Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by ctvo » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 12:36 PM UTC

spaniard89277 wrote: post #36

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

Questions more than anything else:

- How does the system decide which applicants out of multiple get the unit? Lottery? How does the system decide which units get rented first (so the owners get income) e.g. 3 identical units on the same floor, in the same building?

- With a sliding scale on price base on income, is there a price floor for the owner? E.g. low income tenant pays 500 euros, but the system guarantees 1000 euros to the owner so the system pays the difference?

- Has supply increased with this system in Vienna? Why would say an invesntor take the risk of putting capital into apartments or condos construction with this system in place?

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

#92

Post by wil421 » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 12:36 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #44

elzbardico wrote: post #40

There is an elephant in the room that people refuse to look at when it comes to rents: Airbnb.

NYC has technically outlawed Airbnb rentals of less than 30 days already. They just need a lot better enforcement of that law.

Yet I can still find rooms for this weekend in Manhattan ranging from sub $100 to about $250 a night.

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

#93

Post by rxdazn » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 12:38 PM UTC

zabzonk wrote: post #41

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not according to this: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locat... I guess it depends on your definition of central London.

Not that I want to get into an argument on this (both cities are fantastically expensive), but the first property on your link when I accessed it (so basically at random) - GBP 5590.00 pcm.

the average londoner doesn't pay 5600 GBP a month for their flat. same goes for 5k USD ~= 4200.

for a one bedroom if your rent is above 2000 GBP you're living in a luxury apartment

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

#94

Post by asciiresort » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 12:39 PM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #59

This is why you need rent control. 100% of this price hike is going into landlord's pockets, it's not a result of inflation.

How has that worked out for San Francisco ?

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

#95

Post by mattzito » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 12:39 PM UTC

afavour wrote: 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…

Also as a New Yorker, worth noting that many of the lowest paid workers are undocumented, and their flexibility to pursue higher paying work is limited. Sadly, this means that 60-90 minute commutes are not out of the ordinary.

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

#96

Post by ricardobeat » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 12:39 PM UTC

nickles wrote: post #51

spaniard89277 wrote: post #36

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 mechani…

Why would housing become unaffordable if the state intervenes? The purpose is precisely to control affordability. Prices are controlled for social housing, and flexing supply allows you to influence the free market prices.

Supply is always less than demand in dense cities/countries, leaving it for the 'invisible hand' only ensures that the whole market is unaffordable and/or gentrified. Like what we are seeing in this news piece.

I don't know exactly how it works here in the Netherlands, but as far as I understand the government leases land to the constructors at its own pace, with strict quotas on social housing, to let vs to buy ratio, and free-market properties. It isn't perfect (massive bubble on the free market right now) but seems to work well enough.

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

#97

Post by a_c_s » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 12:41 PM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #70

TOMDM wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Increasing the supply alone does not counter the gentrification / ghetto effects the parent comment talked about, in fact it might amplify them. A gross oversimplification, but if you somehow make ten thousand new apartments available in Manhattan at $1k/month, they will eventually fill up with low-income tenants, which will make them undesirable. Pressure on all the existing $5K properties will remain the same.

Pressure would remain the same just as eating a single grape would not abate a person's hunger: NYC has millions of existing housing units. To make a significant dent in the rent would require building hundreds of thousands of new apartments.

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

#98

Post by nickles » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 12:41 PM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #96

nickles wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 mechani…

Why would housing become unaffordable if the state intervenes? The purpose is precisely to control affordability. Prices are controlled for social housing, and flexing supply allows you to influence the free market prices. Supply is always less than demand in dense cities/countries, leaving it for the 'invisible hand' only ensures that the whole market is unaffordable and/or gentrified. Like what we are seeing in thi…

> Supply is always less than demand in dense cities/countries, leaving it for the 'invisible hand' only ensures that the whole market is unaffordable and/or gentrified

Is that the case in Detroit? I’d wager there’s substantially more supply than demand.

> It isn't perfect (massive bubble right now) but seems to work well enough.

If there’s a massive bubble then it seems like that system didn’t control prices.

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

#99

Post by vitno » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 12:42 PM UTC

freebee56 wrote: post #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 C…

But they aren't. I just did an apartment search after living in Manhattan for years and 5k was the number my partner and I wanted to be under. It was basically impossible and I'm now leaving my neighborhood.

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

#100

Post by wil421 » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 12:42 PM UTC

washadjeffmad wrote: post #35

This is average apartment rent. In the mid-2000s, that was our rent for a five bedroom house in Sugar Hill.

You could rent a 5,600 sq foot house with a 3 car garage and a full basement in a top 10 high school area for $5k down the street from me in Metro Atlanta.