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If you love something, let it go … unless it’s a New York City apartment.
While the national average renter tends to stay put in their homes for 28 months, New Yorkers tend to linger longer. That’s according to a recent report by the apartment search website RentCafe, which measured early-2025 rental market competitiveness in 139 US markets, including Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.
“Folks are staying longer in their apartments,” said Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence at Yardi Matrix, which provides data to RentCafe. “Interest rates and the lack of supply of affordable housing is forcing that issue.”
Average stays range from 38 months, or just over three years, in Manhattan, all the way up to an impressive 51 months, or 4.25 years, in Queens.
The average renter in Brooklyn is staying 42 months, or 3.5 years, according to the report.
The data from which the findings were pulled encompasses January, February and March, but prime renting season is just heating up. Renters can expect a more frantic environment in the cutthroat environment of late summer, when a majority of renters renew their leases or find a new apartment.
The data gives clearer insight into one of the many reasons that the Big Apple’s rental market remains challenging. Increased bidding wars have been documented in pockets across the city.
With demand high and supply low, compounded by an increasingly uncertain economy, New Yorkers are feeling anything but restless.
“There’s still a housing gap, and it’s taken over a decade to create that gap,” Ressler said. “It’s not going to be solved in the near term. So people are going to be renting longer.”
First-time homebuyers are older than ever before, according to the National Association of Realtors. More would-be homeowners, who might otherwise make room for more renters by trading in a lease for a deed, are sticking to renting in the face of high mortgage rates and unaffordable home prices.
Regardless of supply changes or demand shifts, this is still New York City. When a renter finds The One, they don’t let it go. And besides, New Yorkers tend to get attached to their block, Ressler said.
“Community evolves around these housing cohorts, especially in urban cores. It really becomes quite prominent,” Ressler said. “They [renters] want to be able to go get the pizza where they always go.”