MW NYC's sky-high rent, cost of living fueled Zohran Mamdani's win. Here's exactly how expensive it is.

By Aarthi Swaminathan and Venessa Wong

The Democratic socialist won his mayoral primary with a campaign platform that includes a rent freeze and free buses

Zohran Mamdani's victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary was viewed as a surprise by some - but his campaign's central message was no shock to most New Yorkers.

Mamdani, a state assembly member from Queens, rode to victory on promises to fix the city's affordability crisis. His platform highlighted how expensive it is to live in New York City, zeroing in on pocketbook issues like child care and rent, among other key affordability challenges. The cost of living and inflation were also key issues in Donald Trump's successful presidential campaign in 2024.

"We have won because New Yorkers have stood up for a city they can afford," Mamdani said in his victory speech Tuesday night. "A city where they can do more than just struggle. One where those who toil in the night can enjoy the fruits of their labor in the day."

"The rent is too damn high, and Zohran Mamdani gets it," Tara Raghuveer of the Tenant Union Federation, a union of tenants, said in a statement. "It's the rent. It's food. It's about a life we can afford. People want to hear leaders who recognize their economic pain and have real plans to address it."

So just how expensive is it to live in New York City? Here's what you need to know.

Rents hit a new record high in some parts of NYC in May

Mamdani's housing-policy platform has three big proposals designed to ease the burden on renters: freezing rent increases on rent-stabilized apartments; building 200,000 units of affordable housing over 10 years; and cracking down on bad landlords.

Rents in New York City have broken new records. In May, the median price of a rental across all bedroom types in Manhattan hit $4,571, according to the Elliman Report from Douglas Elliman Real Estate, which was a new record high. Rents were also up 7.6% from the same month last year.

The median price of a rental in Brooklyn across all bedroom types was $3,650 in May, up 1.4% from a year ago, while the median price of a rental in northwest Queens was $3,625 in May, up 6.6% from a year ago.

New York City is primarily a rental market. About three-fourths of apartments in Manhattan are rentals, Jonathan Miller, author of the Elliman Report, told MarketWatch. Rent-stabilized units formed about 27% of the overall housing stock and 41% of rental apartments as of 2023, according to a report by the city government. The median monthly rent for a rent-stabilized unit was $425 cheaper than a market-rate rental, according to the city's analysis of rents in 2021. (Rent stabilized is different from rent controlled, which offers more tenant protections.)

Joanne Grell, a 62-year old renter in the Bronx and co-chair of the New York State Tenant Bloc's Freeze the Rent campaign, said Mamdani's focus on stabilizing rents motivated both her and her two children to vote for him.

Having found her rent-stabilized apartment in 2002, she's lived there for the last 23 years, raising her two kids as a single mother. She found her apartment in Pelham Bay, a neighborhood in the Bronx, on Craiglist. If she were to go out on the open market to look at a similar rental apartment in the neighborhood, she'd have to pay about $2,000 or more per month at least, she said. The median rent for a rental in the Bronx was about $3,100 as of June, according to Zumper, a rental-listings platform.

Related: I pay $4,000 a month for rent in Manhattan. Should I be paying for a mortgage instead?

Even millionaires rent in NYC

A growing share of renters in New York City are millionaires.

Nearly 5,700 households who had a total household annual income of $1 million or more rented in the city as of 2023, which is the highest share in all of the U.S., according to a report by RentCafe. That share is up 157% over the last five years.

Economic and political uncertainty is one reason wealthier households are choosing to rent rather than buy, said Bess Freedman, chief executive of Brown Harris Stevens, a real-estate brokerage. "People are waiting to see how local and national politics play out, and people are going to buy where they are welcome," she told MarketWatch. "If they feel like NYC is no longer friendly, it's easier to break a lease than to get out of a mortgage."

Where asking rents are the highest across America

New York is far from the only city where housing costs are out of reach for many. The affordability crisis is impacting renters around the country, notably in markets in California, Massachusetts, New York, and Florida.

For the third year in a row, the number of cost-burdened renter households in the U.S. - meaning those that spend more than 30% of their income on housing and utilities - set a new high at 22.6 million in 2023, according to a new report by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

Here's where asking rents were the highest among the 50 largest metro areas in the U.S. as of May 2025, per Realtor.com data. The median asking rent nationally was $1,705.

   Metro                                         Median asking rent 
   San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA            $3,384 
   Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH                $2,996 
   New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ            $2,902 
   San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA             $2,723 
   Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA            $2,711 
   San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA            $2,667 
   Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL      $2,350 
   Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV  $2,320 
   Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA          $2,049 
   Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA                   $1,981 

Child-care costs in NYC are among the highest in the nation

Mamdani campaigned on a proposal to provide free child care for kids ages 6 weeks to 5 years. "After rent, the biggest cost for New York's working families is child care," his campaign site states.

Child-care costs in New York City are among the highest in the country. According to the city comptroller, the average cost of child care for infants and toddlers in family-based care last year was $18,200, up 79% compared to 2019, while the average cost of center-based care was $26,000, up 43% over the same period. These costs rose faster than overall inflation in the New York City area, which was 20% during that time.

Nationwide, the average cost of family-based infant care was $11,338, while for center-based care it was $15,516 in 2024, according to ChildCare Aware of America.

These costs are driving families out of the city, Mamandi's campaign site stated. "New Yorkers with children under 6 are leaving at double the rate of all others. The burden falls heaviest on mothers, who are giving up paying jobs to do unpaid child care."

In 2023, 38% of family households in New York City had children under age 18 - down from 45.4% in 2010, according to calculations using Census Bureau data.

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-Aarthi Swaminathan -Venessa Wong

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June 25, 2025 15:52 ET (19:52 GMT)

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