Buying a home in NYC costs city dwellers a shocking amount more per month than renting: report
New Yorkers dreaming of trading their rental keys for a home of their own are facing a brutal reality — one in which they’re squeezed on both sides.Buying a typical home in the Big Apple now costs nearly $7,000 more per month than renting, thanks to languishing high mortgage rates — making saving for that dream purchase impossible these days as rents hit yet another record high.The monthly cost of purchasing a median-priced home in New York City reached a hefty $10,737 in the third quarter of 2026 — a whopping $6,952, or 184%, more than the city’s median asking rent of $3,785, according to a new Realtor.com report.And while home prices have dipped slightly, it doesn’t make much of a difference.The median listing price in the city fell 2% year-over-year to roughly $1.41 million, bringing the estimated monthly cost of ownership down about 1%, or $107, from a year earlier.But mortgage rates climbed above 7% in late September, in the fourth quarter of the year.At that rate, the monthly cost of buying the same home would jump to approximately $11,008 — $164 more than a year ago.The calculations assume a 10% down payment on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and include estimated property taxes, homeowners insurance, and fees including common charges and maintenance.Meanwhile, renting isn’t exactly getting cheaper either.The city’s median asking rent hit a record $3,785 in the third quarter, up $162, or 4.5%, from a year earlier — its highest level since Realtor.com began tracking the data in 2019.
That puts rents $816, or 27.5%, above pre-pandemic levels.“NYC’s record-high rents in Q3 2026 are largely the result of sustained rental demand and a shortage of rental inventory,” Jiayi Xu, senior economist at Realtor.com, told The Post.To make things even worse moving forward, a Mamdani campaign pledge that recently became official.“Looking ahead, the rent freeze that took effect on Oct.1 could add upward pressure on market rents.
The freeze bars rent...