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New York's Rent Regulation Fight

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Re: New York's Rent Regulation Fight

#31

Post by czinck »

tricolon wrote: post #27
czinck wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it practically is. I live in Manhattan, and with the exception of a very few places (basically UES right on the river and then the projects) any studio apartment south of 100th (~115th on the west side) street is going to be $2000/month or more. If you find any place cheaper it is going to be borderline uninhabitable or a 6th floor walkup. Rents in Harlem are going up now, too.

Of course, there are more exceptions. Intimidating coöp applications are one.

What do you mean? Do you mean the coops that have a max income? Because those obviously don't count, they can't rent out a studio for $2k when the resident isn't allowed to make more than 75k. Or do you mean applications that make you sign away your first born and tell them your deepest darkest secrets? Because everyone I know has had to do that, it's just part of the process, mainly because of how hard it is to evict someone in NYC, and doesn't mean you get cheaper rent.

Re: New York's Rent Regulation Fight

#32

Post by nerfhammer »

runako wrote: post #25
exelius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually, yeah. There is a finite supply of land on Manhattan, and demand from foreign buyers is growing. Downtown and midtown are already saturated, so the billion dollar condo buildings of 2040 will need to be built somewhere.

I hear this often, but it doesn't jive with my impressions of Manhattan (lived there years ago, visit periodically). In particular, significant parts of the island top out at walk-up heights (5-6 stories). The economics of rent in Manhattan would change dramatically if the island were rebuilt using modern technologies (chiefly: elevators and the taller buildings they enable). Without knowing the local politics, it se…

Historically it was partly because the later-developed parts of the city were built on less viable land (i.e. swamp/landfill)

Re: New York's Rent Regulation Fight

#33

Post by krschultz »

evanpw wrote: post #29
krschultz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has already happened. Most of the people that currently live in rent controlled or price stabilized apartments got them decades ago. The waiting list for any units that become available is extremely long. That effectively means most rent control is helping the elderly. I present that without comment or judgement, it's just a fact. The elderly are generally not the people manning the counter at your local bodega.…

Very interesting. According to this: http://furmancenter.org/files/publications/HVS_Rent_Stabiliz... , in Manhattan below 96th street 35% of rent-stabilized apartment dwellers moved in more than 20 years ago! (Versus 2.7% of those in non-stabilized apartments). Another interesting fact from that paper: the median person in a rent-stabilized apartment in core Manhattan has a higher income than the median person in a n…

This is a slightly different PDF from the same research group [1], which is what I was looking at. A couple other statistics that stick out.

There are more rent stabilized apartments in NYC than market rate apartments. Over 20% of all rent stablized apartments in Manhattan go to people over 65. Less than 5% of people in market rate apartments are over 65 years old.Over 65% of people in a rent stabilized apartment in Manhattan are white.

I think people have a picture of rent stabilized apartments as the place where your local bodega employee lives. The fact is the neighborhood rent stabilized apartments are where retired people live.

[1] http://furmancenter.org/files/FurmanCenter_FactBrief_RentSta....

Re: New York's Rent Regulation Fight

#34

Post by nemo44x »

runako wrote: post #25
exelius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually, yeah. There is a finite supply of land on Manhattan, and demand from foreign buyers is growing. Downtown and midtown are already saturated, so the billion dollar condo buildings of 2040 will need to be built somewhere.

I hear this often, but it doesn't jive with my impressions of Manhattan (lived there years ago, visit periodically). In particular, significant parts of the island top out at walk-up heights (5-6 stories). The economics of rent in Manhattan would change dramatically if the island were rebuilt using modern technologies (chiefly: elevators and the taller buildings they enable). Without knowing the local politics, it se…

You can't just tear down some 4-story building and put up sky scrappers. There is a maximum density capacity that a lot of Manhattan already exceeds. The trains, sewers and electrical requirements need to be thought of too. Especially the trains which are already way over capacity.

Look at what has happened in Williamsburg and the L-train. As more and more warehouses have been converted into apartments and new condo's have gone up, the L-train has become awful for large parts of the day. And the train runs as often as possible during those times.

I'm not saying you can't do these things but I do think other things need to be considered.

Re: New York's Rent Regulation Fight

#35

Post by tzs »

URSpider94 wrote: post #9
jellicle wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The type of "price controls" that you are railing against do not exist in New York City and to the best of my knowledge have never existed there. Maybe during World War II.

I'm not sure what you are referring to, but New York definitely has two levels of rent pricing controls: rent control and rent stabilization. With rent control, the rent never increases, it is fixed for the duration of tenancy, and can even be handed down (once) to a family member. Once that tenant or their heir vacates the apartment, then the rent goes to market rate with no further regulation. With rent stabilizati…

Hmm...from that description it sounds like eventually every unit will end up unregulated.

Is there any mechanism that creates new rent controlled or rent stabilized units, or converts an unregulated unit into a rent stabilized or rent controlled unit?

Re: New York's Rent Regulation Fight

#36

Post by nemo44x »

jellicle wrote: post #12
dantheman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go: http://www.nycrgb.org/html/resources/faq/rentstab.html

Urgh, when I saw the downvotes I figured it would be people who knew nothing about NYC's rent laws except had heard the phrase "rent stabilized" and decided for themselves what it meant. And I was right. Every vacant apartment in the city can be rented by the landlord at market rates. The price controls complained of by the top commenter do not exist. There is no such thing as a law saying "This vacant apartment? You…

I don't think that's entirely true. Almost every new building has to have 20% of the capacity rented to "Affordable living" standards - far below market rate.

Re: New York's Rent Regulation Fight

#37

Post by mjmahone17 »

michaeltoth wrote: post #17
exelius wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of the entire point. The wealthy who use Manhattan as their playground today are just getting the public to subsidize housing for the people who keep their playground humming. Manhattan is already far too expensive; I have a friend who commutes daily to Manhattan from Philadelphia because rents are 25% of what they are in Manhattan. It's only 90 minutes to Penn Station on the train, which is about the sa…

Except a ride from Brooklyn or Queens is $2.75 and a ride from Philadelphia is around $80 on Amtrak. Also, you're assuming that he lives directly above 30th Street Station and works directly above Penn Station, otherwise the travel time is likely to be over 2 hours.

Who commutes via Amtrak?

You can drive from Philly to Trenton or a similar station (takes ~30 minutes from NE Philly), then spend ~1 hr on NJ Transit. This makes the trip cost $15.50+gas, or $440 monthly.

Re: New York's Rent Regulation Fight

#38

Post by mseebach »

nuschk wrote: post #20
exelius wrote: post #2

This is the problem with housing subsidies: they very often go to those who don't need them. In New York, your choice of apartment is primarily based on location -- anything that's not in the >$1 million range is pretty similar. So if you're looking at two apartments near your work and the rent stabilized one is $1200/mo and the other is $3000/mo, you try to get the $1200/mo one even if you could afford the $3000/mo…

Well, economists often suggest a better way than just let the rich take over: directly subsidize people, not flats. So, if you want a neighborhood to not just attract bankers but also families with kids, pay the families for living there! The idea is to pay them only while they live there - independently of which accommodation they choose - and stop the payments when they move away. This way, the market isn't distort…

> people don't get "sticky"

People would get VERY sticky against moving away from a subsidised area, even if it might actually suit them better, and they could afford it - leading to sub-par allocation of resources.

Also, there's the question of how/when/if to pull back the subsidy. If you do it according to income, you create a very high marginal tax rate at the beginning of the pay scale - that's toxic to work and traps people in poverty. If you do it when the children are grown, you're suddenly kicking people of of family houses they've lived in for decades (see "Bedroom tax" in the UK). If you don't, then what started as a family neighbourhood becomes a neighbourhood of middle-agers living in large apartments - while their kids struggle to find a decent place to live.

Incentives are HARD.

Re: New York's Rent Regulation Fight

#40

Post by mseebach »

evanpw wrote: post #24
exelius wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, such a solution is difficult -- and costly -- to implement. For the reasons you mentioned, government tends to choose subsidization options where money isn't explicitly exchanged: i.e. rather than paying the landlord the difference between controlled and uncontrolled, they just tell him certain units are controlled and he has to deal with it. A solution such as the one you described also makes it difficult to d…

The subsidy shouldn't depend on the apartment, but it should depend on the renters. So you can explicitly set an income limit to exclude the $500k/yr family, but even if you don't, they don't get a bigger subsidy just because they want a more expensive apartment.

Housing shortages aren't substantially caused by people making >$500k, people making a lot of money just have an easier time dealing with a shortage.

All other things being equal, giving everybody a subsidy just bumps the rent by the same amount.

The biggest problem with the subsidy idea is deciding who gets it - and it can't be anywhere near everybody.

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