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

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

#391

Post by chiefalchemist » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

> The average price of a rental apartment in Manhattan surged above $5,000 in June for the first time, hitting $5,058,

Key word: average. Always a dangerous - and clickbait friendly - metric.

Keep in mind...

This does not mean the top went up. Let's not be naive, the further you move up the financial / wealth food chain the less price sensitive you are. An increase on the upper end has few consequences.

On the other hand, you can move the bottom up and the average will also increase as increase. This is typically not the first thing that comes to mind but it's a reasonable idea. Unlike the high-end, the low end of the market is very price sensitive. People "living paycheck to paycheck" are far less likely to brush off increases. What happens when they can't make rent? That is The Question.

As things get uglier, those with not much will have nothing to lose. If we don't see voters react this November, they'll be primed for future Novembers. They also might decide that voting isn't going to make a difference. The number of people in this situation is significant. The math is simple.

The rest will be history.

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

#392

Post by refurb » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

mattwad wrote: post #369

m_ke wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no NIMBY but places like NYC will never be able to build enough to outpace demand.

All over NYC, there are empty buildings and apartments. There's space, but landlords are artificially reducing supply.

Read up on rent control in the 70’s and landlord’s burning down their own buildings to collect insurance.

Artificially forcing prices low just reduces supply.

But no doubt NYC will head down that path.

Seems like all major cities are repeating the policies of the 60’s-80’s that causes populations to drop.

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

#393

Post by noptd » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

dwater wrote: post #334

DeathArrow wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The current setup creates guettos by default, by siloing people with different monetary and social capital into different building and areas, hurting social mobility, Maybe some groups of people don't want to live together with other groups of people? Different people living in different parts of the city is just natural evolution. Why should the state force them to live together? And why should the state tell you w…

> Different people living in different parts of the city is just natural evolution. A claim like that needs supporting evidence. I see no reason why segregation among different members of a single community is natural. > Why should the state force them to live together? Because segregation breaks down the social bonds in a community, which is bad for the social fabric, which is bad for the community's ability to live…

>A claim like that needs supporting evidence. I see no reason why segregation among different members of a single community is natural.

Considering that in-group-out-group psychology has been humanity's evolutionary default for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years, I'd say the burden of evidence is on anyone claiming the contrary.

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

#394

Post by usrn » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 4:17 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…

It's all debt which inflation will wash away and the landlords will come out on top.

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

#395

Post by KKKKkkkk1 » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 4:18 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…

Hi, what is a non-transable good? You're using a non-dictionary word to justify a pretty radical policy, so I'm curious.

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

#396

Post by dionidium » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 4:19 PM UTC

kyawzazaw wrote: post #363

dionidium wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a conspiracy-theory-level analysis that isn't supported by any available evidence.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/05/nearly-half-of-luxury-units-em...

Seven buildings. That's not representative of...anything. It's not even worth talking about. And the effects are largely positive for the city, anyway. You've got a few big, empty buildings concentrated on one street where billionaires park their money, pay a bunch of property taxes, and use zero city services. That's an unqualified win.

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

#397

Post by ponow » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

nickles wrote: post #360

ponow wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who once did basic research, I don't buy the government-funded basic research argument anymore. If we had negligible taxes, the hyper-rich would fund some basic research, and there would be some private research as well. It would not go away completely. People can cooperate without government. Why would anyone fund a church tithe voluntarily, since the market wouldn't predict such a thing? Yet people freel…

> More importantly, try arguing that it is morally correct that a hard-working laborer ought to fund a Webb telescope by non-optional taxes, when he sees no direct value in it. Why even 1 penny? Because his betters in a grant agency know better what to do with the fruits of his labor than he does? There is an optimal level of spending on basic research for society, and it's not 0. Was it a bad idea to launch unproven…

It's obvious that in the absence of state funding there would be non-state funding. It won't be the same and it won't be zero. Why does the committee's judgement take precedent?

Also, some poorer people would pay to fund research in the absence of gov't funding. They actually already do, for disease research.

You can use utilitarian arguments to force people to do things that they otherwise would refuse. Isn't that a kissing cousin to indentured servitude?

Also, do you knot think I understand the riskiness of research? As if I haven't endured a few decades of poverty as a result?

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

#398

Post by xhrpost » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

ezequiel-garzon wrote: post #19

I thought the median had to be significantly lower with those ultra luxurious rentals distorting the average, but I was wrong. The median is $4000 as of a few months ago: https://www.elliman.com/corporate-resources/market-reports

I was wondering this too, I know plenty of people who live alone in Manhattan and don't pay anywhere near $5k. Some renewed recently even but I don't know who had stabilization and who didn't.

Where did you see the $4k number? This looks like condo and co-op numbers mostly?

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

#399

Post by teakettle42 » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #346

DeathArrow wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Many attempts at public housing failed because they just tried to provide housing for low-income people in separated and/or undesirable areas, with a predictable outcome. So the taxpayers should pay so the people with low income or no income can live iny Manhattan? Why not also provide them with expensive cars and exotic vacations?

> So the taxpayers should pay so the people with low income or no income can live iny Manhattan? Yes. It's a city not a luxury resort. If people are to work all kinds of jobs at all levels of income there, then people at all income levels should be able to live there as well. This mechanism accounts for that. > Why not also provide them with expensive cars and exotic vacations? Maybe they should idk. Seems completely…

> If people are to work all kinds of jobs at all levels of income there, then people at all income levels should be able to live there as well.

Why should taxpayers subsidize employers unwilling to pay a living wage?

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

#400

Post by weeksie » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

ctvo wrote: post #390

The problem for me, as a long time NYC resident, is that there's no other place in America I want to live even with work from home as a possibility. I like mass transit. I like not owning a car. I like that the city is generally safer than the rest of America. I like that it's the center for tech on the east coast, the arts for the entire country, and finance for most of the world. I like that we generally get along…

My partner and I have been agonizing over this exact dilemma. We have an income number and an expenses number and when those cross a certain point, we've gotta go somewhere else. So there's a very good chance that we'll immigrate somewhere in a few years. But yeah, try as we might, we couldn't come up with another US city that either of us would want to live in.