Report: Rents in Yonkers up a whopping 10.7 percent this year
YONKERS, Westchester County (WABC) -- Rents have risen by 10.7 percent in Yonkers this year, according to the website RentCafe's yearly Apartment Market Report, which measured rent increases between March of 2017 and March 2018.
"The reason is that owners are complaining, everything went up, so why not the rent," said Randa Rabadi, a real estate salesperson at Century 21, Dawn's Gold Realty, who handles between 50 and 75 rentals a year.
RentCafe's list of the Most Significant Rent Changes reveals Yonkers' rent increase was the third highest for a small city, just behind a 37.1 percent increase in Odessa, Texas, and a 29.9 percent increase in Midland, Texas.
"A one bedroom average price should be no more than $1,400, in my opinion," Rabadi said. "I feel $1,400 is good enough. It includes heat and hot water, electricity. And cooking gas they have to pay for."
RentCafe's national average monthly rent in March of this year was $1,371.
Wanda Townes, who has an apartment in Yonkers, has seen her rent nearly double in 10 years.
"It was 9 something, $999, now it's $1,735," she said. "And they also changed it where now I pay for my own heat and electricity, everything."
The website points to a lack of new apartments and an improving economy as reasons for the increases.
Of RentCafe's list of top 10 highest rents nationwide, Manhattan leads the list at $4,066, Jersey City at $2,825, and Brooklyn at $2,688.
RentCafe is a nationwide apartment search website. It analyzed rent data from 250 cities and includes rental stock of 2900 apartment buildings with 50 or more units.
Rabadi is also now seeing new tenants coming to Yonkers from New York City.
"A lot of tenants from the Bronx, Manhattan, from Brooklyn," he said. "They are all coming because they say here it is cheaper."
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