Long Island's competitive rental market means scrambling for few affordable, available units

Before signing a lease on a one-bedroom apartment in Bay Shore last year, Tanya Silenko and her boyfriend looked at just three apartments. 

At $3,000 a month — above the median rent on Long Island — the cost to live at the Shoregate is manageable because the couple shares the rent, said Silenko, who lived in Brooklyn before moving last May.

The search process was fairly simple: the pair found a conveniently located apartment that was clean, new and had amenities, including a pool and pickleball court.

"If I'm paying ... $3,000 a month, I'm not living with something old," said Silenko, 27, who works remotely as a data analyst. "No bugs, no anything like that. Coming from the city, that was huge for me."

Though Silenko's search was relatively smooth, prospective renters on Long Island often struggle to find available and affordable units in a landscape built for single-family houses, local agents and experts said. A recent RentCafe data analysis showed competition for rental units on Long Island was nearly as stiff as it was in Manhattan at the close of 2025.

For the fourth quarter of 2025,

Long Island

was

almost as competitive

as

Manhattan

For the fourth quarter of 2025, Long Island scored 76.3, almost a full point above the national score of 75.4 and two points below Manhattan's 78.6, according to a RentCafe analysis of data from sister company Yardi Matrix.

Researchers at RentCafe used factors like apartment occupancy rate, volume of new apartments completed, lease renewal rate, average total days vacant and prospective renters per vacant unit to calculate competitiveness scores.

"Long Island is facing higher pressure that's characterized by a lot of the economic variables that we attempted to measure," said Doug Ressler, a senior analyst and business intelligence manager for Yardi Matrix, a commercial real estate data and research platform.

How competitive is Long Island's rental market?

Finding a legal, affordable rental unit on Long Island, where the housing market overall is characterized by low inventory and high demand, is often difficult. 

"Long Island's part of an expensive region where prices are driven in part by New York City, which is one of the most expensive places in the country to live," said Lawrence Levy, dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University.

Lack of inventory that is affordable also contributes to the difficulty, Levy said.

"We don't have a lot of rental units compared to other places in the region, even suburbs, like Westchester,” Levy said.

As a "high-cost region," Levy said, the Island is home to workers who are earning and spending more than they might elsewhere.

"Even though people are generally earning more money than they would somewhere else, they're paying more — maybe a lot more — than they would for the same 1,200 square feet, two bedrooms and a bath," he said.

Median gross rent was

$2,257 in Nassau and Suffolk

Census data showed. It was

$1,487 nationally

The median gross rent for Nassau and Suffolk counties was $2,257, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates. Nationally, the median gross rent was $1,487.

According to CoStar data, which tracks professionally managed buildings with five or more units excluding senior and affordable housing, the average asking rent on the Island was $3,030 on Long Island and $1,780 nationally.

Still, local experts caution rental data often presents a skewed sense of the Nassau and Suffolk county markets. Recorded data typically represents just part of the housing stock, excluding apartments in smaller buildings or private homes, experts said. Data typically does not include illegal units either. 

“The lack of legal apartments, combined with the demand for housing at an affordable price, has created a, call it a 'black market,' for unregulated, uncertified, aka illegal units," Levy said. 

'A much larger trend'

In the final months of 2025, the average number of days a Long Island rental unit sat vacant dropped from 51 to 49, Ressler said. Occupancy increased from 92.8% to 94%. The number of prospective renters applying for each apartment rose from four to five.

"They may not seem like large numbers, but it indicates a much larger trend," Ressler said.

The average number of

days an LI rental sat vacant

dropped from

51 days to 49 days

at the end of 2025. Meanwhile,

occupancy increased

from

92.8% to 94%

Factors like the lack of affordable housing mean "new renters as well as the existing renters are renting longer," he said. "And that is really pushing the competitive scores."

Long Island is part of that pattern because of its proximity to the "urban core" that is New York City, Ressler said.

This data includes only apartment buildings or complexes with 50 or more units, Ressler said. He could not speak to the prevalence of spaces rented out illegally. 

The rental housing market is challenging, but Levy noted the existence of unregulated apartments may mean it is slightly friendlier than some numbers show.

"As difficult as it still is on Long Island, the black market probably makes it a little less difficult, but no less unacceptable," Levy said of the non-permitted units unaccounted for in the RentCafe analysis. 

Between 2024 and 2025,

LI's lease renewal rate

dropped from

74.7% to 70.4%

over the same time period.

Between 2024 and 2025, Yardi tracked the completion of 3,414 new rental units on Long Island, Ressler said. He attributed a slight decrease in lease renewal rate — 74.7% to 70.4% — over the same time period to the addition of new apartments.

"What you see is the economics of supply and demand," Ressler said.

Though the cost of living on long Island is high, demand remains strong, Levy said; and to cover costs, landlords charge more, he added. 

"Economics 101, supply and demand. We have too little supply," Levy said. "Yet with all the high costs and other impediments to living on Long Island, we still have strong demand."

Nassau and western Suffolk are "attracting higher income professionals," Ressler said. This includes white-collar healthcare workers and others who cannot afford to own a home, he said.

"What that means is that there's demand for renovated units," Ressler said. "There's also a demand for transit-oriented developments."

For many renters — even those working a hybrid schedule, Ressler said — a doable commute to the city remains a priority.

Rentals hard to find on Long Island

Real estate agent Antje Dolido, who works with clients in North Shore areas like Glen Cove, Cold Spring Harbor, Oyster Bay and Huntington, said apartment rentals on the Island are harder to come by than they are in Manhattan.

"There's very few opportunities out there," said Dolido, of Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty. "When they do come along, they disappear within a week."

When [rentals] do come along, they disappear within a week.

— Antje Dolido, Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty agent

Dolido said she deals mostly with house rentals, and speculated that a comparatively low number of apartments on the Island could be driving competition.

Douglas Elliman agent Wendy Sanders said the apartment data collected often represents newer, professionally-managed buildings, as opposed to "the buildings that a lot of Long Island lives in."

“You've got a preponderance of larger buildings and new developments, which is phenomenal for Long Island," Sanders said. "But, if you look at the smaller buildings and if you look at the older buildings, the data's not necessarily accurate.”

Most of her work involves "mom-and-pop-type buildings" in Great Neck and Port Washington, she said, that would not be reporting data.

Additionally, she said, reports are usually focused on "major metro areas, where the nature of people is to move."

“People come in to start a career, to change a career, to upwardly move," Sanders said. "So, of course, they are going to continue moving.”

What can renters do to get a leg up?

Prospective renters can take certain steps to make the apartment search easier.

"I always just tell them, 'look, get your best forward, have all your paperwork ready to go and make sure you have a reference available to speak to,' " Dolido said.

Preparation can include having credit scores and proof of income readily available, as well as researching the neighborhood.

"I feel like people need to really educate themselves on the areas that they're looking in," she said. "That's not something that we can necessarily guide them on."

While many Long Islanders are struggling to find the right fit, some like Silenko and Eugenia Garcia have found rentals fairly quickly in a competitive space.

Garcia, of Brentwood, said she lived in Queens for five years before moving to Shoregate in Bay Shore about eight months ago. A credentialing coordinator for Northwell who works remotely, Garcia said she needed a two-bedroom apartment for herself and her 10-year-old son.

"I was looking for more space because the apartment I was in wasn't as spacious as this one is," she said. The unit happened to have two bathrooms, as well.

The process was straightforward, she said.

"It was very simple," Garcia said. "I called them, the next day I came here to look at the apartment layout, and then I started the process, and within a month I was in."