by Calculated Risk on 6/28/2008 09:00:00 AM

From the NY Times: Luring Affluent Renters in Manhattan

ONE month’s free rent. Two months’ free rent. No security deposit.

How about a year’s worth of storage at Manhattan Mini Storage or an appointment at a doggie day spa for Rover on moving day?

As the rental market in Manhattan has softened in recent months, these are some of the incentives that owners of high-end buildings are offering to lure tenants.

Note that this is for some high-end buildings only. It looks like the layoffs in the financial industry are starting to bite ... and it's about to get worse:

... many of the people laid off by Wall Street firms will not officially become unemployed until their severance pay runs out. For the entire metropolitan area, she said, Moody’s economy.com is projecting a loss of 60,000 jobs by the beginning of 2009, with about 45,000 of those jobs in financial services.