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

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

#171

Post by dzonga » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:07 PM UTC

runnerup wrote: post #153

nickles wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free market advocates always find the next culprit why the market can't deliver. I advocate for the free market because it's been the most reliable way of elevating humans from subsistence levels of consumption and improving their quality of life. It's been the driving force in elevating billions of people from poverty over recent decades. I'd wager that most people, free market advocates or otherwise, would consid…

I'm a HUGE believer in reducing barriers to competition. I agree that high prices should lead to entrepreneurial increase of supply. However, I think it's massively, massively important to realize the successes of some planned economies. I'm not trying to use empty rhetoric in the following paragraph, I'm trying to identify the "free market"-iness of many of the most impactful "ways of elevating humans" in the past 5…

even in a "free" speech country like the USA. you would've been arrested for WrongThink / ThoughtCrime for putting out thoughts like this if this was 70 years ago.

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

#172

Post by mindslight » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:07 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #134

jerojero wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer: No. The problem with these insane prices isn't really that you have disparity within the same country, but that a significant amount of people in these places cannot afford to live in there. You can't have a restaurant because you need to hire waiters but you can't pay waiters enough for them to pay the rent. So your service industry is disrupted or alternatively: people need to commute 1 or 2 hours to…

> The problem with these insane prices isn't really that you have disparity within the same country, but that a significant amount of people in these places cannot afford to live in there. You can't have a restaurant because you need to hire waiters but you can't pay waiters enough for them to pay the rent. So your service industry is disrupted or alternatively: people need to commute 1 or 2 hours to get to these job…

The mere existence of a negative feedback mechanism does not imply a "fix". Rather depending on the magnitude, momentum, and damping, can result in many different system behaviors, including increasing oscillation. Meanwhile the current conditions cause actual damage to people's lives, even if they may converge in the future. So no, market fatalism is not very insightful here.

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

#173

Post by treeman79 » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:08 PM UTC

runnerup wrote: post #153

nickles wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free market advocates always find the next culprit why the market can't deliver. I advocate for the free market because it's been the most reliable way of elevating humans from subsistence levels of consumption and improving their quality of life. It's been the driving force in elevating billions of people from poverty over recent decades. I'd wager that most people, free market advocates or otherwise, would consid…

I'm a HUGE believer in reducing barriers to competition. I agree that high prices should lead to entrepreneurial increase of supply. However, I think it's massively, massively important to realize the successes of some planned economies. I'm not trying to use empty rhetoric in the following paragraph, I'm trying to identify the "free market"-iness of many of the most impactful "ways of elevating humans" in the past 5…

The free market did not create the highway system, but the enormous wealth created by the free market payed for it.

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

#174

Post by ipaddr » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:08 PM UTC

jahnu wrote: post #168

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…

Been this way in Vienna for many many decades and still it’s a very affordable city. So I dunno, I do believe this can go wrong if implemented incorrectly and has done in some cities, but it hasn’t here yet and looks fairly stable for the foreseeable too.

How many new units have been added over the last 20 years?

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

#175

Post by googlryas » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:09 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…

Isn't it a big talking point that wages aren't a large component of costs anyway for these services/goods provided by near minimum wage workers?

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

#176

Post by cpascal » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #139

wil421 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> they just need a lot better enforcement of that law. Perhaps also worth asking why Airbnb continues to host listings it knows are in violation of the law.

Seems pretty easy to enforce. Fine Airbnb for each listing in violation of the law.

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

#177

Post by antiverse » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

This boils down to greed and selfishness, but people even on HN don't want to call spade a spade so they dance around it and give complex somersault answers because they are afraid/too socially conscious to speak the truth.

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

#178

Post by namdnay » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

jahnu wrote: post #168

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…

Been this way in Vienna for many many decades and still it’s a very affordable city. So I dunno, I do believe this can go wrong if implemented incorrectly and has done in some cities, but it hasn’t here yet and looks fairly stable for the foreseeable too.

I think that’s more due to the relative attractiveness of the cities. London, NYC, Paris etc have become extremely expensive because they’re world cities, attracting huge amounts of people and jobs. That’s not really the case for Vienna, or Glasgow, or Riga etc

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

#179

Post by treeman79 » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #147

spaniard89277 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The policy I mention is precisely that, public housing being at least 40% of the supply. If demand increases, you increase supply.

So you're telling me that the government should build millions of new units in NYC, until they control 40% of the market? Am I understanding that correctly?

I think he wants the government to seize housing from others.

Which will ensure that absolutely no one develops anything in that state again

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

#180

Post by wollsmoth » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #139

wil421 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> they just need a lot better enforcement of that law. Perhaps also worth asking why Airbnb continues to host listings it knows are in violation of the law.

they need to start implementing and enforcing extremely high fines on illegal listings and then actually go out and try to enforce it. That's the only way it ends imo.