2 ms·

When I first moved to NYC, my neighbor was a 70 year old single man who absolutely hated living in NY at that point in his life, but couldn't leave because his

When I first moved to NYC, my neighbor was a 70 year old single man who absolutely hated living in NY at that point in his life, but couldn't leave because his rent was so cheap(I was paying $1500 for a studio and he was paying $300 for a 1BR) - he literally could not afford to move even to a cheap area. It certainly would have been better for him if he could just swap apartments with someone living outside the city who wanted to move in, but that would be illegal. I think rent control advocates focus on people who might be lucky enough to get a rent controlled apartment, but it is much harder to think about what happens to all the people who want to move to a city but can't because no housing stock is available.

ryan_lane 10mo ago
The rest of the market was allowed to maximally increase rent to the point this person can't afford rent anywhere except for where they live, and the problem is rent control (which NYC has relatively little of)? Why not complain about the high-rises full of empty apartments bought by oligarchs for money laundering? Why not complain about the tens of thousands of airbnb units? NYC is actually quite good in terms of building supply, but the demand is also extremely high. Some of that demand is completely artificial due to money laundering and short-term rentals, and without fixing those issues, how can we expect people to live without limiting maximally increasing rents?
- IncreasePosts 10mo ago
  The problem is he has such a sweet deal, he needs to use the apartment even though he would rather someone else have the apartment. I don't think the goal of rent control is to trap people in a city so they can't leave. There aren't really that many high rises full of empty apartments bought by oligarchs for money laundering in NY. And even when there are - how much land does it actually take up? At the Central Park Tower for example, 180 oligarchs can launder their money in a 200'x200' plot of land. You'll walk by it in less than a minute without really clocking it. I do also complain about airbnb units :)
  - ryan_lane 10mo ago
    > 180 oligarchs can launder their money in a 200'x200' The vertical size of that, however, could be used to house at least a thousand (or more) people. This is mostly a manhattan problem, but there's a quite large volume of the market there (due to the valuations) that are ultra-high-end, which tends to be vacant units used for money laundering. Same issue in a lot of the larger cities. Luxury taxes (on both the sale, and ongoing yearly costs) can help reduce the problem as well as provide tax income for the cities. It's easily a win/win.

ryan_lane 10mo ago

The rest of the market was allowed to maximally increase rent to the point this person can't afford rent anywhere except for where they live, and the problem is rent control (which NYC has relatively little of)? Why not complain about the high-rises full of empty apartments bought by oligarchs for money laundering? Why not complain about the tens of thousands of airbnb units? NYC is actually quite good in terms of building supply, but the demand is also extremely high. Some of that demand is completely artificial due to money laundering and short-term rentals, and without fixing those issues, how can we expect people to live without limiting maximally increasing rents?

IncreasePosts 10mo ago
The problem is he has such a sweet deal, he needs to use the apartment even though he would rather someone else have the apartment. I don't think the goal of rent control is to trap people in a city so they can't leave. There aren't really that many high rises full of empty apartments bought by oligarchs for money laundering in NY. And even when there are - how much land does it actually take up? At the Central Park Tower for example, 180 oligarchs can launder their money in a 200'x200' plot of land. You'll walk by it in less than a minute without really clocking it. I do also complain about airbnb units :)
- ryan_lane 10mo ago
  > 180 oligarchs can launder their money in a 200'x200' The vertical size of that, however, could be used to house at least a thousand (or more) people. This is mostly a manhattan problem, but there's a quite large volume of the market there (due to the valuations) that are ultra-high-end, which tends to be vacant units used for money laundering. Same issue in a lot of the larger cities. Luxury taxes (on both the sale, and ongoing yearly costs) can help reduce the problem as well as provide tax income for the cities. It's easily a win/win.