North Jersey is now tougher to rent in than Brooklyn and Queens as house hunters face fierce competition
New Yorkers hoping to escape the city’s cutthroat rental market by crossing the Hudson River may be in for a rude awakening.North Jersey has emerged as a tougher place to land an apartment than either Brooklyn or Queens, according to a new RentCafe rental competitiveness report, as renters across the region battle for a limited pool of available homes.The Garden State swath ranked 18th among the nation’s most competitive large rental markets, ahead of Queens at No.22 and Brooklyn at No.
26, according to the report published in October.But North Jersey’s edge isn’t solely necessarily driven by more apartment hunters — it’s that existing tenants simply aren’t leaving.“North Jersey’s competitiveness is being driven less by a surge in apartment seekers than by how few existing renters are moving,” Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence at Yardi Matrix, told The Post.“That combination limits the number of apartments returning to the market, so even though the area has cooled modestly from last year, renters are still competing for a relatively small pool of available units,” he added.In North Jersey, an average of 10 prospective tenants compete for every available apartment, while nearly 95% of rental units are already occupied.Roughly 71% of existing tenants renewed their leases, leaving fewer openings for newcomers.Queens, meanwhile, has become an increasingly difficult place to find a rental, climbing 10 spots nationally to No.
22.The borough now has an average of 11 renters vying for each vacant apartment, with occupancy reaching 95.2%.Available units are snapped up in an average of just 37 days, faster than in both North Jersey and Brooklyn.The average vacancy period in Queens fell from roughly 44 days in summer 2025 to just 37 days this year, helping lift the borough’s competitiveness score by 2.6 points despite a slight decline in lease renewals.The findings come as New York City’s median asking rent hit a record $3,785 in th...