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A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

gothamist.com

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Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#12

Post by IncreasePosts »

anovikov wrote: post #5
formerly_proven wrote: post #3

Rent control fundamentally cannot work, which is why it never works. Malicious noncompliance is a red herring.

It can and does work in many places. Whole cities like Stockholm mostly consist of rent-controlled apartments which have same rents paid since WWII era, which now amount to almost nothing. It creates awful social distortions and indirect costs, but it certainly does work.

I'm sure it works for the residents of Stockholm, but not so much for all sorts of people who would move to Stockholm but can't wait in line 10 years for an apartment.

Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#13

Post by vr46 »

The UK has completely abolished fees (I think) for tenants - I am a reluctant landlord - and I completely agree with that, the power asymmetry in finding housing is already bad enough without allowing blank-cheque negotiations.

In my section of Germany, housing is even worse with rent caps and tenant rights, plus a lack of housing. Tenants are hard to move on, so landlords are painfully cautious about getting the right tenants - and there isn't a lot of money to maintain properties either, it seems. Our place has the worst decor and electrics, terrible ventilation and mould. And I think we're at the high end.

Systems geared up for incumbents, like "council houses for life" in London, ought to be sunset, just to get housing moving again. I don't think rent control works well, but I don't think open market rent works either. Anything critical with a limited supply needs to be externally regulated in ways that keep the wheels moving.

Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#14

Post by FredPret »

anovikov wrote: post #5
formerly_proven wrote: post #3

Rent control fundamentally cannot work, which is why it never works. Malicious noncompliance is a red herring.

It can and does work in many places. Whole cities like Stockholm mostly consist of rent-controlled apartments which have same rents paid since WWII era, which now amount to almost nothing. It creates awful social distortions and indirect costs, but it certainly does work.

Supply and demand determines rent; if you have enough supply and also rent control, then you'll have have rent control that magically "works".

But it's always supply and demand that gets the upper hand in the end. If there's a shortage of supply, and you put in more market rules & regulations, costs will shift elsewhere (like the broker in the article) or the black market will simply grow to clear the market.

Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#18

Post by paxys »

The reason I live in a large managed building in NYC is that while such corporate housing may be bad, the broker cartel is infinitely worse. Every independent unit wanted at minimum $7-10K in broker fees, despite the fact that in most cases I didn’t even interact with the broker in any way. So what value are they adding to the system exactly?
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