Rent collections are down in New York • Hacker News Board

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#471

Post by robhlt » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 3:20 PM UTC

bberenberg wrote: post #415

mapt wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax property values. We could talk about the merits of Georgeism but honestly let's set that aside - conventional property taxes are sufficient here. Most of Manhattan apparently has cough ), they're a tiny fractional "decommodification" of property as asset, because the money collected from the owners is spent on the residents. Most of this money passes through directly into higher rents, and we shouldn't care about…

Am I understanding your point correctly as you hoping that an increase in tax rates drives property values down enough thay aggregate tax amounts are reduced? The practical rental math in NYC is simple. Buy a $1M coop in a building with near zero costs. HOA will be at least 2k per month with the majority of that being property taxes. Thats your base rent. If you have a loan, add that to the base. You will not get che…

Your coop building is on the unfair side of the "eclectic sometimes regressive" property tax calculation the parent comment mentions. Large (10+) multi-family rental properties are taxed at a much higher rate than single-family and 2-4 family properties. Correcting this imbalance would lower property taxes on your coop building while still raising overall tax revenue for the city.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#472

Post by silverquiet » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 3:27 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #424

polnurfer wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax more

Ever heard of the tale of the goose that laid golden eggs? Imagine progressively feeding the goose less, so as to have a greater profit margin on the golden eggs it laid. No particular percentage of feed reduction seemed too harmful, until one day it died unexpectedly.

This sounds like private equity, except they'd also demand that the goose increase egg production by 10% per quarter.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#473

Post by alexashka » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 3:28 PM UTC

Applejinx wrote: post #385

nikkwong wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said my only interest is money. At your job, is your only interest money? Do you not feel a social obligation to your coworkers; want to do good for your teammate and your company? Again, talk about a stupid take, as if humans are one dimensional like that. Corporate landlords and hedge funds that own apartment sky rises are probably only in it for the money. You can't say the same thing about every small lan…

I'm an open source developer. To me, it tracks that people can have other motivations and balance those with money/survival and all. What nikkwong is saying is, you can want to do well, have social obligations, take action to serve the community and not just your own benefit, and even want to do so because you sleep better and have nicer interactions with people as a rule. That tracks, I believe it, that's what I do.…

I'm sure some slave owners were 'nice people'. Still slave owners, right?

But I treat my slaves better than everyone I know and I only have half a dozen! I don't only have slaves for profit!

Slave owners in the south were actually far more likely to be better people than today's landlords because they had far less choice but to compete with other people who engaged in slavery than landlords of today.

The 'only' strawman and the projections, oh my. 'Every accusation is a confession' remains true. 'Sucks to be them', 'inflicting them on the rest of us'. Gee, the person on the internet you know nothing about is 'inflicting harm' on society. Think of the landlord's feelings, they appear to be hurt! Look, he accused someone with an already high paying job who landlords in his free time of only caring about money! Only he said, does he not know that there can be multiple motivating factors? He said only fellas, only! I rest my case, only.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#474

Post by treis » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 3:44 PM UTC

apothegm wrote: post #387

epsteingpt wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of a misnomer. Housing is, actually, extremely affordable across the US - just not in major cities. You can plunk $10-$20K and get land and a homestead in dozens of states. Agree with the other comment that overbuilding is a reasonable strategy, but if you look at Detroit downtown (mid 2010s) having an overbuilt downtown is bad too. It's a hard problem.

> You can plunk $10-$20K and get land and a homestead in dozens of states. In a place where the only jobs to be had are at below-subsistence minimum wage at the dollar store and you have to drive 2 hours to see a doctor, sure.

There's a huge middle ground between Manhattan and homesteading on a $10k property. Here in Atlanta you can buy a 4/3 house for $270k or a 2/1 house for $160k. The rust belt and sunbelt are full of places with cheap housing.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#475

Post by pixel_popping » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 3:55 PM UTC

Haven880 wrote: post #324

ptsneves wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why bother with such details? Class warfare is right, and details are details. /sarcasm For example mixed income housing is really nice for “us” that have been in generational poverty. For “them” it is just living with signals of alcohol abuse, domestic abuse and more. All while their children get a good front seat into “empowerment”. With sarcasm over, details matter, complexity matters, social assistance matters, a…

Singapore system won't work in USA cities. Their town councils are near scholars level. Quite a few of them doctorate. They are pretty much selected on 2 criteria, merit and perceived likability with accountabilities evaluated both by government and locals citizens. American leaders are selected based on sound bites with zero accountability to citizens for maybe 2 years to 4 years. They do accountable to mega donors…

One of the real reason Singapore system won't work is also the mentality (respect level is way higher), I believe it's actually the primary thing, at 15 years old many Singaporeans are already talking about investment, how to compete hard and so-on, the level is way higher than in the west and people are driven in life in general, but life is hard over there, harder even but more rewarding.

In SG, they can also plan for decades ahead because of a more stable political climate where people actually respect their government for most and ACCEPT that there is some humans that are considered "superior" and take the lead, it's a huge difference with the west where people favorite sport is to non-stop shit on their government or denigrate without offering solutions, in the west, we seem to not be able to accept that there is even a class system where people have more power/rights than others (while there is, it's inevitable).

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#476

Post by the_doctah » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:10 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #330

oatmeal1 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean by "squeeze the renter," but it's hard to find any person that invests substantial money (risk) in a business that doesn't want to maximize profits and charge what the market will bear. Laws became the way they are because policy created a housing shortage, and renters are a bigger voting block than landlords.

I look at it this way: housing is a basic human necessity. Structuring it as a standard business is a detriment to society. Sure, being a landlord is a business, but the whole "maximize profits" thing and "charge what the market will bear" thing should not be allowed for housing.

And the free market shouldn't apply to private property because...?

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#477

Post by the_doctah » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC

RAGcontent wrote: post #296

the article said asset managers claimed rent collections went from 94% to 89% - wow such a drop! they fail to highlight that these assets are theirs to own indefinitely!

Your employer should pay you 5% less then they are legally obligated to. See how flippant you are then.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#478

Post by Applejinx » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

alexashka wrote: post #473

Applejinx wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an open source developer. To me, it tracks that people can have other motivations and balance those with money/survival and all. What nikkwong is saying is, you can want to do well, have social obligations, take action to serve the community and not just your own benefit, and even want to do so because you sleep better and have nicer interactions with people as a rule. That tracks, I believe it, that's what I do.…

I'm sure some slave owners were 'nice people'. Still slave owners, right? But I treat my slaves better than everyone I know and I only have half a dozen! I don't only have slaves for profit! Slave owners in the south were actually far more likely to be better people than today's landlords because they had far less choice but to compete with other people who engaged in slavery than landlords of today. The 'only' straw…

Landlords are slave owners? Gosh. On the bright side, who knew Hacker News was so revolutionary?

Alex, how do you interact with AI? I don't, 'cos I don't use it. Are you one of the people who eke out performance gains by threatening to shoot the AI's dog if it makes a mistake? Or are you one of the people who are prepared to accuse those people of doing literally the same thing as extorting living humans?

I stand by, sucks to be the critics to whom everything is dominance and profit and nothing else merits the slightest consideration.

And yikes whoo boy does it suck to be a person who argues 'back in the day the slave owners were nicer than landlords of today because they had to compete with other slave owners'. WOW. what?

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#479

Post by digitaltrees » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

ReptileMan wrote: post #305

digitaltrees wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your handle is fitting.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#480

Post by digitaltrees » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

hdgvhicv wrote: post #256

Ekaros wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't 20% tax on rent just lead to 25% general increase on rents? I don't think there are that much margin around in leveraged landlords. Really better would be just to bump something like income tax and use money from there for same purpose.

If a landlord can charge 1200 instead of 1000 why wouldn’t they? They’ll charge the maximum they can get away with, costs are irrelevant Two landlords, one with a mortgage, one without, will charge the same amount for the same property.

Purchase prices will come down because the percentage of rent available for debt service will decrease. So the cap rate will be calculated on a smaller denominator.