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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

#381

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 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…

How do the property prices behave? I mean, do they rise on par with the property tax? Thanks.

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

#382

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?

There's something about America that fosters the existence of parasitic middlemen. The story usually begins with a promise of some service or convenience, then reveals itself to just exploit information assymmetry or regulatory capture.

Maybe that something is regulations on renting? You can try to control the free market, but the free market (a.k.a. reality) will always exert itself, whether through loopholes or the black market if need be.

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

#383
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You will be happy to know that the big property management companies are willing to charge you an extra per-month fee to report your rent payment history to credit reporting agencies. Which, to me, they should not be allowed to do. I'm yet to find a rental property that lets you pay rent in arrears, so there's absolutely no use of credit occurring.

Since it takes quite awhile to evict in most places if you stop paying (months to years), they've always got some degree of 'arrears' risk going on. Not to mention you have the ability to literally burn down their property (even by accident) with no real way they can stop you, since you have the run of the place. At best they can try to lock you up afterwards, but if you do it right it would be nearly impossible to p…

None of which is 'credit' in the sense of a score. And the fact that you have PM companies doing it as a "value added service", for a fee of course, rather than in the normal course of business also shows how shady this is.

If it's credit, report it. Don't charge people a fee to do so. I'm actually fairly surprised the bureaus haven't forbidden this. And if I was a renter and this was being done to me as a condition of rental I'd be disputing the tradeline.

> they've always got some degree of 'arrears' risk going on.

That's not a default of an extended line of credit.

> Not to mention you have the ability to literally burn down their property (even by accident) with no real way they can stop you

That's your investment risk as a landlord and why you carry insurance, still has nothing to do with my creditworthiness. Like you say, "even by accident".

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

#384
post #154
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you need landlords of some form if you have anything denser than a duplex Why? What value do they provide, other than having a bunch of money upfront? I’d argue there are many, many ways to fund building construction other than for-profit ownership

> What value do they provide, other than having a bunch of money upfront? Providing capital is useful! You can't just ignore that.

Why don’t they issue a loan then, and get paid back with interest? It’s insane that our system, by design, has an underclass that is earning WAY less because they can’t afford the entry price for a home, so all their rent for years and years goes into someone else’s pocket instead of their own equity. IMO

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

#385
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since it takes quite awhile to evict in most places if you stop paying (months to years), they've always got some degree of 'arrears' risk going on. Not to mention you have the ability to literally burn down their property (even by accident) with no real way they can stop you, since you have the run of the place. At best they can try to lock you up afterwards, but if you do it right it would be nearly impossible to p…

None of which is 'credit' in the sense of a score. And the fact that you have PM companies doing it as a "value added service", for a fee of course, rather than in the normal course of business also shows how shady this is. If it's credit, report it. Don't charge people a fee to do so. I'm actually fairly surprised the bureaus haven't forbidden this. And if I was a renter and this was being done to me as a condition…

If credit is the concept of ‘I get back what I loaned out, plus agreed upon interest per the agreement’ all of the situations are 100% credit like. If you like it or not. And the credit score is all about if you’re a worthwhile person for a lender to lend money to.

Same reason some employers like to check your credit if they expect you to be handling their or their customers money.

A track record of following your agreements when other people’s money is at stake, in a way they can get what is agreed on at the end of the day is important to them - and to if they want to place their money or assets in your hands going forward. There are many ways for a loan, or tenant, to go south and be a bad deal for them.

If that is inconvenient for you, they’ll usually be happy to tell you to bother someone else instead. If they’re smart, anyway. Dumb lenders lose principal, and that’s death to them if they do it too often.

Personally I don’t write loans/notes or rent out property because I’m not interested in dealing with the manipulation or excuses. I do have excellent credit though. And have had people write private notes for some side projects of mine. YMMV.

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

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's nothing special about yours or about NYC that makes yours better Well there is something special about the higher cost places. That thing special, is that they are more desirable by a much larger amount of people. Otherwise prices wouldn't be so high. So yes, the more in demand places are better to a much larger amount of people.

Taylor Swift is preferred by a much larger number of people than Thelonius Monk is; does that make Swift 'better' than Monk? The quality of something and validity of people's preferences doesn't depend on popularity.

> The quality of something and validity of people's preferences doesn't depend on popularit

When discussing demand and pricing, preferences are the only thing that matter.

By definition the thing that is the most popular is the thing that is the most in demand and therefore has the most money trying to purchase that good.

This is important and relevant to the discussion of housing, because it tells us how to satisfy the most people's preferences.

Therefore my statement is true and you didn't agree with me when I said: 'Well there is something special about the higher cost places.

That thing special, is that they are more desirable by a much larger amount of people.'.

This statement is still true.

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

#387
post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of which is 'credit' in the sense of a score. And the fact that you have PM companies doing it as a "value added service", for a fee of course, rather than in the normal course of business also shows how shady this is. If it's credit, report it. Don't charge people a fee to do so. I'm actually fairly surprised the bureaus haven't forbidden this. And if I was a renter and this was being done to me as a condition…

If credit is the concept of ‘I get back what I loaned out, plus agreed upon interest per the agreement’ all of the situations are 100% credit like. If you like it or not. And the credit score is all about if you’re a worthwhile person for a lender to lend money to. Same reason some employers like to check your credit if they expect you to be handling their or their customers money. A track record of following your ag…

Credit in the sense of credit bureaus is the extension of secured or unsecured credit.

You pay upfront for the use of a home/apartment/condo - you are not being extended any kind of credit.

For the same reason prepaid phones don't report to credit bureaus.

That corner cases exist where you might be out money through the fault - or not - of the tenant doesn't make it a credit instrument.

All of your examples are entirely understandable - they're just not credit.

That's why there are separate reporting agencies for tenants and evictions.

No matter how you slice it, you are not extending credit to anyone by renting your home.

> A track record of following your agreements when other people’s money is at stake, in a way they can get what is agreed on at the end of the day is important to them - and to if they want to place their money or assets in your hands.

Now you're trying to conflate doing a credit _check_ for prospective tenants (something I have zero issue with and is completely different to this) with "allowing property management companies to, for a fee of course, report your entirely-paid-in-advance rental / lease payments as credit arrangements in arrears.

Perhaps if you start billing your rent in arrears, there would be a case for this.

To wit, the fact that in some situations you might be out some money doesn’t mean you have extended someone credit.

> If credit is the concept of ‘I get back what I loaned out, plus agreed upon interest per the agreement’

By your argument if you lend me your car and ask me to fill it with gas/replace the gas I used and I don’t, you could report my default to a CRA. Somehow I don’t think that would work.

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

#388
post #149

New report dropped recently that vacancy rates there are like 2% or less. That is far, far below healthy levels. NYC needs more housing, as does much of the US in places where the jobs are.

I'm not familiar with NYC other than a few visits, but my impression is that the city is already very densely populated. Where would new housing go? Is it just more skyscrapers?

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

#389
post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If credit is the concept of ‘I get back what I loaned out, plus agreed upon interest per the agreement’ all of the situations are 100% credit like. If you like it or not. And the credit score is all about if you’re a worthwhile person for a lender to lend money to. Same reason some employers like to check your credit if they expect you to be handling their or their customers money. A track record of following your ag…

Credit in the sense of credit bureaus is the extension of secured or unsecured credit. You pay upfront for the use of a home/apartment/condo - you are not being extended any kind of credit. For the same reason prepaid phones don't report to credit bureaus. That corner cases exist where you might be out money through the fault - or not - of the tenant doesn't make it a credit instrument. All of your examples are entir…

This comment is really weird. Because the comment you are replying to literally doesn’t say the things you seem to be replying to, and instead does actually say what you seem to think it should say?

Did you read it before replying?

For instance, I literally said a lease is ‘credit like’. Not actually credit. And that some landlords and employers might want to check your credit report before engaging with you to see how you do with credit, as they might give them useful information on how you might do in other areas they care about - not that they would report their own activities there.

The car loaner situation is also completely inapplicable to a lease - which, btw, is almost the exact same broad structure as a bond.

Possession of X is given to debtor in exchange for monthly payments of Y with some additional conditions, and in the event of default or end of term, X needs to be returned to the bond writer in whole. With optionally some funds held in escrow (security deposit) in case of default or damage to X.

It’s real property for a given time in exchange for rent of course, not a chunk of principal for time in exchange for interest, but it’s the same kind of deal.

And similar to most bonds, the full interest/rent amount isn’t paid up front. It’s done for given periods of time (a month being pretty standard).

Now one could imagine a way a car loaner could be structured so that payment of gas IS payment for the loaner, and even how it could be structured as an automobile lease. But it would require that structure no? And would be pretty ridiculous paperwork wise.

Property leases already follow that structure.

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

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should we dive into the relationship between "preferred" and "better"? Yes, that's what I'm talking about. They are not the same things; there is nothing magical about subjective preference that makes something 'better', no matter how many people share it. If they like burritos and I like ramen, does that make burritos 'better'? In fact, people can prefer things that are clearly 'worse', for many purposes, such as…

ultimately, when someone takes this stance what they really mean is that nothing is knowable so you're a terrible person for judging someone as if you know something! sue me. I think food for someone without food is more important than a middle class person being able to drive a brand new car. You can manipulate language as much as you want, I will still judge you for that opinion. A large part of why I made the post…

What about it angers you? Do you have a personal experience with it? From what I can see, we're talking about real estate, not usually an inflammatory subject. Nobody else seems angry, but you seem to have something to be angry about.

I can tell you from my experience, whatever it is, you seem to apply it to me. You're attributing things to me that I haven't said nor have they crossed my mind, and attacking me about whatever is making your angry. I just stopped by at my favorite spot for a chat.

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