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Eight Feet Jolted a $180M Real Estate Deal

nytimes.com

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Re: Eight Feet Jolted a $180M Real Estate Deal

#91

Post by lazyasciiart »

MereInterest wrote: post #15
pfdietz wrote: post #3

I think a case can be made that covenants like this should be disallowed. Sure, allow contracts to be signed, where if a condition is violated then a penalty can be paid. But here? There's no one to buy off to relax the constraint. It's held in perpetuity by the dead hand of the past. To put it another way: there's a property right here (in that setback) that is just sort of floating in the air, not owned by anyone a…

> But here? There's no one to buy off to relax the constraint. It's held in perpetuity by the dead hand of the past. I'd agree that there no one specific with whom you could re-negotiate the condition, but that doesn't mean there is "no one". It means that the negotiation must involve everybody who has made decisions based on the presence of the covenant, and who would be negatively impacted by it. As others have men…

> everybody who has made decisions based on the presence of the covenant, and who would be negatively impacted by it.

Including everyone who has sold the property in the past, and/or decided not to buy it.

Re: Eight Feet Jolted a $180M Real Estate Deal

#92

Post by lazyasciiart »

bombcar wrote: post #27
pfdietz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one holds that such covenants should not exist, then any cost or difficulty to remove them is a negative.

I think people may not know how many things are handled by covenants such as this. Sure, it's a position that anything like this should be a law on the books, but it's likely a not-very-popular position.

If most people think covenants don't affect many things, then I suspect the position that covenants should be replaced by laws is quite popular. I certainly agree with it - I've never seen a covenant that I felt should exist.

Re: Eight Feet Jolted a $180M Real Estate Deal

#93

Post by drivers99 »

alistairSH wrote: post #86
drivers99 wrote: post #6

That was anticlimactic (based on the headline, which is an editor's choice, not the author's). They knew about the requirement and followed it, no jolting involved. The setback is used for a sidewalk. Probably makes more sense for it to be public, but that's not how the man laying out the suburb decided to do it.

To be clear, this is 8’ in addition to the normal public sidewalk/right-of-way. Looking at the photo, the building in question has a wider sidewalk than the buildings on either side. In this photo, it’s the space to the right of the person in the brown jacket… https://archive.is/uNYgK/bc5622d4591c17c2ac4c1f0ff826d2331ab...

What about the other buildings?

Re: Eight Feet Jolted a $180M Real Estate Deal

#94

Post by beaeglebeachh »

bradleyjg wrote: post #85
beaeglebeachh wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covenant is the equivalent of a Eula poisoned into software you've purchased. If you own it you ought have the ability to disable the Eula. A covenant is weird because it more often than not is contract entered unilaterally by some dead guy with himself somehow under the fiction it is an agreement with the land itself, it's not clear who the counterparty even is.

The major problem with EULAs is the power disparity between the buyer and seller. It’s me vs Microsoft and I can’t practically opt out of MS Word. A secondary problem is that no one knows what’s in them because no one reads them. A real estate deal is nothing like that. The buyer and seller have roughly equal power and everyone is represented by lawyers.

[dead]

Re: Eight Feet Jolted a $180M Real Estate Deal

#95

Post by lazide »

jcranmer wrote: post #84
lazide wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, applies generally to deeds too. [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities ]

The rule as I've generally seen stated specifically bans interests from vesting, so even if it does apply to deeds, it wouldn't cover the kind of covenant here I think.

it’s far more than that - read the wiki. avoiding the ‘rule of dead hands’ is a major consideration. such as imposition of unchangeable rules long after death.

Re: Eight Feet Jolted a $180M Real Estate Deal

#96

Post by bruce511 »

beaeglebeachh wrote: post #78
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parent's house in the Bay Area came with (Now unenforceable) covenants dictating that PoC cannot live there. The can and should be changed as necessary.

But it is anti property rights to force someone to rent or sell to poc. Of course without government influence this becomes a dumb business plan because it depressed the utility of your property and hands business to competitors. I would argue government should eliminate racial discrimination laws as it will just shake itself out in the market and it actually makes things harder on poc.

In a world where humans are have rational, then your argument would be correct. Alas that's not the world we live in, as history keeps telling us.

Firstly, let's consider "2 groups". This might be racial, or straight/queer or religion or immigrant status or wealth or whatever. This issue crops up all over history (think Irish immigrants) - society has a habit of splitting into us and them.

Ultimately the split is economic - one group contains much economic power, (which is largely analogous with political power) the other far less. The group with the economic power is seeking to preserve it, the other group is trying to move economically upwards.

So to your first point - exclusivity might depress utility, but it increases value. The free market offers high premiums to exclusivity. So far from being a dumb business plan, it maximized business returns.

Above all, rich people want to live in a bubble of rich people - and zoning laws, the free market, etc (controlled by rich people) work towards this goal.

Then we toss in the notion of "my home is an investment." When you see your home as a store of wealth, then you make communal decisions to preserve that wealth (at all costs.) Will that new bridge, school, office block, anything, make the value of my home go up or down? Pretty much nothing rlse matters.

From this arises push-back laws that try and regulate the worst of these tendencies away. They're almost always fighting the inclinations of the haves to the have-nots. They are often contentious because they go against the natural inclinations of the economically advantaged.

Fundamentally your argument is flawed because those with economic power work hard to keep it. Part of that is actively working against the interests of those without. The market is very much not free.

Re: Eight Feet Jolted a $180M Real Estate Deal

#97

Post by [deleted] »

noah91734 wrote: post #46
crazygringo wrote: post #36

First of all, the headline is pretty clickbaity -- from the article it seems quite clear that this was a case of competing buyers, and the 8-foot setback is some spurious justification for why one of the buyers didn't move fast enough. Second, many commenters here are arguing that perpetual clauses like this ought to be disallowed. It certainly makes sense to me that clauses like these ought to be converted to regula…

> Ensuring some minimal level of architectural consistency on a dense city block is a good thing. Check zillow. Of the 32 units for rent in Brooklyn Heights, the cheapest is a tiny $2,600/month studio. The median rent is $4,500/month, and that's for an apartment with one bedroom and one bathroom. No, I don't think allowing a 200 year old private rule to reduce living space in an age of incredible housing scarcity is…

[deleted]

Re: Eight Feet Jolted a $180M Real Estate Deal

#98

Post by dann0 »

daedrdev wrote: post #59
throwitaway222 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The us is huge

And the market has shown where people would like to live

No, people go to where the resources and opportunities are.

Markets are for maximising profits. Housing should not be a market.

Re: Eight Feet Jolted a $180M Real Estate Deal

#99

Post by nradov »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #62
daedrdev wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the market has shown where people would like to live

If by like to you mean are forced to to escape poverty...

Are you claiming that it's impossible to escape poverty by moving to North Dakota and getting a job in the oil & gas industry?

Re: Eight Feet Jolted a $180M Real Estate Deal

#100

Post by shiroiushi »

Starman_Jones wrote: post #80
ok_dad wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see a city with organic development, I feel cozier than with the cities that all look the same and were built all the same. I think the American idea of “unity” in these matters is a bit insane and very exclusionary.

If there's one thing you can say about America, it's that we're nowhere near as independent and individualistic as the rest of the world. New York is tentpole of homogeneity compared to Barcelona or Lyon.

Come to Tokyo if you want to see a city full of radically-different buildings right next to each other.

But ask any normal American, and they'll tell you the city is "ugly" because all the buildings don't look the same.

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