By Mark Pruner
Douglas Elliman – Greenwich
mark.pruner@elliman.com – 203-969-7900
One thing that buyers, particularly investor buyers, and sellers want to know is what my property would rent for. Some people think that the high end rental market, over $10,000 per month, has been growing as some people switch from selling their property to renting it. We do have some evidence for that this year, but the post-recession, high-end rental market has remained remarkably stable since 2010.
| $10K+ | Rented | Avg Price | Price/SqFt | DOM | SqFt +/- |
| 2010 | 86 | $ 15,700 | $ 2.17 | 108 | 6,671 |
| 2011 | 82 | $ 15,260 | $ 2.15 | 81 | 6,010 |
| 2012 | 92 | $ 14,947 | $ 2.13 | 100 | 6,292 |
| 2013 | 95 | $ 14,800 | $ 2.32 | 97 | 5,824 |
| 2014 | 77 | $ 16,543 | $ 3.40 | 72 | 5,441 |
| 2015 | 85 | $ 15,677 | $ 3.06 | 92 | 5,622 |
| 2016 | 47 | $ 16,297 | $ 3.07 | 98 | 5,490 |
| 2016 Annlzd | 107 | ||||
| Total or Avg | 564 | $ 15,524 | $ 2.54 | 93 | 5,940 |
| Summer | 70 | ||||
| % Summer | 12% | ||||
| Actives | 61 | ||||
| Summer | 9 | ||||
| % Summer | 15% |
We average about 85 rentals a year that are listed for over $10,000 plus or minus 8 rentals. The average house is about 6,000 square feet and rents for about $15,500 and is on the market for around 3 months before it rents.
This year the average rental has been higher at $16,300 and if you annualize the 47 rentals we may see 107 rentals for the year, a significant jump over the previous six year average of 85 rentals. This jump may be related to the jump in sales inventory that we have seen in 2016. Right now we have 716 single family homes on the GMLS up over 100 listings from this time last year. Some people put their houses on for both rent and sale so rental listings will go up when sales listings go up.
The people who do this seem to be particularly optimistic about the sale price often listing it for an above market sale price in case some really loves the house. Otherwise they are happy to rent it out which happens the large majority of time when properties are listed for both rent and sale.
Rentals >$10K/mo – 2015 – June 2016
Of the 129 sales that have closed in 2015 and YTD 2016, there is a large concentration in Old and Riverside. The other areas that are popular are the waterfront, central Greenwich, mid-country and some back country.
Now you would think that the summer renters would want to rent on Long Island Sound and they do, but these summer rentals which have historically represented about an eighth of our high-end rentals are equally scattered throughout quiet areas of mid-country and backcountry as people, usually New Yorkers, want to get away from the City’s summer heat and noise.
The high end rentals are not evenly distributed by price. We had 564 rentals over $10,000 since 2011, but only 96 rentals over $20,000 month and more than a third of these very high-end rentals were summer rentals.
At the present time our highest active rental is a summer rental for $100,000 at 40 Walsh Lane available till right after Labor Day. As you get over $20,000 the prices go up pretty quickly so if you are in a tight price range say $22,000 – $24,000 you only have a choice of three listings.
Over $20,000 rentals
The over $20,000 per month market has also been surprisingly consistent with about 15 rentals a year plus or minus one or two rentals. The average price has been $28,800, but here the price range has been more variable probably due to the small number of very high end rentals. Days on market also has varied more year to year due to this smaller sample size, but has averaged out to the same 90 days on market over the last six years as the over $10,000/mo listings.
| $20K+ | Rented | Avg Price | Sold Price/SqFt | Cumulative DOM | SqFt +/- |
| 2010 | 16 | $ 28,458 | $ 3.18 | 71 | 9,368 |
| 2011 | 13 | $ 28,182 | $ 3.15 | 76 | 7,445 |
| 2012 | 14 | $ 27,250 | $ 3.07 | 87 | 8,870 |
| 2013 | 16 | $ 26,400 | $ 2.73 | 131 | 8,603 |
| 2014 | 15 | $ 31,722 | $ 5.01 | 95 | 7,990 |
| 2015 | 15 | $ 27,967 | $ 4.22 | 64 | 7,710 |
| 2016 | 7 | $ 34,214 | $ 4.32 | 119 | 8,327 |
| 2016 Annlzd | 16 | ||||
| Total or Avg | 96 | $ 28,779 | $ 3.60 | 90 | 8,391 |
| Summer | 35 | ||||
| % Summer | 36% | ||||
| Actives | 18 | ||||
| Summer | 5 | ||||
| % Summer | 28% |
The house sizes are around 8,400 square feet and acreage is all over the place as renters tend to care less about the size of the lot than do owners. The 18 active listings that we have are scattered along the coast, mid-country and backcountry.
As with everything these days price is crucial in these high-end rentals, but the renters are out there.
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