Home » The rent-controlled apartment market in NYC is crazy

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The rent-controlled apartment market in NYC is crazy — 11 Comments

  1. We certainly would do well to be wary of underestimating the capacity of good ol’ human ingenuity to “game” virtually any program, government or otherwise, to the point where it quite unintentionally mocks — unintended by the designers and administrators of the program, certainly not unintended by the “gamers” — the motivation and purpose of the program.

  2. Or perhaps it does exactly what it was set out to do, like marriage divorce courts, pitting one class against another, while a third faction profits.

  3. I can’t imagine paying $50,000 a year for rent let alone $200,000. I hope rent in NYC is tax deductible. One would hope that rents are much more reasonable further out.

    Usually it is better to let the free market set rates. One could argue that New York has an interest in maintaining some lower rents to support the middle class citizens who do the physical work needed to maintain a city. However, that’s probably not what is going on however.

  4. Off topic, but I am sending you a donation via paypal. Happy merry whatever to you and all who visit this wonderful blog. Now, time to get back to paying attention to the grandchildern.

  5. Every well meaning liberal plan that has unintended consequences is usually explained away by saying “Well they meant well”. I’m so tired of hearing this excuse. When will the media wing of the Democrat party ever turn the light on these failed programs? I’m tired of the Dems “meaning well” with my money

  6. Ok, I have a question.

    First, I know nothing about New York never having been closer than some freeway to the north where, stuck in a traffic jam heading west, I thought I caught a glimpse of it way off to the south. Maybe.

    But it would seem to me that with all of the decaying areas, there must be some of them that are technically – in terms of basic infrastructure and location – ripe for gentrification or the construction of new condominiums.

    Of course like anywhere, social and political pressures may come to bear. Many, as I have witnessed elsewhere, would prefer to camp in the ruins of something once viable and vital, rather than have/allow someone else to freely rebuild and enjoy.

    Then there is speculation in vacant properties and …

    And I might have answered my own question.

    Yet with all the truly wealthy people in NY, one would think that it could be done. Unless you “just have” to be on Manhattan.

  7. DNW

    But it would seem to me that with all of the decaying areas, there must be some of them that are technically — in terms of basic infrastructure and location — ripe for gentrification or the construction of new condominiums.

    Gentrification has been going on for quite some time. A cousin has been living in SoHo [South of Houston, as in “howston”] for 4 decades. She and her husband were one of the gentrification pioneers, a process that is now well advanced in SoHo. Ditto a lot of Brooklyn, where another cousin lives.

    Construction is a more thorny issue,given the immense number of regulations that NYC imposes on construction. The last time I was in SoHo, I saw a number of construction projects- probably the first such in that neighborhood in a century. Unfortunately, some of the construction cost me. A parking lot which used to cost me $10 a day had been changed to a parking garage which charged $30-$40 a day.

  8. I can’t speak to NY, but as a realtor in Shaky Town on the Left Coast I deal with it all the time. We have it in three municipalities out here: the incorporated City of Los Angeles, the People’s Republic of Santa Monica and Beverly Hills. It is fully crazy making and extremely destructive. Because the rents are controlled and the tenants so puffed up with rights not a few landlords have lost their properties because the rents are insufficient to cover the cost of maintaining their buildings which then get cited and condemned. While other properties have risen in value older rental properties have stagnated because long term rents can’t be raised or the tenants let go.

    Short of carpet bombing rent control is the best way to destroy a city.

  9. Here in San Francisco it has proved disastrous also. We are also the home city of Airbnb and they are getting regulated here increasingly. I think they want people who use them to pay hotel tax, which I guess is all well and good if you use your apartment like a hotel. And, it is frustrating for landlords who make little or nothing on a place due to rent control to see their tenants making money from Airbnb. But people do want to make money on their places… and I can’t blame them for that either. It is all kind of nuts.

    In any case, rent control means well but does keep some rents artificially very low and the landlords make up for it by overcharging for the other apartments. I can’t really blame them if they have units paying 1980’s prices, say — $400.00 for a studio and so an empty studio will be charged $2300.00. It is also a situation of not much building going on in the city since there has been so much regulation regarding building. That is changing now, but what is being built looks to be luxury apartments and what they say is “affordable” housing is still very expensive. We are actually more expensive than NYC now which is insane. It is not an accident that both of these extremely expensive cities have rent control and so many rights for tenants. It all does backfire.

    Everyone I know is worried about being evicted from their apartment since landlords are finding ways to evict long time tenants so they can sell the building or convert to condos and sell. Still, it is very hard for them to evict. There are all kinds of laws about it. They have to PAY to get people, tenants — to leave. Sometimes quite a bit. Renters are often offered at least 10K a piece to move out of a place and they stay and get more. Sometimes thousands more. That’s the law BTW, if you want someone out, and you don’t have a reason like they aren’t paying rent — (and sometimes even then) – you have to pay them. Fact is, it is very hard to get people out of an apartment in SF, they can get lots of time, if nothing else – to leave – sometimes a year. So again, we have a weird situation where people who are tenants have lots of rights not even imagined in other parts of the country and they also are having to pay extremely high rent.

    Many in SF don’t get it that the crazy rent control and building regulation is part of their dilemma. Though a few are waking up. Part of it is just naked self interest — I mean, they don’t want things to change because it benefits them in the short term. However, then, they can never ever move from the rent controlled apartment and often, the landlord does very little to maintain it so they are in a dilapidated apartment for the rest of their lives. Not really a good way to live.

    I never really took advantage of the rent control and stayed anywhere for very long. Though I certainly took advantage of certain tenant rights. But even so, I was too restless to stay anywhere for a long time and I feel that was a good thing. I am glad I am not feeling trapped in a $400.00 studio that I moved into in 1979! Even so, I can’t stay in SF probably long term because the rents are insanely high and frankly, even the most affluent of my friends feel they can’t stay if they lose their rent controlled apartments. I certainly can’t buy here, unless I become a mega millionaire. Very sad for all the long term San Franciscans but it really is the insane rent control/building regulation and other housing policies that did this. Of course, they just want to make new regulations that are more restrictive instead of changing these.

    If they do get rid of rent control, it will be like lancing a wound and there will be a bloodbath of people who will suffer. It may be necessary but I hate to see the immediate outcry. Things are already tense enough here.

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