Live data from Hacker News

Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

axios.com

551–560 of 1001 posts

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

#551

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…

> Rent is the main detractor of disposable income which hurts the rest of the economy, and property owners provide almost no value,

Have you considered that housing might actually be valuable? If it didn’t provide value, why do you think that Vienna seized so much of it to give out to its citizens? Maybe try to find a different way to phrase whatever you’re trying to say.

Assuming you’re referring to property owners getting by doing nothing. That’s false unless they are a slumlord.

Let me ask you another question. What do people do who are not happy with the housing provided by the govt in Vienna?

> The current setup creates guettos by default, by siloing people with different monetary and social capital into different building and areas

This is not how it works in the US for the last 50 years or so. Most places force every new building to include low income units.

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

#552
post #536
post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't produce more land. Best we can do is tax people for hoarding it

Best we can do is certainly not increase the cost of land, and thus increase the required price of rent/housing to break even. Less regulatory obstacles to increase supply, i.e. build housing, is the correct answer.

Land Value Tax would decrease the cost of land as it makes land speculation less attractive. People won't be willing to bet on much on real estate if increased prices come with a tax penalty.

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

#553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you here. I'm a relatively new NYC resident and worried that I'll be "ruined" forever. I've otherwise lived in Toronto and Seattle. It really comes down to fear of change I think. Humans are very adaptable, and the same one can thrive in car-centric suburbs as they would in shoulder-to-shoulder metropolises. Given no constraints, you prefer city. But throw in kids (requirement for more space/better schools), o…

> I feel you here. I'm a relatively new NYC resident and worried that I'll be "ruined" forever. I've otherwise lived in Toronto and Seattle. Just out of curiosity, what do you think NYC has that Toronto or Seattle don't have? And what are you thoughts on Toronto vs. Seattle? Personally, I've lived in Toronto (which I loved), and visited Seattle for a few days (which I liked, but hard to say from a short visit), so cu…

Recently moved to Seattle from NYC. I'm enjoying Seattle, but it's a joke of a city compared to NYC. Seattle's public transportation—while improving with light rail—pales in comparison. Seattle is, overall, pedestrian-hostile. There are neighborhoods that are themselves walkable, but sidewalks will disappear when walking between them, or you'll be forced into situations where you're uncomfortably close to high-speed traffic (e.g. the Ballard bridge).

Seattle has enough good food to keep me relatively happy (even pizza and bagels), but for any given cuisine, you might have one or two good options. Getting to them probably involves driving, and they're probably not open late or even open at all early in the week (maybe this is a pandemic artifact; I moved here in 2021). Seafood here is great, though. I think Seattle wins in that single category.

I think NYC's biggest win over Seattle (and every single other city in the US) is the combination of quantity, quality, and accessibility. You have some of the world's best food, shopping, culture, and jobs accessible to you at all hours of the day via a subway ride (or in many cases within walking distance). The city is your backyard: you don't need a huge apartment because there's a good chance you won't really be spending much time there.

That said, after 10 years there I grew tired of that lifestyle and wanted to spend more time outdoors and exploring the west coast. If you really enjoy the outdoors—hiking, skiing, mountain biking, climbing, etc.—then NYC is vastly inferior to Seattle. I may find myself back in NYC some day because I miss the things that it's the best at, but for now, I'm enjoying doing something different. I think it's very easy to fall into a hedonic routine in NYC.

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

#554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had similar thoughts. I live on the west coast and feel so safe that I don't even lock the front door to my house, ever. I wonder if OP feels safe enough to always have their front door unlocked.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Whether or not you lock your door has more to do with cultural attitudes towards risk

> People in rural areas don’t lock their doors for the same reason they don’t wear seatbelts and drive drunk everywhere. They just don’t care.

Do you think the attitude towards risk is because they truly don't care about having their belongings stolen, or because they know there is less risk of that happening? Having lived in a rural area and in a few cities, my experience is the latter. No one wants to be robbed.

Also, people in rural areas driving drunk is mostly due to lack of transportation options. I'm certainly not condoning it, but Uber doesn't travel out into the sticks and there is no bus or train to hop on.

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

#555

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

I’d love for someone to do an analysis where they look at the number of AirBnB’s in a city, and model out what would happen to the rents in that city if those units were put back into the rental market.

Would be absolutely fascinating if there was a tight correlation

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

#556
post #535
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Fewer people than 100 years ago, compare that to Bay Area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna#Demographics

100 years ago there were 4 families in the now single apartment I live in. There was an extreme housing crisis and the current system started then as a direct response to that extreme overcrowding.

Bay Area could learn a lot from Vienna. Especially about building up.

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

#557
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you suggesting that people paying $5k are doing that because of some inherent property of a $5k rental, and that they would not prefer to pay the year 2000 rent on the same unit, say $3000? If people paying $5k would prefer to pay $3k for their units, why would this logic not also apply to people who are currently paying $3k? If lower rents would make the city become undesirable, why did people want to move there…

> inherent property of a $5k rental,

The inherent property of a 5k rental he's referring to is that it costs 5k. Most people paying 5k for a studio just _don't want people around their houses_ specially if they are poorer than them. Otherwise they would be paying less than 3k for a room with a shared kitchen and bathroom or renting a bigger place with roommates.

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

#558
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…

> I like that the city is generally safer than the rest of America. Coming from New Hampshire: this is just fantastically untrue. NYC is about one hundred times more violent than where I live. It is so thoroughly not the same that I can usually tell when people come from cities simply based on how nervous they are. I think most people don't realize how badly it affects them, or how violent cities are versus "the rest…

Also in NH, and I would say my perception is the opposite of your facts.I've spent lots of time all over the city at different times of day/year across decades.

I would still say Manchester, Rochester, Nashua ETC are 10x trashier and more neglected than even the most run down alley in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens.

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

#559
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…

An escooter might be a good transportation choice.

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

#560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

For people wondering the drivers here: car crashes, drug overdoses, suicides. So the claim isn't really referring about the things people usually consider when it comes to "safety" (interpersonal attacks), although it's talking about things that we perhaps *should* think about more when it comes to safety.

If I'm being honest with myself, muggings in DC still scare me more than car crashes in Montana, despite the reality of these stats.

Post reply on HN