Here's a phrase we never thought we would say: rent prices have decreased in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. 

Nah, this isn't some seriously delayed April Fool;s joke, but cold, hard, statistical fact from the newly published Elliman market report, produced by Douglas Elliman Real Estate. 

According to the report, median rent prices in Manhattan dropped 2.8% between March of 2015 and March of 2016, while Northwest Queens' median rent price dropped a whopping 5.2%. 

Sure, it's not exactly a substantial decrease, but with the astronomical prices of rent we've been forced to adapt to, we'll take what we can get. 

Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, Brooklyn's median rent prices jumped 2.7%, with a 36.6% jump in new leases, though Brooklyn's median rent remains $525 lower than Manhattan's. 

Average rental prices for Manhattan decreased 3.3% over the same period of time, where as Queens' rental prices decreased 2.1%, and Brooklyn's a meager 0.2%. 

Curbed NY reports that Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel and author of the Elliman reports, stated that the "rate of growth has been falling since August." 

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He goes on to state that he is "skeptical it will continue since the market sits in a robust local economy." 

Unfortunately for us peasants, "rent growth remains strongest in the lower half of the market and softest at the top," meaning relatively affordable apartments won't see a major decrease anytime soon. 

Last month, he told The Real Deal that "demand is still strong because the local economy is strong, but the growth of pricing over the last couple of years has pushed some of the demand outwards to areas that are more affordable."

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The Elliman market report's findings were supported by the Citi Habitats reports. According to Metro, Gary Malin, president of Citi Habitats stated that "landlords have relied upon incentives to keep their face rents high."

He went to say, "[these] concessions have, in large part, stabilized the recent rent declines and climbing vacancy rates. However, their prevalence is indicative of a Manhattan rental market that is still out of touch- and beyond the reach of many tenants."

So while we're hopeful that our rent prices might see some further declines, we're not optimistic. These prices may seem to have stabilized for now, but the average rent prices ($3,989 for Manhattan, $2,927 for Queens, and $3,065 for Brooklyn) are entirely out of most white collar budgets.  

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