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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 increases for one- and two-year lease renewals for roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments through Sept. 30, 2027.”
Asking rents for studios through two-bedroom units surged 7.1% year-over-year to $3,662, far outpacing the 2.9% increase for homes with three or more bedrooms, which now command a median $5,089.
The pain is particularly acute in Manhattan, where median asking rents soared 8.3% annually to $5,375 — the steepest increase among the four boroughs covered by the report.
Brooklyn followed with a 4.9% jump to $4,197, while Queens rents climbed 3.9% to $3,744. The Bronx remained the least expensive of the four, though rents there still rose 2.7% to $3,233. Staten Island was not included.
And the income needed to comfortably afford a New York apartment is eye-watering.
Under the widely used guideline that housing should consume no more than 30% of household income, Manhattan renters would need to earn $215,000 annually to afford the borough’s median asking rent.
That threshold drops to $167,880 in Brooklyn, $149,760 in Queens and $129,320 in The Bronx.
As The Post recently reported, even a six-figure salary doesn’t stretch particularly far in the New York area, where a $100,000 household income can afford a median of just 801 square feet and one bedroom — compared with a four-bedroom home in Memphis.
Making matters worse, paychecks aren’t keeping pace with housing costs for many New Yorkers.
Average hourly earnings among private-sector workers in the city increased 4.2% year-over-year in August, trailing the 4.5% overall rent increase and falling well short of the 7.1% jump for smaller rentals.
Workers in some industries fared even worse, with manufacturing wages rising just 1%, earnings in private education and health services remaining flat, and pay declining in construction and other goods-producing industries.
“New York City renters are facing a difficult affordability equation: rents are rising, especially for the smaller homes many renters compete for, while the cost of buying remains dramatically higher,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com, in a statement.
“A modest decline in home prices brought some relief to the monthly cost of buying in the third quarter, but mortgage rates above 7% can quickly erase that progress. For renters hoping to save for a down payment, the squeeze is coming from both directions.”
Added Xu, “That combination makes it harder for renters to build savings and move toward homeownership.”