There was only one borough that saw the average apartment size increase over the past 10 years. Here’s why that’s the case.
This may come as a surprise to many: Apartments in one New York City borough have actually been getting bigger.
According to a recent study by the website RentCafe, the only borough where the average apartment size has increased in the past 10 years is (somehow) Manhattan.
A decade ago, the average apartment in the borough was 721 square feet. That has increased by 3 percent since then, to an average of 740 square feet, RentCafe found.
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So what might be the cause of the increase (even if it's just a modest one)? Crain's New York Business said there has been an increase in luxury housing, as developers transformed formerly industrial areas by adding pricey towers.
Despite the increase, the inventory of apartments in Manhattan — new and old — is still slightly smaller than apartment in Queens and Brooklyn, according to the study.
Queens was actually found to have the second-smallest-sized new apartments in the country (tied with Portland), at just 681 square feet, which is seven percent (or 46 square feet) smaller than they were a decade ago. The only city in the U.S. to have a smaller average size for new apartments: Seattle, at 659 square feet.
Brooklyn wasn't far behind on the list, ranking 4th on the list with an average apartment size of 692 square feet. Jersey City also made the list, with the 12th-smallest average new apartment size at 799 square feet. that's actually up 3 percent from 10 years ago.
Another New Jersey city made the list for seeing the most significant growths in apartment size. Of all the cities in the country, Newark saw the eighth-largest leap in size, increasing 169 square feet on average.
For those looking for more space, you may have to head south, where the average apartment came in just a hair under 1,000 square feet, according to Rent Cafe. The southeast area was just behind that, at 983 square feet. The city with the largest apartment sizes can be found in Tallahassee, Florida, where new units on average have 1,182 square feet. Gainesville was right behind that, followed by Mobile, Alabama; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Marietta, Georgia.
The northeast came in right in the middle of the pack, with the average apartment at 911 square feet, with the mid-Atlantic toward the bottom at 881 sq. feet. The Pacific Northwest had the smallest average apartment, at 776 square feet, Rent Cafe's study found.
Nationwide, the size of the average apartment has fallen to 887 square feet in 2022, down from 941 square feet in 2013. Rent Cafe said that there was a big dropoff from the pandemic years of 2020-2021, when sizes increased two years in a row (up to 917 in 2021) as floorplans were adjusted to include more home offices.
