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

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

#311

Post by whycome »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #239
whycome wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my neighbor is a police officer What's the implication here? That you're extra safe? Or that it's a neighborhood that they would also choose?

both, the park regularly has kids playing in it from the neighborhood. Kids run up and down the streets not worrying about violence, etc.

Did you buy this property because you knew of the police neighbor? Is it just well known for the kids as well?

It's just a strange signifier to me. Does a real estate agent mention this? Do they know they play this role? Are they compensated in any way? Should other neighborhoods encourage the presence of a single police officer home?

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

#312

Post by AndrewKemendo »

cko wrote: post #290
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a "reluctant landlord?"

I'm guessing they had to move due to life circumstances, but due to taxes, transaction costs, sunk cost fallacy, hassle, etc, decided not to sell the unit. Every reluctant landlord capitulates and sells... eventually.

How is that different than a non-reluctant landlord or a capitalist?

It's the same intention: Increase the short term return on capital

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

#313

Post by no_wizard »

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

Texas doesn’t have an LVT they have a traditional property tax system that primarily bases taxes on assessed value of the home on top of the land, not the land itself.

LVT would actually negate the parent posters complaints, as only the underlying land would be assessed and the penalties only really kick in if the land is unoccupied or is not utilized (sitting vacant is the most common of this, followed by lack of utilization, for instance under many LVT implementations large lot owners with single homes also get hit with underutilization penalties to encourage subdividing and utilization of the land which is a net win for society And often the immediate land owner. Objections tend to philosophical on this point)

It disincentives empty / under-utilized land holdings like vacant lots or lots that could support more utilization (usually via an activities like building homes on top and selling / renting them or farming)

There is nuance in implementation details but in broad strokes that covers it in tl;dr fashion

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

#314

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #302
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, as someone who grew up extremely poor (to the point of living in a tent on the side of the river in HS) I'm here to tell you nothing you mentioned is essential. I looked up the average salary in NYC out of curiosity and I make well above the average there. but I live extremely cheaply and part of that is the lessons I learned as a child. I could afford a much bigger house, much nicer cars, more toys. I choose n…

> I'm here to tell you nothing you mentioned is essential. Good, then nothing is essential and we can stop worrying about whether something is essential or not and go back to talking about desirable.

I don't know that I would take that stance but certainly a bidet and a nice car do not fall under that category, nor does being able to walk to a restaurant.

You may try and argue some of the grey areas, but most of the things you listed are _clearly_ not essential, they're desirable by specific people, as you said.

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

#315

Post by no_wizard »

Ntrails wrote: post #171
jgr0007 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Why not just tax the land value and disregard the things in top of it entirely?

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

#316

Post by asadotzler »

jrockway wrote: post #209
nemothekid wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 15k personal loan at 12% (no idea what loan rates are now, but 12% seems high enough) with a payback period of 3 years would be an extra $600/mo. Heck at 1 year its an extra 1,332.73/mo - you would still come in under median.

Personal loans are like 7% right now. Or at least that's what Amex quotes me every time I log in.

Because everyone's rich enough to have an Amex account, and no one ever turns over their car title or uses a payday lender to make rent. Everyone is exactly like me, a rich white guy living a casually luxurious lifestyle, so how could they not have access to easy and cheap capital.

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

#317

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #314
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm here to tell you nothing you mentioned is essential. Good, then nothing is essential and we can stop worrying about whether something is essential or not and go back to talking about desirable.

I don't know that I would take that stance but certainly a bidet and a nice car do not fall under that category, nor does being able to walk to a restaurant. You may try and argue some of the grey areas, but most of the things you listed are _clearly_ not essential, they're desirable by specific people, as you said.

What makes a toilet essential but not a bidet? Plenty of people manage to survive without toilets. Some of them even in downtown San Francisco (you can tell by the state of the sidewalks). They don't tend to thrive with dignity though. Is it not the dignity and thriving aspect that's ultimately important? What things make you thrive? What things make you feel dignified? Are they essential for your wellbeing?

(personally speaking, like many people I have eczema, and my wellbeing tends to be diminished by having a scraped anus)

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

#318

Post by no_wizard »

compiler-guy wrote: post #201
ohhnoodont wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ways to address this problem, but in any case this is still ultimately a very good problem for property owners to have. Their property value has increased dramatically. Being forced to move is inconvenient, but you do so with a large bag of cash.

That big bag of cash won’t buy a community where you know most everyone and have friends of decades or more whom you support and support you in return. Social connections take a long time to build and are hard to replace with cash.

Then you need to square values here.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Everyone wants their home to be worth more and more year over year but doesn’t want to incur any obligation for it.

How do you square that with the idea that communities and social connections are more important? Look at what California did with prop 13. It’s a disaster by all accounts. We need to switch models not create more complicated exemptions around property taxation.

Land Value Tax is more equitable and doesn’t have the intrinsic volatility and unpredictably of how we do property taxes today which is assessed in the unit value not the land and only punishes under utilization and vacant land holdings. This encourages building and to some extent smaller parcels of land per unit built

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

#319

Post by carom »

jrockway wrote: post #196
formerly_proven wrote: post #3

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

> Rent control fundamentally cannot work Rent control definitely works, because owners lock in the original price of the building with a fixed-rate mortgage. If you buy a building in 1960 to rent out, you can rent it out at 1960s prices pretty much forever, with only a tiny fraction added to cover increasing property taxes (subsidized for owners of rent-stabilized apartments) and the increasing costs of routine maint…

So you cannot sell the building? Also you have to get all the tenants out to build, do you have buyouts? This seems like no one will run apartments.

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

#320

Post by carom »

bradlys wrote: post #65
formerly_proven wrote: post #3

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

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…

Isn't zoning the issue in that case?
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