2008), one-bedrooms -10.02% and two-bedroms -6.87%. TREGNY says "we’ve seen some landlords begin to test the market again this month with price increases," but "it seems to us that this is still a gamble unless one truly feels their current inventories can withstand the market’s current volatility." TREGNY's CEO Dan Baum added that landlords want their tenants, "The concessions out there right now are pretty aggressive." more ›