Millionaire Ritzy Renters Triple In NYC, Study Finds

NEW YORK CITY — Millionaires are puttin' on the ritz in New York City rentals more and more, according to a new study.

The city's number of millionaire renters tripled to nearly 2,500 over five years, the RentCafe study found. That's three-quarters of all the millionaires who rent across the U.S., according to the study.

And millionaires aren't the only ritzy renters in the city.

"When looking at the total number of high-income renter households, New York is the 'it' place for renters that earn over $150,000 per year," the study states.

"The Big Apple had a total of 296,594 such households in 2020, representing a share of 11% of the national total."

Everyday New Yorkers — that is, those who don't count as high-income — have been more likely to choose renting over buying compared to the rest of the U.S.

Buying simply was something that New Yorkers with lots and lots of money did.

The city's well-to-do renter wave is a fairly recent phenomenon, even pre-dating the coronavirus pandemic, according to the study, which covered 2015 to 2020.

In 2015, New York City's had 908 millionaire renter household, the study found.

By 2020, that number jumped 171 percent, according to the study.

Other cities, especially San Francisco, saw more dramatic jumps, the study found. But they still only have a fraction of New York's millionaire renters.

The study posited that more millionaires are shifting to renting because of maintenance costs, flexibility of moving or putting cash into other assets that hold value.

Millennials account for 28.4 percent of millionaire renters, who are typically about 41 years old and working management positions, the study found.

"Millionaire renters in Washington, D.C. have the largest homes, on average, five bedrooms, followed by Jersey City, NJ with four," the study states. "Alternatively, in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, the average home size is three bedrooms."

Read the full RentCafe study here.