New York City Renters Statistics and Trends
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Finding an apartment in New York City can be difficult and expensive, whether you're moving out on your own for the first time or upgrading your current space. Here are some key facts a NYC renter needs to keep in mind while looking for a new home.
Quick facts on renting and homes in NYC
| What percentage of homes are rented (not owned) in NYC? | 67.5% |
| What is the median monthly rent in NYC? | $1,748 |
| What is the current median asking rent in NYC? | $3,900 |
| What is the median monthly cost of owning a home in NYC? | $3,087 |
| What is the median home size in NYC? | 2 bedrooms |
| What is the median home value in NYC? | $743,000 |
New York City includes five boroughs: Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, as well as Brooklyn and Queens (but no other parts of Long Island). The asking rent comes from StreetEasy as of May 2025.
Do more people rent or own in NYC?
Renting is vastly more popular than owning in New York.
Of the 3,394,750 occupied housing units in New York City, around two-thirds are rented. Slightly less than a third are owned by the people who live in them.
This is a stark contrast with the US as a whole, where 65.2% of homes are occupied by their owners.
Rented homes in New York City tend to have slightly fewer people (2.24 occupants) living in them than owner-occupied homes (2.63 occupants).
Costs of renting vs. owning
Owners pay more for housing, but renters put more of their income toward their homes.
In New York City, homeowners tend to spend substantially more per month on total housing costs than renters do. The median monthly cost of homeownership (including a mortgage) in New York is $3,087 per month. More than 52% of homeowners spend $3,000 or more per month on housing.
Meanwhile, the median rent in NYC is $1,748 per month. And 19.5% of New York renters spend less than $1,000 per month.
But people moving to New York will likely pay much more.
The current average asking rent — the amount advertised for vacant apartments — in New York City has increased to $3,900 as of May 2025.
That's according to the real estate listing site StreetEasy.
The difference in housing expenses evens out considerably when looking at how much of their income New Yorkers spend on housing, though. In fact, renters tend to spend a slightly higher proportion of their overall income on housing. Both commonly spend more than 35% of their income on housing. But renters (43%) do so more frequently than owners (35.8%).
Conversely, NYC renters (26%) are less likely to spend under 20% of their household income on housing than homeowners are (36.5%).
Note, "homeowners" only describes homes with an active mortgage.
Home size in NYC by bedroom
Home sizes in New York City vary considerably but tend to be smaller than the national average. Of the over 3.7 million homes (occupied or vacant) in the city, 71.1% have one or two bedrooms. And 10% of homes are studios (no separate bedroom), which are about three times as common in New York City than in the US as a whole.
Homes by number of bedrooms in New York City
Units | Percentage | |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | 372,097 | 10% |
| 1 bedroom | 1,100,475 | 29.7% |
| 2 bedrooms | 1,164,211 | 31.4% |
| 3 bedrooms | 791,786 | 21.4% |
| 4 bedrooms | 195,793 | 5.3% |
| 5+ bedrooms | 82,200 | 2.2% |
Building size in NYC
While the square footage of homes in New York City may be smaller than average, the buildings themselves are anything but. Nearly half (49%) of all homes are in buildings of 20 units or more.
In fact, New York City accounts for about 11.8% of all apartment buildings with 20 or more units in the United States. In the rest of the country, 61.1% of homes are detached, single-family structures. Homes in NYC are about three times more likely than in the country overall to be in a multifamily building.
Number of units in NYC buildings and homes
Number of units | Number of buildings | Percentage of NYC homes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 unit, detached | 331,864 | 9% |
| 1 unit, attached | 266,054 | 7.2% |
| 2 units | 442,439 | 12% |
| 3 or 4 units | 342,080 | 9.2% |
| 5 to 9 units | 257,150 | 7% |
| 10 to 19 units | 245,888 | 6.6% |
| 20 or more units | 1,814,812 | 49% |
Methodology
The data in this report is based on the US Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey (ACS) estimates for 2023, published in 2025.
The cost of current available apartments in NYC is from StreetEasy, an apartment rental site.
In all cases, the study is limited to the five boroughs of New York City: Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.
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