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Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time
441–450 of 1001 posts
Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you believe that?
Cannot speak for the poster, but the big current issue is that the value of residential units has gone from being strongly linked to wages to residences being an extremely valuable chip for playing financial games. Residences, especially inherently valuable ones like NYC apartments, have sufficient demand from financial game players that wage earners are barely able to keep up. Exactly how things break down is not cl…
This is a well studied idea, the percentage of units sitting empty is a round error in the total supply of housing. At the start of the pandemic there were a paltry 4000 vacant condos. For reference there are 2.3 million apartments in the city.
Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time
#443The 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…
The city is safer?
NYC is relatively safer than other large cities. particularly Manhattan. https://realestate.usnews.com/places/new-york/new-york-city/...
Overall NYC is much safer than the national average, especially compared to small towns which people often assume are the safest. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/new-york-city-is-a-l...
Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time
#444The primary driver of my view on real estate is that it should not be treated as an investment grade security. Attempts to leverage real estate as an investment grade security should be outlawed by the government.
Owners of rental units should be limited to a maximum number of units at any given time. For an individual I would say 5 to 10 units. For a corporation, I would want it limited to something like 50.
The goal being to enforce more competition and avoiding consolidation.
A terrible practice owners of rental units use is to keep available units off market in hopes of getting a better price in the short term future (typically 3-12 months). This practice should be made illegal. If you own rental units, you should be forced to list them when vacant.
Foreign ownership should also be seriously curtailed. Taxes should be extreme for units that aren't used except for 2 weeks a year. NYC should be for New Yorkers, Americans, immigrants, and people who choose to come to this city and create their life here, not for those who fly in on a private jet to stay 3 of the year. They can stay in a hotel.
I also don't believe owners of rental units should be able to own them indefinitely. Owners of rental units should be forced to sell to after they have recouped their investment and I'd say 3 times their investment cost. This creates enough upside (300% return) to incentivize purchasing of units to rent which thus incentivizes building.
After that point, the owner should be compelled to offer to renters the ability to buy their apartment or sell to another owner. Similar to how the velocity of money helps encourage economic activitiy, this is creating a velocity of housing.
I have no problem with individuals looking to create a passive income stream, and this should be allowed but up to a point. Similarly we need a system that will incentivize development of new buildings and construction, so there has to be enough upside opportunity down the stack from the owner to the builder to the banks financing it all. But it should be limited and real estate should not be treated as an investment grade security.
Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://nypost.com/2021/08/05/nearly-half-of-luxury-units-em...
There are insane tax breaks these luxury apartments get, too, on the order of a 90% discount. It's not like these properties are generating huge windfalls for city or state government. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/billionaires-get-lo...
Sure, but they don't cost the city anything, either. They sit empty and the city collects money. Meanwhile, the owners aren't even there and use zero city services. Should those taxes be higher? Fine with me! But these apartments are a low-salience/high-visibility distraction. They have hardly anything to do with the issues in the broader housing market.
Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time
#446The 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…
If you really like mass transit and want to live without a car, America is probably not for you. USA got rid of most streetcar systems a long time ago and rebuilding them from scratch in current NIMBY climate is basically impossible. And subways, which are much more expensive than ground transit, only make economic sense in several metropolises. Try some European city with reasonable rents like Warsaw. Even the skysc…
I love Warsaw and think I would personally really enjoy living there, but if the GP isn't willing to move to Boston, they're not going to like living in Warsaw.
Much smaller then NY, much more homogeneous, not a major world center of arts or finance.
There are very few cities in the world that check all the boxes he listed for NY, and they're all extremely expensive as well.
Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time
#447Housing 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…
This post is stupid beyond all measure. One of the principal reasons Manhattan rent is so ridiculous is because of state intervention. More intervention, the worse it is going to get. > Rent is the main detractor of disposable income which hurts the rest of the economy, This is a silly statement. Rent is part of the economy. Paying rent doesn't damage the economy anymore then paying for food or paying your electrical…
Singapore provides that service pretty successfully.
Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time
#448Earlier quoted context omitted.
We're all very aware of how the economics should play out, but look around you, it's not working that way in a bunch of places. That's because houses are being used as investment vehicles, with rentals being thoroughly flogged because they know people have no choice but to pay. No amount of building will help if the value of the property is not intrinsically linked to the supply and demand of places to live for peopl…
> No amount of building will help if the value of the property is not intrinsically linked to the supply and demand Building new houses is intrinsically linked to supply. When you build a house, that increases the supply of housing. NIMBYs oppose new construction precisely to prevent the value of their properties from decreasing.
Sorry, of course that's correct. I was trying to articulate that the supply and demand, as a whole, is not currently a marketplace for people with housing to sell to those who want to be housed (in many places). It's a marketplace dominated by investors and landlords, and people who want to be housed are having to stretch their funds as far as they possibly can to keep up with the market currently being made by investors and landlords.
Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time
#449Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The bubble mostly affects new home buyers, which are the ones who need the least protection. So now you (or more generally the government) get to decide who is more deserving of appropriately priced housing? Why do new home buyers need less protection? > Rent is inflation-adjusted and can't be raised at will, so there is a very long delay between market prices increasing and most tenants actually bearing the cost.…
Those $500 homes are not inhabitable. As someone who was in Detroit less than 24 hours ago, I can tell you I was surprised at how expensive the housing was. Not that it was close to Bay Area prices, but I was expecting to see places I liked for 300-400k. The reality is more like 600k for less than 2,000 square feet.
You absolutely can get houses for 300-400K in Detroit. Where exactly were you looking at? Houses that you're describing are definitely possible in hot areas like Downtown and Downtown adjacent areas like Corktown, Indian Woods, and Midtown.
Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time
#450The 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…
Having grown up in DC and New York, I would say more strongly that there's no other city in the USA that has comparable mass transit.
The way I would put it is -- in New York, it is more of a hassle to have a car than to go without. In all those other cities, while there is some mass transit, you will find yourself wanting a car.