NYC Rent Growth Monitor: October 2026

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The NYC Rent Growth Monitor is a monthly breakdown of rent growth performance and momentum across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Data are sourced from Zillow’s Observed Rent Index (ZORI) — a smoothed, seasonally adjusted measure that is subject to revision. The current release reflects data through September 2026.

Main Takeaway: All five NYC boroughs are outpacing national rent growth, with the Bronx leading both annual gains and recent momentum. Growth over the past three months also exceeds the national pace in every borough except Queens.

Breakdown & Analysis

Across all residential rental property types, New York City rent growth remained ahead of the national trend through September. On a year-over-year basis, rents rose 4.3% across the NYC metro area, compared to 2.9% nationally. The Bronx led the boroughs at 6.2%, followed by Manhattan at 5.8% and Brooklyn at 5.4%. Queens recorded 3.7% growth, while Staten Island’s 3.0% gain placed even the slowest-growing borough above the US average.

Recent momentum points to continued pricing pressure. On a three-month average annualized basis, rent growth measured 5.2% across the NYC metro area, compared to 4.3% nationally. The Bronx again led at 9.6%, followed by Brooklyn at 7.1% and Manhattan at 6.1%. Staten Island’s 5.0% pace also exceeded the national benchmark. Queens was the exception at 3.9%, though its momentum remained above its own annual growth rate. Recent growth is running faster than the year-over-year gain in every borough, with particularly large gaps in the Bronx and Staten Island.

Limited rental availability helps explain the persistence of these increases. StreetEasy reported that citywide rental inventory fell 15.3% annually in September, with declines of 16.3% in Manhattan and 18.4% in Brooklyn. Growth also extends beyond the city’s most expensive neighborhoods, with recent momentum exceeding annual gains across areas of Washington Heights, Inwood, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Crown Heights. Taken together, the data suggest that pricing pressure remains broadly distributed, even as its intensity varies across boroughs and neighborhoods.

Methodology: Data are sourced from Zillow’s Observed Rent Index (ZORI), a smoothed, seasonally adjusted measure that is subject to revision. This monitor uses Zillow’s all-residential-rental ZORI series, which includes single-family and multifamily rentals, rather than its multifamily-only series. This release reflects data through September 2026. Three-month annualized growth compounds the average monthly growth rate over the latest three months for 12 months. Borough figures use county-level series; neighborhood observations use available ZIP-level series, whose boundaries approximate neighborhood geography.