7420 Empty Apartments In Manhattan

7420 Apartments In Manhattan hold this distinction right now. Here Scott examines what it means for the economy.

Full transcript:

Scott Rasmussen  0:07  

Good morning, Scott Rasmussen here. Welcome to my podcast. Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day, every weekday morning, I pick a number that I think is interesting. And obviously, I hope you'll find it interesting as well. And I use it to explore the world around us. Now, I'm a pollster, I love numbers. But I recognize most people don't. So this is not a place to come if you really want to find a detailed numerical analytical approach where you get all kinds of numbers thrown at you and your eyes glaze over. Instead, I pick up a number to focus on and talk about the context that it fits in. What can we learn about life in 21st century America from this number? How does it fit into what we're seeing and feeling around us? much of the time, the numbers come from polls that I've conducted, but not always and not today. Today's number is 7420. There are 7420 empty apartments for rent in Manhattan. That's the largest number for as long as they've been keeping records. Big deal here in New York City, that there are so many vacancies. Now you may be saying what do I care? I don't live in Manhattan, and I'm never going to live there. But what's happening in Manhattan provides an example of some of the things that are going to happen around the country. And by the way, just because our city is so large here, it will have some spillover effects. So I'm going to be back in a moment talking about how this number, 7420 empty apartments in Manhattan, tells us something about what's coming for life after the pandemic. I'll be right back. 

Scott Rasmussen  1:51  

Welcome back to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. I'm Scott and today's number 7420. There are 7420 empty Apartments for Rent in Manhattan. Now I want to put that in a little bit of perspective. That's the largest number ever recorded, now they've only been keeping records about 15 years, but still, it's the largest number they've ever recorded here in the city. Not only that, the rental inventory is up 34% from a year ago, the number of new leases signed last month down 62%. You know, this is really a troubled market. Before I talk about it, I've got to make a quick confession. I love New York. I live here. I believe that over the past generation, it has lived up to the hype of being the greatest city in the world. You can't walk down the street without feeling the energy of just feeling more alive than you were before you get up in the morning because this place is so vibrant. But shortly after the pandemic began or hit the nation and shortly after the lockdowns went into effect, I was trying to write a column and I was looking out my window and it was rush hour or it should have been rush hour. And the streets were completely empty. It was a really depressing sight. 

Scott Rasmussen  3:11  

And then hit me that the coronavirus was going to be the end of New York as we know it. New York City, what I believe again, has been the greatest city in the world, instantly became a city of the past. A city that thrived in an era that is no longer with us. That's partly confirmed by today's number of the day, the vast number of empty rental apartments suggests big change is coming to New York. And I got to point out it's not just going to be the rental market, or at least not the residential rental market, office space, I expect that there's going to be huge vacancies. Why? Well, a lot of big companies are figuring out right now you don't have to have all your people together in a center city to make things work. Yes, there's always a need to bring people together. But I'll bet a lot of companies right now are calculating how they can get out of their leases how much space they can get by with that will have an impact. And then you take the next level steps, you know what happens to say music, which is one of the things I love about New York, all the places that had music, well, you know what, when they reopen, they're all going to be allowed to open to the 25 or 50% capacity. They're not going to hire musicians, they're not going to spend that money to get people in when they can't get people in. So a lot of things will go together and make life very difficult for Manhattan. And obviously, the dynamics will be different in other parts of the country. But we'll begin to see a lot of different effects from this Coronavirus. I suspect that when historians look back on this era, they'll they'll begin to define things as before or after.

Scott Rasmussen  4:52  

And there will be this belief that you know, the pandemic did it that's what changed everything. I think That's partially true. But it's really a larger sense. What happens is the pandemic is accelerating trends that were already taking place. How do I get to that? Well, take a look at today's number again, we have all these rental vacancies and the market is soft, what's been hardest hit? The hardest hit part of the rental market has been the biggest and most expensive apartments. People who are more affluent are more likely to be leaving right now. Sure, that's partly because they have more options. But it's also accelerating a change that began a couple of years ago, when the federal government passed the tax law and eliminated the full deduction of state and local taxes. Well, that really hurt wealthy Americans. They're the ones who pay those taxes. And a lot of them lived right here in New York, within three months of that tax law going into effect, prices for luxury units here in New York City, Phil, I can't remember the exact number 20-25% big collapse in that market because of the tax law. So you have that putting a lot of people on edge, maybe having one foot out the door. The pandemic says, Okay, that's it. We're out of here. 

Scott Rasmussen  6:17  

And then on top of that, of course, we've had protests here in the city. Most of them had been very peaceful. We've had some people going by our door, and been fine. But there have also been violent protests. And for a lot of people that instilled a new level of fear. In fact, again, in my neighborhood, while there was no particular violence, we saw store after store boarded up, they were shut down. They were frustrated, and then they became afraid. You put all of these things together the tax laws which make it more difficult to live in New York, the pandemic which makes it a little bit scarier. And then you have the the protests for a lot of small business owners that's three strikes, they're going to be out of here. Now, as we look ahead, I don't know exactly what's going to happen. New York is a resilient city, it will come back in some way, it will have to reinvent itself. But it will not be the city it was before. People will look at it differently. And people all around the country are reevaluating their choices based on what we're learning through this pandemic. Again, I think what's actually happening is this is forcing us... it's accelerating changes that were already taking place. It's forcing us to address questions about how can virtual meetings be beneficial. And by the way, we're also learning about the tremendous importance of social interaction. What's the end result? Again, I don't know, but I suspect mega cities like New York will suffer. I believe midsize cities will do very well. The areas and other parts of the country are going to feel a little bit different as we've gone through this experience together. I'll be back with some closing thoughts right after this.

Scott Rasmussen  8:15  

Welcome back to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. I'm Scott, today's number 7420. That's the number of empty rental apartments or empty apartments available for rent in Manhattan. You know, look, I've used this to suggest that the era of New York is the greatest city in the world may be coming to an end, I think it is coming to an end or maybe it's already ended. And I say that with sadness, I love this city. It's my home. I've been around it for much of my life. But it's changing and change is coming throughout the nation. As sad as I am about what's happening in New York and as sad as I am about so many other things that are happening in this pandemic, the world that we're leaving behind, I remain very optimistic about America's future. And the reason I can be so optimistic, you know, I think it hit me when I was watching the SpaceX launch go up a few weeks ago, a private company, putting a rocket, using it, or using a rocket to send two astronauts into space. And then it brought back great memories of the glory years of NASA and watching the space program and the race to the moon. But at the same time, there was another eerie similarity. And that was the success, the excitement, the opportunity, the technology, the space launch was taking place amidst a backdrop of racial tensions and protests, forcing our nation to deal with this long standing troubling issues of race. And when I begin to think about the dynamics of things that are happening in America today, it feels an awful lot like that. During the late 60s and early 70s, very troublesome period, status quo will be up ended. Change is coming in will be chaotic and unpredictable. And bluntly a lot of it will be very uncomfortable. But when we get through at all, I remain confident that the American people still embrace our core founding ideals of freedom, equality, self governance. We don't do any of them perfectly. We're really struggling with the equality point right now. And again, our efforts of freedom, defining freedom or defining self governance and practicing it, something that, well, we're human, so it'll never be achieved perfectly. But those goals are very important. And I believe those goals are still embraced by the American people. And as we go through this turbulent period of the next several years, I believe that when we come out, we'll be a little closer to living up to those ideals. I'm Scott Raskin. Listen, I hope you will share this podcast with your friends hope you'll subscribe. You can also check out my number the day online at valid pbs.org every single morning. Also release a daily poll at Just the News calm. So check that out. And I'll be back 8am Eastern tomorrow morning with another number of the day. Have a great day.