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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

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land Value Tax: Make it financially unfeasible to speculate, to withhold units from the market, and to withhold unused land from the market. Let prices freely fluctuate with the market. Increases in rent derived from externalities (i.e. Amazon HQ2 setting up shop nearby or a new subway station) go back into public coffers, while increases in rent derived from landlord actions (i.e. renovations, building bigger, bette…

I'm a fan as long as we also continue building. Build, build, build as long as demand is there.

They did that in China and housing prices are still sky high. As long as "number go up" is the belief in housing you'll have speculators and empty housing. Now you could tax empty (non-rented dwellings without a declared tax residence) and that would lower prices and increase supply.

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

#92
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds terrible. What "section of Germany" are you in? Berlin?

Hamburg. The previous tenants left a mess, the landlord put in a new kitchen for us, new fences around the boundary, new back patio tiles. Ventilation is a problem as extractor fans need replacing and I’ve replaced a bunch of electric switches and sockets, but no fun. Classmates with income only from the job centre are unable to find a place to live, although that’s hardly better anywhere. In London the rents are ast…

The landlord put in a new kitchen for you? When I lived in several different towns in Germany every single flat was rented without kitchen...I bought more than one and had to dismount the kitchen when leaving. One of German absurdities I don't miss...

"Apartments don’t come with kitchens in Germany" - https://alisajordanwrites.com/2018/08/06/apartments-dont-com...

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

#93
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't. The market determines rent. Lower demand or raise supply and watch prices drop, regardless of what the landlords want.

Market determines rent the same way market determines the cost of health insurance: people need a place to live the same way they need a doctor when they’re sick. If all the landlords are using collusion software to raise rent in tandem [0] what is your alternative, live in the streets until they give in? [0] https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-r...

This is not a good analogy. When you are sick, you need to get treatment, you're time constrained and usually space constrained too (you wouldn't travel 3 states out if you need an urgent procedure).

With housing it's more flexible: you can commute longer each day. You can just not move to a city where you know the "salary/cost of living" is not working in your favor. You can also time these decisions: go to NYC when you are in your 20s, live with some roommates to get some savings and then when you get older you can move to a more spacious city. You can be flexible about the space you need too: from 1 bedroom in a shared apartment, to a 3 beds detached house in a quiet suburb in another city, there is a lot of flexibility.

In a city there is a constraint on how much you can build, and everybody wants to be there. You can let the free market set the price, or you can try to distort the market with rent controls and then you end up with black markets, illegal payments, people holding on to their apartment for way longer they would normally do etc. Why would a 1 person ever move out of a large apartment if they have a low rent? They don't care that the same apartment would be a god-send for a family of 4...

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

#94
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent control ideally wouldn’t need to exist. But since no one is fucking building anything - you need it to prevent landlords from just extracting more money from the pockets of laborers without having done any labor themselves. My landlord didn’t provide any more utility this year even though they jacked up my rent $1000/month this year. Nothing about my place got any better and I’m not getting anything out of it. T…

Always good to mention the property management cartel that's in cahoots with rental management software companies to price-fix and jack up rates for everyone ("allegedly"). People keep trying to rationalize the status quo with complex explanations, when the dynamic is really "Army setting up a school" dead-simple (or, even more applicable, Soviets setting up apartment blocks): if you care about fulfilling the need, i…

Investors are speculators. Fundamentally, they should not be cared about. We should be considering the lives of everyday people and labor.

Just cause some capitalist lost a few dollars doesn’t mean anything. Capitalists don’t do any labor - that’s the whole point of why they invest in things. They put money in places hoping that they’ll get more out of it without having done anything. But it’s a risk - and the government shouldn’t be backing risk taking speculators who gamble with their money. It should be backing laborers!

But it doesn’t. Government is controlled by capitalists because capitalists have the discretionary money (thanks to stealing it from laborers) to keep lobbying to keep status quo.

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

#95
post #13

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 rig…

Land Value Tax: Make it financially unfeasible to speculate, to withhold units from the market, and to withhold unused land from the market. Let prices freely fluctuate with the market. Increases in rent derived from externalities (i.e. Amazon HQ2 setting up shop nearby or a new subway station) go back into public coffers, while increases in rent derived from landlord actions (i.e. renovations, building bigger, bette…

The end result: By the end of year 5 of it's implementation, the local tax authority shall determine the land owned by politically connected investment funds is virtually worthless, while ordinary citizen's derive virtually no value from any improvements they construct on their properties.

Where this love for arbitrary taxation comes from? How much have you donated to your mayor's electoral campaign? Do you golf with aldermen?

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

#96
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't. The market determines rent. Lower demand or raise supply and watch prices drop, regardless of what the landlords want.

Market determines rent the same way market determines the cost of health insurance: people need a place to live the same way they need a doctor when they’re sick. If all the landlords are using collusion software to raise rent in tandem [0] what is your alternative, live in the streets until they give in? [0] https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-r...

> If all the landlords are using collusion

The market for housing in a metropolitan area cannot be organized. Everyone is a landlord. If rent spikes to 100k a year, I'm going to throw away shit so I can rent my 2nd bedroom for 50k, and the cycle continues down.

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

#97
post #13

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 rig…

Land Value Tax: Make it financially unfeasible to speculate, to withhold units from the market, and to withhold unused land from the market. Let prices freely fluctuate with the market. Increases in rent derived from externalities (i.e. Amazon HQ2 setting up shop nearby or a new subway station) go back into public coffers, while increases in rent derived from landlord actions (i.e. renovations, building bigger, bette…

I'm in Texas, a state with pretty high property tax. We've also seen a ton of appreciation in recent years. Booming economy, transplants from other states, then the COVID factor. We also have a near free market on rent; I've been a landlord and not aware of any limitations. There are a couple limits on property taxes (namely a cap of 10% increase per year on "homesteads", and an Agriculture exemption for rural properties). But for most people in the towns and cities, this means our property tax bills have been growing 10% a year for probably the last 15+ years. So, the problem we're having now is people that have owned a home for decades or even just 5 years are finding they get forced to sell because they can't afford the tax bill. Since housing has appreciated, they're not just forced to sell, they're likely forced to leave their community for another cheaper place. I don't think it's right to lock up land/property forever, but I do think people buying property should be able to predict whether they will be able to afford to continue living there as they age. Even rather young families are dealing with this.

I personally think it's awful to see elderly people getting priced out of a house they've owned for decades, young families have to move their kids in their high school years because the taxes have become unmanageable, how it disproportionately impacts POC as gentrification occurs, and all the other ways it impacts people's lives who just thought they were buying a house to set roots for their lives/families but then externalities cause it to suddenly become unaffordable.

It's extremely perverse when you consider that these people's tax dollars are often used by politicians to encourage the very "growth" that contributes to their affordability problem. They court corporations and give huge tax breaks to move their offices/factories to Texas, which drives up the demand for housing, etc.

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

#98
post #13

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 rig…

Poland has a system where it's basically impossible to evict anybody if you rent under the standard rules. However, there exists a special type of contract which allows for quick and painless eviction, but where the tenant must provide proof that they have a place to stay at, either a deed to a property they own or a declaration from somebody who is willing to take them in. A lot of landlords insist on this type of c…

These kinds of things are side-effects of "tenant's rights" laws.

Some may consider it the end-goal, to be fair - as eventually you'd drive landlords completely out of business. The problem is that this is antithetical to higher density, because you need landlords of some form if you have anything denser than a duplex. You can have condos perhaps, but not everyone can afford to get into one, or even wants to.

And if there's a lack of landlords willing to rent, there will be a lack of landlords willing to build to rent, and so the housing stock will continue to increase at a glacial pace.

The laws of unintended consequences can strike in weird ways - making it easier to evict may result in more housing in total ...

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

#99

For an $1,100/month apartment in NYC, a $15k fee is worth it, even if you have to take out debt for it.

I think the article isn't about whether or not this is a good deal — rather it argues that people who actually need it have to pay extraordinary fees (for the average Joe, not tech folks on HN) in order to join the market. Most people don't have 15$k laying around.

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

#100
post #13

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 rig…

Poland has a system where it's basically impossible to evict anybody if you rent under the standard rules. However, there exists a special type of contract which allows for quick and painless eviction, but where the tenant must provide proof that they have a place to stay at, either a deed to a property they own or a declaration from somebody who is willing to take them in. A lot of landlords insist on this type of c…

> but as far as I'm aware, somebody with no credit history is basically indistinguishable from somebody with "good" history.

As it should be. Why would you want to allow someone to be judged for _not_ having been in debt in the past?

You can always ask for references if they rented before, that might help somewhat.

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