Live data from Hacker News

Rent collections are down in New York

politico.com

301–310 of 594 posts

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#301
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain more? What happened in Detroit in the mid 2010s, how did itreverse course after that?

It happened over a longer period obviously, and what happened is the US adopted a failed industrial policy that saw our core manufacturing base shipped to China for the benefit of Wall Street and the financial sector.

Globalization wasn't a loss for all of America - the benefit of shipping manufacturing overseas was that the resulting imports were cheaper than producing domestically. After all if they weren't, people would've preferred to buy domestic. So it was a net win for the consumer via cheaper goods, but came at the expense of Detroit, Pittsburgh and other "rust belt" cities & communities.

We're still grappling with the consequences. We should've invested in transitioning those workers to comparable or better jobs but the ball got completely dropped on that.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#302

For those looking for the actual data. It's from 2024 - says nothing about the current situation. * ~37K affordable housing units (baseline) across ~400 projects * 89% rent collection rate (down from 90.6% in 2023) * That's 600 units that went 'delinquent' in 2024 - assuming a $24K 'base' rent (just a guess) that's $15M in lost rent. * Deeply troubled projects (that can't survive without this rent) are at 11% - seems…

I don't understand why we can't just copy another country's housing strategy. There are many countries in the world where housing is affordable, relatively high quality, and the homelessness rate is low. What are we doing that makes this problem so seemingly intractable? Why is our approach to public housing seemingly worse than any other approach in history?

Far fewer than you'd think: The vast majority of Europe is in the same boat as the US.

Whenever there's value in agglomeration (ie, all the time), the value of well placed properties just skyrockets, because growth is only going to make that land better. That's why a common recommendation is to up the tax of land as to make speculation with valuable property a bad investment: It's already price like an auction, so higher taxes cannot increase rent prices. The problem is political, as countries with housing problems have a whole lot of individuals have a big percentage of their net worth in housing. Big tax increases would make their property values drop, and they'd be quite upset. So it solves the problem while losing elections.

Instead, governments are happy providing tax advantages to existing residents, in practice making prices go up even faster.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#303
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not rare. I repeat. It's not rare. I am a landlord in Seattle with ~55 active tenants/leases. Let's just say that I know of many landlords in the circles I run in that have absolutely stopped renting to leftie types because they've had so many issues over the last few years with many of them over litigating everything; and deciding not to pay rent over the smallest non-issues, or just not paying rent at all. I c…

Honest question - how do you know a potential tenant is “leftie type”?

You know the horseshoe on the door that will stop the fae? He has just put instead of it maga hat with a tesla badge on it.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've tried free housing before - it suffered tragedy of the commons. Not paying means no ownership means subjugation to the worst actions of the worst members of society We tried cramming people from generational poverty into one place and it didn't go super great, therefore public housing as a concept must be the failure, and not our hilariously bad implementation? Singapore, Austria, Finland, and even a number o…

Public housing isn’t actually free in the countries you listed. It’s subsidized, but the people who live there still have to pay. The affordable housing units in New York are also subsidized. The question is what do we do if people stop paying even the subsidized rent?

> The question is what do we do if people stop paying even the subsidized rent?

If they stop because they actually can't pay it, then we should pay it for them. Another homeless person on the street makes us all less safe and less healthy, and tax dollars going toward keeping them housed is a good use of that money.

If they stop paying because they just don't feel like it, you evict them.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally want to have a landlord. They provide a valuable service. I could afford to buy the places where I rent but actively avoid it. The idea that landlords don’t provide a valuable service is a kind of willful denial of reality.

Maybe. But I had a landlord triple my rent in NYC because he wanted to sell the unit. I didn’t want to move but had no option.

>he wanted to sell the unit

You had an option if it was for sale.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#306
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit reports do not have a section for "plays music loudly" or "secretly smokes by the bathroom window".

They can have a section of public records if anything rises to the level of filing with the courts.

And for things that don't arise to that level, but would still be massive red flags for prospective tenants?

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#307
post #127
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think even the benefit for the less fortunate here is at most a short-term one. In the longer one, you need building and renting out shelter to be reasonably profitable, so that people do it. It's basically the same argument that says rent caps are bad for the renters in the long run.

We don't always have to consider the apparently very fragile and fickle motivations of investors. Social housing can and has worked very well in many cases.

Unfortunately, most housing "investors" are people who bought a home 10-30 years ago and will be furious if they can't sell at a large profit compared to what they bought it for.

Sadly, a lot of places (Netherlands and Ireland come to mind) _discourage_ you from investing in things like stocks, and _encourage_ you to "invest" in a primary residence, making the problem even worse.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Primarily Vienna. There's nothing complicated about what Vienna did - other cities just prefer to please billionaires instead of providing services to citizens.

Do you actually know what Vienna did? Because the overwhelming number of people who reference the city basically just repeat a few dubious talking point about restricting rent.

Have a massive empire and then lose it resulting in a capital city with surplus housing?

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why we can't just copy another country's housing strategy. There are many countries in the world where housing is affordable, relatively high quality, and the homelessness rate is low. What are we doing that makes this problem so seemingly intractable? Why is our approach to public housing seemingly worse than any other approach in history?

You mean like in Sweeden, where you have to wait 20 years for assigned flat? Europe has no homelesness, because migrants are housed at hotels at great expense!

You mean Stockholm. You can buy, wait 20 years, or find a private building owner. But same problem, not building enough.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#310
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tenant "protection" laws are the type of idiocy that economically illiterate progressive politicians always produce. They end up having the opposite effect by making property owners less willing to rent out to anyone. The only effective way to protect tenants is to set public policies that encourage new housing development. When there is a housing surplus, the laws of economics force landlords to treat tenants well.…

> They end up having the opposite effect by making property owners less willing to rent out to anyone. Yes, good! Then they will sell their bloody housing stock and people can BUY them instead

"Sorry bud, I know you just wanted a place to live while you went to college in this city but if you're not ready to buy a house we don't want you here"
Post reply on HN