Metro

The rent’s high? Too damn bad!

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Bad news for renters: The Manhattan apartment market is thistight.

Rent increases this year are unusually high, over 10 percent in larger apartments — while vacancy is “ridiculously low,” said Gary Malin, president of Citi Habitats.

Only 0.72 percent of Manhattan apartments were available in the last three months, the lowest quarterly rate since the firm began tracking vacancies in 2002, Malin added.

Try finding a place in SoHo/TriBeCa, the area with the fewest available apartments.

The rate there is a miniscule 0.37 percent — or about 1 vacancy for every 270 apartments.

And when supply is scarce and demand is high, well, you know what happens to prices, especially for nonregulated apartments.

The average monthly rent for a studio in Manhattan is a whopping $1,976, up 9.1 percent from the same time last year.

And that’s the lowest increase in apartment categories, according to Citi Habitats’ residential rental-market report for the second quarter of 2011, which was released today.

Three-bedroom apartments, which are relatively difficult to find in Manhattan, now average $4,985, up 11.3 percent in the past year.

One-bedrooms average $2,672, an increase of 9.2 percent, and two-bedrooms average $3,757, a 10.8 percent jump, according to the report.

Add in a doorman or even an elevator, and the numbers rise.

The average rent for a one-bedroom Manhattan apartment is $2,476 — if it’s a walk-up.

But it’s $2,850 with an elevator and $3,405 with a doorman. Doorman buildings built after 2004 average $3,868 for a one-bedroom.

The tight market and other factors shift conditions “vastly in the landlords’ favor,” said Malin.

So move-in concessions — such as a landlord waiving one month’s rent or paying a broker’s fee — “are, for the most part, a thing of the past,” Malin said.

In June 2010, 28 percent of Citi Habitats’ Manhattan rental transactions included such incentives, but the number shrank to just 11 percent last month.

There are several reasons for the tight market, including Manhattan’s recovery from the recession at a faster rate than the rest of the country, the low increase in housing stock, and the reluctance of residents to move out of their current apartments, Malin said.

In addition, people in the market for a studio or a one-bedroom tend to be renting rather than buying because they may not expect to be in the same apartment in five years or they have problems with financing, among other reasons, he said.

andy.soltis@nypost.com