Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

gothamist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 450 posts

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

#171

Post by Ntrails »

jgr0007 wrote: post #166
conductr wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 proper…

Thanks for posting this view: I had read the "Land Value Tax"-side of the argument before (and somewhat agree with it), but I hadn't seen someone post good reasons _not_ to support LVT. I think your reply - and your other replies - are pretty good reasons

My view is to simply allow property taxes to be deferred until sale or death.

Alternatives exist (eg taxable value set by what you paid not marked to market)

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

#172

Post by seszett »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #161
techbrovanguard wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some may consider it the end-goal, to be fair - as eventually you'd drive landlords completely out of business. Great! Housing should never have been allowed to become a commodity.

Did you read the rest of the comment? How do you solve the problem of condo owners not maintaining a property and letting problems fester for a couple decades after which they might be dead or move out?

Condos are just a kind of appartement, right?

There is normally a kind of owners assembly in which the various owners can take (binding) decisions or action regarding such problems or anything that concerns the building as a whole. It might not be mandatory in all countries I suppose, but it should be.

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

#173

Post by brewdad »

rcpt wrote: post #140
conductr wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 proper…

> growing 10% a year for probably the last 15+ years If I were 5x leveraged my net worth on a jackpot like that I'd probably cash out and move to an island to.

The property value may or may not be growing at 10% a year. My state (Oregon) has a tax cap similar to California's. Taxable property values were capped at their value in (I believe) 1979 and are only allowed to increase by 3% a year. My property market value could increase 10% but my taxes will only go up 3%. During the housing crash of the 2000s, my property lost about 40% of its value. My taxes still went up 3% every year because the gap between actual value and taxable value was so large.

Depending on the structure of TX property taxes, it is certainly possible to have your tax bill increasing rapidly while property values are stagnant or even falling.

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

#174

Post by homefree »

alephnerd wrote: post #61
homefree wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miami? I was impressed with Miami when I visited. Lots of high rise residential housing, sane political governance, nice downtown, and pretty walkable.

It's almost impossible to use public transit outside of Brickell. Miami-Dade is very sprawly, like Los Angeles. This is unsurprising as Miami is a relatively new city that expanded post-WW2, like LA. The cities I listed above were already fairly high density before the automobile was invented

I explored Brickell and Miami Beach, comparing to LA is unfair imo, that’s like comparing to “Bay Area” instead of SF.

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

#175

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

When I see people complaining about never being able to purchase a house my response is always the same. move.

$1,100 is considered "well below market rates" for a 1 bedroom apartment in NYC? That's _nuts_ to me.

I'm paying $1,600 for a 3 bed, 2 bath 1800 sq ft house with a 2 car garage. Vaulted ceilings, my neighbor is a police officer and I'm on a corner lot across from a park. fire department is literally 3 blocks away. IOW, I pay more because of the neighborhood.

Granted, I live in a LCOL area, but that's kind of the point. If you feel you don't have the buying power, move. Hell, I know a woman who has a mortgage that she pays off of a fixed income and a bit of side work (600/month I think? in that ballpark) and she's buying more house than that.

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

#176

Post by homefree »

forthwall wrote: post #57
homefree wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miami? I was impressed with Miami when I visited. Lots of high rise residential housing, sane political governance, nice downtown, and pretty walkable.

Miami is walkable in some parts, I personally feel it’s as walkable as LA, walkable neighborhoods but big moats between them (not just the bridges)

Yeah, though I think Bay Area is similar - LA is huge and more equivalent to compare to Bay Area (SF + Oakland + Peninsula + San Jose), than just SF itself.

Also more comparable populations that way too.

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

#177

Post by alexambarch »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #68

A broker’s fee for an apartment? I’ve never seen that. I own a house now, but when I used to rent, the process was to visit the websites of local well known management companies, pick a few apartments you like, and have the manager show each to you. Then you pick one and apply. Why are people injecting the expense of a broker into such a simple transaction? And the renters are the ones paying?

Brokers fees for the apartment in Cambridge I rent were $4k. This was in addition to first and last months’ rent. Extremely annoying but when every other apartment is doing it too, you don’t have much of a choice if you want to live in the area.

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

#178

Post by SoftTalker »

sofixa wrote: post #128
no_wizard wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally think it's awful to see elderly people getting priced out of a house they've owned for decades Housing being seen as this generational I own it forever thing that Americans have doesn’t also square with the American narrative of housing as an investment. It’s one or the other. If you want housing to be seen as something that more or less “always goes up” but you can’t be taxed in the increased value th…

> Another way to think about it: they’re selling at a premium well over they bought it for. Not necessarily. The fact that they're getting priced out right now via taxes on the estimated value of the house doesn't mean they can sell the house at that value (being forced to sell) and that they can find a cheaper alternative that works as well for them. So they can be in for a net loss, all things considered.

If you can't sell the house for its assessed value you should appeal the assessment.

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

#179

Post by thebruce87m »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #175

When I see people complaining about never being able to purchase a house my response is always the same. move. $1,100 is considered "well below market rates" for a 1 bedroom apartment in NYC? That's _nuts_ to me. I'm paying $1,600 for a 3 bed, 2 bath 1800 sq ft house with a 2 car garage. Vaulted ceilings, my neighbor is a police officer and I'm on a corner lot across from a park. fire department is literally 3 blocks…

Edit: rethought this but can’t delete

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

#180

Post by bradlys »

mtrower wrote: post #147
bradlys wrote: 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…

> End of the day, landlords don’t deserve more money and I don’t know why anyone here argues for it. It’s like you want bezos to have even more money - it’s super weird. See, to me, this vitriol is what seems super weird. It seems like you must be talking about some sort of property shark that owns 8+ figures in property and extracts the maximum possible from the poor peons that dare to want a roof over their heads.…

End of the day, landlords aren't doing any labor for the rent they are collecting.

If you do something that drives up the value of the property - you'll get some amount of that when you go to sell the property. If your father buys properties, rehabs them, and then rents them out... Guess what? He's double-dipping. He's going to charge more for rent and he's going to be able to sell the property for more later. In one instance (selling the property), yes, he's doing labor and will reap some reward for his labor. In the other, he's not really doing any labor to keep charging more rent.

I had "small time" landlords many times. They always jacked up the rent 10-20% every year. You think they're doing that because the 1920's house I was renting was getting improved every year or they were doing anything to make it better? Nope... They just wanted more money and because no one was building more housing - they knew they could get it.

Post reply on HN