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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

#191

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…

I agree 100% - on top of all that, the current housing strategy reduces the mobility of the workforce, so it becomes more difficult to move skilled workers from one region to another. On top of that, being generally considered as a persons most valuable asset, almost no-one wants "affordable housing" in there area, as it would bring down the value of their most valuable asset. We need to start considering people as the valuable asset, and not the house they live in.

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

#192
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In fact Vienna has had a huge population growth in the past 20 years

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

#193
post #182
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.

> But rate hikes are driving higher rents This doesn't make sense to me. Rate hikes decrease spending overall, so why would rent be any different?

No post body was provided.

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

#194

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…

> Housing and land is a non-transable good, and therefore there should be heavy state intervention on it That's a bold claim. What led you to believe that's the case? And what is a "non-transable good"?

I think it might help to find out the definitions of terms before assuming the statement is wrong

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

#195
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…

> Those price increases incentivize builders to increase the housing stock Ahh yes, walking around in NY seeing building projects to increase the supply of housing in the 4th dimension where land is plentiful and the rivers are clean /s

There was just a pretty huge rezoning (with much NIMBY protest) of the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, close to Manhattan, which is currently mostly composed of empty lots and single-story warehouses/light manufacturing around the corner from desirable neighborhoods of $4m brownstones. Now developers will be allowed to build residential buildings up to 30 stories there. I live nearby and walking around in just the last few months the number of new projects starting has been kind of extraordinary. https://www.curbed.com/2021/11/brooklyn-gowanus-rezoning-dev...

Similar story currently underway from Manhattan's Lower East Side a few years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_Crossing

Even if it's already densely built, there is plenty of space that can be better used.

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

#196

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…

>and renting to a representative distribution of tenants so to prevent guettos

Sounds like a creative way of saying "make sure the poors have enough rich people near them that they feel compelled to stay in line and keep a low profile."

There are few things that make apartment living worse than having neighbors who think your standards of behavior are too low and who you have to avoid pissing off.

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

#197

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…

On a long enough timeline, maybe. But societies can't wait the 5-10-20-30 years it might take the market to correct itself. That's one dimensional thinking. Political and social destabilization brought on by market inefficiencies can create dangerous situations that are deep and long-lasting.

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

#198

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…

IMO the heavy state intervention should be massive capital investment into FAST public transportation infrastructure. Make areas further away from city centers viable for commuting and the problem gets largely addressed.

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

#199

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

Should people who come to the city for a couple of weeks not be able to find any accommodation? Why do you think that they should have less rights that people that live in the city full-time? They already have obvious market forces working against them (short-term rents are always more expensive than long-term).

Yes? People who live in the city have families, friends, jobs, and other community structures that they contribute toward. It's where they LIVE.

People who "come to the city for a couple of weeks" are at best visiting for work or family -- in which case, they can get work to subsidize the housing, or stay with the family they're visiting -- and are at worst tourists who are only visiting the city to have fun.

People's lives should be prioritized over fun affordability. Or work saving a buck when employees visit HQ in person. Or even the affordability of someone choosing to visit family.

The people who live in the city are the people who work there, bleed there, eat there, love there, etc. etc. etc. They are the city. The people who visit are just passing through. Livers should not subsidize visitors.

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

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If the private market won’t do it, why not?

Because the private market can't do it. When most cities in the US have 80%+ of its land zoned for single-family units, developers can not build anything other than expensive McMansions.
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