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This is inaccurate. Rent control as defined in NYC is a wealth transfer mechanism. Rent stabilization is a mechanism for protecting tenants. Without rent stab

This is inaccurate. Rent control as defined in NYC is a wealth transfer mechanism. Rent stabilization is a mechanism for protecting tenants. Without rent stabilization, landlords can and do raise rents arbitrarily to drive our particular renters and then offer better rents to preferred renters. Or equally likely drive out a family to subdivide an apartment into multiple rooms to rent. If you pass laws that say, for example, you have to offer a renewal to an existing tenant, that doesn’t help, they’ll just play the same game with the rent. Mandate that the same rent has to be offered to new and existing? Well now we are in the realm of price controls. The power dynamic is so massive between landlords and tenants, especially for people who aren’t fortunate enough to have disposable income, that there needs to be some sort of protection.

roenxi 4y ago
> ...landlords can and do raise rents arbitrarily to drive our particular renters and then offer better rents to preferred renters... This is positing that landlords engage in complicated schemes to lower the rent they are paid. I speak with supreme confidence, the median landlord is not going to do that unless these 'preferred renters' are measurably better than the people getting kicked out, in ways that make objective sense. Frankly, if a landlord is engaging in this practice then they probably aren't a 'landlord', they've just taken the property out of the rental market so their kids can live there or something. > ...drive out a family to subdivide an apartment into multiple rooms to rent. A landlord is much more likely to do that, but the complaint here is that there are people willing to value the m2 of the apartment higher than the family. There is no way to block that from happening without price controls and, eventually, shortages emerging. The landlords in the article are greedy, they don't want their apartments to be empty. They want to be renting them out for whatever the most willing renter is going to give them. But they also aren't stupid, and they aren't going to rent them out anticipating that they will make losses.
- Spivak 4y ago
  > there are people willing to value the m2 of the apartment higher than the family That’s all well and good but that isn’t the issue. Part of the contract for renting an apartment in NYC is that you must offer renewals. A lease is a contract that, unless there’s an eviction, only the tenant can end. And allowing landlords to violate the spirit of the law by saying “we didn’t kick them out we only raised the rent to $10k/mo” defeats the whole purpose of it which is to not rip housing out from underneath people.
  - roenxi 4y ago
    Yeah. The law wants people to be able to live in an apartment without paying to build it, where someone else handles the maintenance and the rent doesn't go up that much. Great deal for the tenant, if they can find it. But it is going to be mighty difficult to take people who take up the landlord side of that deal. And things like, say, 60k rent controlled apartments sitting empty seems like a reasonable outcome - y'know, might have to be an idiot to rent out an apartment for a deal that bad. It sounds ruinous. Sounds like a bad law, really.
    - mattzito 4y ago
      It sounds like you think landlords got tricked into this system - rent stabilization (again, that is different than rent control, as you named it) has been around for more than 50 years. Very few of these landlords owned these buildings before they became rent stabilized, so they knew what they were getting themselves into before they bought them. I'll also point out that despite the fact that rent stabilization isn't required for new rental construction, there are a few areas in nyc where the city offered incentives in the form of property tax abatements in exchange for the landlords agreeing to rent stabilization - what do you think happened? Almost all of the new construction in those areas agreed to being rent stabilized. If it was so bad, so ruinous, why would they agree to that? The story here isn't "rent stabilization is bad", it's "landlords are having a hissy fit that they can't exploit their tenants as much as before, so they're keeping apartments off the market on the off chance they win a court case"
      - roenxi 4y ago
        Why do people work lousy jobs? It just has to be a smidgen better than doing nothing for a landlord to rent out there apartment. And the microeconomic situation of taxes and who-knows-what can cause strange things to happen. But if pushed far enough they'd start losing money and stop renting out apartments. Or you'd get some new rental stock but less than a freer market would provide. And no-one is getting tricked here, it seems pretty obvious what is going on. > The story here isn't "rent stabilization is bad", it's "landlords are having a hissy fit that they can't exploit their tenants as much as before, so they're keeping apartments off the market on the off chance they win a court case" What do you think the symptoms would be if rent stabilisation was bad?
tomcam 4y ago
If this non rent control is such a great idea, why not invest in some rent stabilized buildings yourself?
- mattzito 4y ago
  I am - I'm a shareholder in blackstone, which among other things is the owner of Stuyvesant town, a 10k+ apartment complex in NYC that is entirely rent stabilized. Presumably the people at blackstone are savvy investors who wouldn't buy an asset like that if they couldn't make money off of it.
  - tomcam 4y ago
    Duly upvoted then!

roenxi 4y ago

> ...landlords can and do raise rents arbitrarily to drive our particular renters and then offer better rents to preferred renters... This is positing that landlords engage in complicated schemes to lower the rent they are paid. I speak with supreme confidence, the median landlord is not going to do that unless these 'preferred renters' are measurably better than the people getting kicked out, in ways that make objective sense. Frankly, if a landlord is engaging in this practice then they probably aren't a 'landlord', they've just taken the property out of the rental market so their kids can live there or something. > ...drive out a family to subdivide an apartment into multiple rooms to rent. A landlord is much more likely to do that, but the complaint here is that there are people willing to value the m2 of the apartment higher than the family. There is no way to block that from happening without price controls and, eventually, shortages emerging. The landlords in the article are greedy, they don't want their apartments to be empty. They want to be renting them out for whatever the most willing renter is going to give them. But they also aren't stupid, and they aren't going to rent them out anticipating that they will make losses.

Spivak 4y ago
> there are people willing to value the m2 of the apartment higher than the family That’s all well and good but that isn’t the issue. Part of the contract for renting an apartment in NYC is that you must offer renewals. A lease is a contract that, unless there’s an eviction, only the tenant can end. And allowing landlords to violate the spirit of the law by saying “we didn’t kick them out we only raised the rent to $10k/mo” defeats the whole purpose of it which is to not rip housing out from underneath people.
- roenxi 4y ago
  Yeah. The law wants people to be able to live in an apartment without paying to build it, where someone else handles the maintenance and the rent doesn't go up that much. Great deal for the tenant, if they can find it. But it is going to be mighty difficult to take people who take up the landlord side of that deal. And things like, say, 60k rent controlled apartments sitting empty seems like a reasonable outcome - y'know, might have to be an idiot to rent out an apartment for a deal that bad. It sounds ruinous. Sounds like a bad law, really.
  - mattzito 4y ago
    It sounds like you think landlords got tricked into this system - rent stabilization (again, that is different than rent control, as you named it) has been around for more than 50 years. Very few of these landlords owned these buildings before they became rent stabilized, so they knew what they were getting themselves into before they bought them. I'll also point out that despite the fact that rent stabilization isn't required for new rental construction, there are a few areas in nyc where the city offered incentives in the form of property tax abatements in exchange for the landlords agreeing to rent stabilization - what do you think happened? Almost all of the new construction in those areas agreed to being rent stabilized. If it was so bad, so ruinous, why would they agree to that? The story here isn't "rent stabilization is bad", it's "landlords are having a hissy fit that they can't exploit their tenants as much as before, so they're keeping apartments off the market on the off chance they win a court case"
    - roenxi 4y ago
      Why do people work lousy jobs? It just has to be a smidgen better than doing nothing for a landlord to rent out there apartment. And the microeconomic situation of taxes and who-knows-what can cause strange things to happen. But if pushed far enough they'd start losing money and stop renting out apartments. Or you'd get some new rental stock but less than a freer market would provide. And no-one is getting tricked here, it seems pretty obvious what is going on. > The story here isn't "rent stabilization is bad", it's "landlords are having a hissy fit that they can't exploit their tenants as much as before, so they're keeping apartments off the market on the off chance they win a court case" What do you think the symptoms would be if rent stabilisation was bad?

tomcam 4y ago

If this non rent control is such a great idea, why not invest in some rent stabilized buildings yourself?

mattzito 4y ago
I am - I'm a shareholder in blackstone, which among other things is the owner of Stuyvesant town, a 10k+ apartment complex in NYC that is entirely rent stabilized. Presumably the people at blackstone are savvy investors who wouldn't buy an asset like that if they couldn't make money off of it.
- tomcam 4y ago
  Duly upvoted then!