New research shows rent skyrocketing across Manhattan
NEW YORK -- New Yorkers are getting priced out when it comes to rent.
The median rent in Manhattan hit a record high of $4,000 in May, the highest price ever reported by the brokerage Douglas Elliman.
That number is up 25 percent from May of last year. It's being attributed to a post-pandemic boom and high mortgage rates.
Demonstrators marched through the streets of Bushwick, Brooklyn, on Thursday, chanting "The tenants united will never be defeated" and "Housing is a human right."
Protesters told CBS2's Dick Brennan they can barely get by as rents soar citywide.
"It's just ridiculous. Everybody is not rich," Brownsville resident Brenda Lott said.
Lott says she was homeless for a time.
"Not because I could not pay the rent, but I couldn't afford it," she said.
Rafael Casiano fears he's going to be forced out of Washington Heights.
"Because of gentrification, a lot of Latinos in the community are being pushed farther north, either to the Bronx or to New Jersey or other states," he said.
The Rent Guidelines Board is holding hearings on its proposal to raise rents for a one-year lease 2-4 percent and a two-year lease 4-6 percent.
"If these rent increases come through ... how much more eviction cases will be filed by Christmas time?" East Harlem resident Pilar deJesus said.
"The same thing that tenants are feeling, we as small property owners are feeling as well," property owner Jan Lee said.
Lee's family has owned two buildings in Chinatown since the 1920s with 100 percent rent-stabilized units.
"For a whole three generations of my family, tenants have been discussing their hardships across the kitchen table with my family," Lee said.
But he says it's very tough for property owners to keep up with rising costs.
"Fantastic increases in fuel costs and insurance and water prices and Con Edison prices for electricity," he said. "The roof still needs to be repaired. The façade of the building still needs to be repaired."
Lee says both tenants and small property owners have to find solutions because if they don't, both sides will be forced out.