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Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

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Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#51

Housing and land is a non-transable good, and therefore there should be heavy state intervention on it, preferably by doing the same as Vienna, which is holding >40% of the renting stock and charging according to income, and renting to a representative distribution of tenants so to prevent guettos. Rent is the main detractor of disposable income which hurts the rest of the economy, and property owners provide almost…

> should be heavy state intervention on it, preferably by doing the same as Vienna, which is holding >40% of the renting stock and charging according to income

This is great policy if you want to make housing unaffordable. When supply is less than demand, prices go up. Those price increases incentivize builders to increase the housing stock (which subsequently lowers prices). Capping prices prevents the price mechanism from working, leaving a shortage of housing.

> Rent is the main detractor of disposable income which hurts the rest of the economy

I’m happy (perhaps not quite the right word…) to pay rent. I don’t want to own property. It’s a large, illiquid investment with high transaction fees, carry costs, and concentration risk. My landlord takes all the risk of owning the property (prices don’t always go up after all).

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#52

I’ve had this thought floating around in my head for a while, and it seems wrong, but I’m not completely sure why. I’m hoping someone more knowledgeable might be able to set me straight. Prices on the coasts — like 5k rent — are astronomically high compared to prices in, say, the midwest. This shocks many people. You could easily make the same comparison between the midwest and some non-developed nation. The differen…

> You could easily make the same comparison between the midwest and some non-developed nation. The difference is, nobody is shocked about how prices are higher in the USA midwest compared to an arbitrary less-developed country. Why is that exactly? Because there's no freedom of movement, legal or cultural, between the midwest and the large coastal US cities.

[deleted]

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#53
post #5

> The big picture: This points to a conundrum. The Fed is raising rates to cool inflation. But rate hikes are driving higher rents, which are fueling inflation. Why everyone and their dog says Fed is raising rates, when Fed just barely raised rates. Year over year inflation is 9.3% and Fed interest rate is only 1.5%, while it should be 2% points over inflation.

people have taken on all this cheap debt and are just realising they have to pay for it

Do you really think that rents in New York are because of cheap debt and not because a tiny island has been captured by billions and billions of corporate luxury development, while at the same time the supply of appartamenti is choked by there being more Airbnb places than places being rented.

Covid has been the greatest transfer of wealth upward in our lifetime, but sure it’s cheap personal debt.

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#54
post #43

As a New Yorker myself I do wonder where this ends up. Me and my relatively well paid friends can afford to live here but we depend on a lot of lower paid folks for the city to function. Grocery store clerks, delivery drivers, coffee baristas, all that sort of thing. Maybe right now they have a half hour subway ride to work and that’s acceptable. But as they get pushed further and further out it’s going to break down…

Moreover artist communities flourish in urban spaces with cheap rent, like New York in the 1970s, Paris in the 1920s, Berlin in the 1990s and so on. Without that you just end up with Dubai or Monaco with shittier weather.

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#55
post #43

As a New Yorker myself I do wonder where this ends up. Me and my relatively well paid friends can afford to live here but we depend on a lot of lower paid folks for the city to function. Grocery store clerks, delivery drivers, coffee baristas, all that sort of thing. Maybe right now they have a half hour subway ride to work and that’s acceptable. But as they get pushed further and further out it’s going to break down…

Wages will rise

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#56

Housing and land is a non-transable good, and therefore there should be heavy state intervention on it, preferably by doing the same as Vienna, which is holding >40% of the renting stock and charging according to income, and renting to a representative distribution of tenants so to prevent guettos. Rent is the main detractor of disposable income which hurts the rest of the economy, and property owners provide almost…

> CMV

Rent is high because the demand in large cities majorly out strips supply.

All policies that attempt to address housing costs that don't increase supply are treating a symptom and not the underlying cause.

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#57
These numbers are wildly inflated. the official corporate rental sector in NYC s actually very small (most properties are condos/coops) owned by small scale landlords. That 5k number is the price that a (often foreign) company would pay to keep an executive for a temporary assignment in NYC. Then you have the students who are burning thier parents money anyways. Anecdotally the landlords are looking to recoup their COVID losses and a lot of these units are not renting.

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#58

Housing and land is a non-transable good, and therefore there should be heavy state intervention on it, preferably by doing the same as Vienna, which is holding >40% of the renting stock and charging according to income, and renting to a representative distribution of tenants so to prevent guettos. Rent is the main detractor of disposable income which hurts the rest of the economy, and property owners provide almost…

Agreed. Housing is as basic a need as food. Either end food subsidies and make farmers rich, or deregulate housing

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#60
post #43

As a New Yorker myself I do wonder where this ends up. Me and my relatively well paid friends can afford to live here but we depend on a lot of lower paid folks for the city to function. Grocery store clerks, delivery drivers, coffee baristas, all that sort of thing. Maybe right now they have a half hour subway ride to work and that’s acceptable. But as they get pushed further and further out it’s going to break down…

Longer and longer commute for your grocery store workers. See fig. 1 (San Francisco)
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