SoHo and TriBeCa are now the most expensive areas in the entire country to rent a pad.
And nothing commands a loftier price than a loft, according to a new survey by the real-estate brokerage CitiHabitats.
A loft that has about the same amount of space as a three-bedroom apartment now rents for more than $6,000 a month in the trendy area.
Anybody rich enough to actually buy a loft will also find sky-high prices.
All around Manhattan, the smallest lofts have increased in price by 22 percent from 2003.
The average cost is now about $1.489 million, according to another real-estate firm, the Corcoran Group.
It takes a cool $2.889 million to buy a large loft in Manhattan – up 35 percent.
Townhouses in most parts of Manhattan are no bargain either.
Below 14th Street, their price escalated 49 percent, to $4.73 million – although 1,500 more were on the market in 2004 than the year before.
“Five years ago, it would have been crazy to think of spending $5 million on a downtown townhouse,” said Pam Liebman of Corcoran.
But then again, “there are only so many townhouses,” she said.
Upper West Side townhouses cost 8 percent more, at $2.224 million.
Oddly enough, a buyer’s best bet could be the Upper East Side – previously home to the country’s most expensive real estate.
Townhouse prices there dropped 12 percent, to $5.584 million, as other neighborhoods became just as chic.
Meanwhile, co-ops appear to be a better deal than condos around Manhattan.
The average buyer who got through a board paid $200,000 to $300,000 less than condo purchasers, according to Jonathan Miller of the appraisal firm Miller Samuel.
The average price of a four-bedroom Manhattan co-op is now only $5.672 million.
That’s down 17.4 percent from the summer, when a buyong spree sent those apartments soaring to a record average of $6.87 million.
As for the future, look to the boroughs and northern Manhattan.
Fort Greene in Brooklyn, Queens West along the East River, and Inwood on the northern tip of Manhattan show signs of being the hot new neighborhoods, Realtors say.
And, Liebman says, with the current real-estate boom, any neighborhood can suddenly become hot.
“People shouldn’t get discouraged,” she said. “Today’s undesirable neighborhood is next year’s ‘Wish I’d bought there.’ “
