[Saturdays]

apart from the obvious issues around pre-covid population and 2020 census stats being used here...

I expect a mass exodus once lease renewals are up and buildings don't want to give the same 2-3 months free incentives.

This comes from something I've noticed in NYC these past several months. In the winter and up until mid-April, most rental buildings were providing huge incentives (2-3 months off on a 12 month lease) for people to occupy their buildings. What's interesting is that most of the new people I'm meeting in the city ONLY moved to NYC because the city 're-opened' and rent is affordable w/incentives from certain perspectives.

Those who have been living in NYC took advantage of incentives to move into nicer/larger spaces - but this is often unaffordable to them once the lease renewals are up.

For some perspective, a $5,000/month place with 3 months off, is a net effective rent of $3,750/month. I've seen this go at some upscale buildings. A personal friend of mine can afford this at the $3,750/month rate, but not at any rate above that. If they gave a 1 month free incentive upon renewal, his net effective rent would be $4,580/month.

That's one example, but it goes for $3,500/month 1 bedroom in some areas - with 2 months off that's ~$2900/month.

So it really depends, but I hear from a lot of new people I meet that they are here for the year and got a great deal on a place - they wanted to experience the city for a year, and this seemed like an affordable time and way to do it (since they can work from home)