4 ms·

>>>7-year New Yorker here. >>>The high rents here are driven by (a) asshole foreign speculators that the government irresponsibly lets into the market, when a

>>>7-year New Yorker here. >>>The high rents here are driven by (a) asshole foreign speculators that the government irresponsibly lets into the market, when a 6-months-and-1-day rule is really in order, (b) various legacy rent-control systems that wouldn't be a big deal except in the context of extreme price inelasticity Um, no. Second-generation life-long New York native here. These insane prices are driven up by people like you who come here, don't know the proper prices, don't know why the hell we have rent control or what it is and never check to see if you're being ripped off, and so drive everything the hell up. Period.

mikecane 13y ago
Downvoting me is just denial. Own up to it.
- msutherl 13y ago
  If rent is becoming ridiculously high, the laws are inadequate. It's not anybody's 'fault'. Own up to it.
  - mikecane 13y ago
    No, because I've seen this with my own eyes and heard it time and again. Landlords quoting a ridiculous rent to someone not from the city -- and getting that rent. Even I was screwed once, thinking I had a reasonable rent and then finding out -- after going to landlord-tenant court -- that the registered rent was actually one-third of what I'd been paying and I'd been illegally overcharged (yes, the landlord was ordered to refund the overage). New Jersey is a free rent market. Hoboken and Jersey City rents went sky-high from the 1980s on -- even as ginormous skyscraper apartments were being built on the waterfront as "affordable" (to who!) apartments. Everyone who had lived there for decades got screwed out of living there.
    - msutherl 13y ago
      > No, because I've seen this with my own eyes and heard it time and again. This is completely irrelevant. The problem persists no matter what you think people 'should' do. The only thing that will change the status quo are laws that prohibit people from taking advantage of others. Ultimately, this is just an instance of a classic conservative vs. liberal debate, so you may simply be incapable of seeing my point of view. That said, I'm curious for myself how I might stick landlords on illegally high fees. In New York, what would be the best way to go about this? Is there a database I could refer to, or an agency I could get in touch with?
- icelancer 13y ago
  I'm downvoting you because you are being needlessly ascerbic amongst other things.
bradleyjg 13y ago
Rent control is a red herring. It is dying along with the aging tenents still on it. Rent stabilization, including all the new "affordable housing" units built to get luxury developers more air rights or a tax abatement, is here to stay. Not that either one effects the outer boroughs much (minus the parts of Brooklyn that might as well be Manhatten). As it happens that other city is also where you'll find most real New Yorkers living.
rayiner 13y ago
These insane prices are drive by people like you who don't know how to do math. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_New_York http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_New_York As of 2011, more than 60% of all apartments in New York are price regulated in some way. Rent stabilization destroys the incentive for developers to maintain and improve properties, and combined with the ridiculous historical preservation laws binds their hands in replacing properties with higher-capacity housing. That's why most of the housing in Brooklyn and Queens is former tenement housing built god knows how long ago and maintained like crap. Landowners can't easily decide to just tear that shit down and put up mid/high-rises that could house 10x more people and bring down prices.
- bradleyjg 13y ago
  The difference between median market rate rents and median stabilized rents are quite small outside of Manhattan south of 96th Street.[1] Many neighborhoods have large number of nominally rent stabilized being offered for preferential rates (i.e. below the legally allowed maximum rent.) Also, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx have plenty of nice, and dense, housing. You should try leaving Downtown Manhattan by Disney World (tm) every once and a while. [1]http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/realestate/rent-stabilized-apartments-ever-more-elusive.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/realestate/rent-stabilized...
- mikecane 13y ago
  >>>and put up mid/high-rises that could house 10x more people and bring down prices. Except rent prices never go down. This is what you outsiders don't freakin understand. Even if you got rid of the rent control and stabilization laws, made it all "free" market, you'd never, ever see a decrease in rents. When people fled post-9/11 and no one was renting, rents did not go down. They side-stepped that by offering one or two or three months of "free" rent, while the registered rent remained in the city's books. Rents never decrease. And never will unless there is some catastrophe that makes the city inhospitable.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    First, there is no reason to believe outsiders to NYC have a better or worse grasp of the underlying economics than insiders to NYC. Prices in NYC do go down. Rents in NYC fell 10-12% during the down turn (and of course 2-3 months of "free" rent is economically indistinguishable from a drop in rents). Moreover, rents are sticky like most prices. What increased supply does is keep the rent from going up so quickly.
michaelochurch 13y ago
These insane prices are driven up by people like you who come here, don't know the proper prices You should then do me a favor and tell me how I get a deal at the proper prices. I agree; the cost of living here is ridiculous. Show me how not to pay four-digit rents for a 1BR within 30 minutes of work and I will be very grateful. don't know why the hell we have rent control or what it is and never check to see if you're being ripped off Rent control was originally set in place in the 1940s to prevent a housing spike when people came back from the war. A good thing? It would be, if everyone could participate. Right now, though, that's not the case. I have no problem with those who were alive during that time keeping rent-control. However, I do have a problem with it when people making $250,000 per year get in on RC because they have connections and pay key money to the children of the deceased. That I have a problem with. And then these hypocritical limousine liberals brag about how they're "sticking it to The Man" by using their connections to get a deal literally superior to ownership.
- mikecane 13y ago
  >>>I have no problem with those who were alive during that time keeping rent-control. However, I do have a problem with it when people making $250,000 per year get in on RC because they have connections and pay key money to the children of the deceased. That I have a problem with. And then these hypocritical limousine liberals brag about how they're "sticking it to The Man" by using their connections to get a deal literally superior to ownership. Oh, I agree completely. I once worked for a boss making six figures who was paying the kind of rent I could afford and he was lucky because he'd been in that place for over twenty years. But what's the solution? If you charged him rent based on his income, the registered rent increases, and will never go down because the landlord will make sure the next tenant has a six-figure income. New York City rents are an insane system that really does no one any good, especially for those who work and don't make six figures -- which is most of the people who live in NYC.

mikecane 13y ago

Downvoting me is just denial. Own up to it.

msutherl 13y ago
If rent is becoming ridiculously high, the laws are inadequate. It's not anybody's 'fault'. Own up to it.
- mikecane 13y ago
  No, because I've seen this with my own eyes and heard it time and again. Landlords quoting a ridiculous rent to someone not from the city -- and getting that rent. Even I was screwed once, thinking I had a reasonable rent and then finding out -- after going to landlord-tenant court -- that the registered rent was actually one-third of what I'd been paying and I'd been illegally overcharged (yes, the landlord was ordered to refund the overage). New Jersey is a free rent market. Hoboken and Jersey City rents went sky-high from the 1980s on -- even as ginormous skyscraper apartments were being built on the waterfront as "affordable" (to who!) apartments. Everyone who had lived there for decades got screwed out of living there.
  - msutherl 13y ago
    > No, because I've seen this with my own eyes and heard it time and again. This is completely irrelevant. The problem persists no matter what you think people 'should' do. The only thing that will change the status quo are laws that prohibit people from taking advantage of others. Ultimately, this is just an instance of a classic conservative vs. liberal debate, so you may simply be incapable of seeing my point of view. That said, I'm curious for myself how I might stick landlords on illegally high fees. In New York, what would be the best way to go about this? Is there a database I could refer to, or an agency I could get in touch with?
icelancer 13y ago
I'm downvoting you because you are being needlessly ascerbic amongst other things.

bradleyjg 13y ago

Rent control is a red herring. It is dying along with the aging tenents still on it. Rent stabilization, including all the new "affordable housing" units built to get luxury developers more air rights or a tax abatement, is here to stay. Not that either one effects the outer boroughs much (minus the parts of Brooklyn that might as well be Manhatten). As it happens that other city is also where you'll find most real New Yorkers living.

rayiner 13y ago

These insane prices are drive by people like you who don't know how to do math. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_New_York http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_New_York As of 2011, more than 60% of all apartments in New York are price regulated in some way. Rent stabilization destroys the incentive for developers to maintain and improve properties, and combined with the ridiculous historical preservation laws binds their hands in replacing properties with higher-capacity housing. That's why most of the housing in Brooklyn and Queens is former tenement housing built god knows how long ago and maintained like crap. Landowners can't easily decide to just tear that shit down and put up mid/high-rises that could house 10x more people and bring down prices.

bradleyjg 13y ago
The difference between median market rate rents and median stabilized rents are quite small outside of Manhattan south of 96th Street.[1] Many neighborhoods have large number of nominally rent stabilized being offered for preferential rates (i.e. below the legally allowed maximum rent.) Also, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx have plenty of nice, and dense, housing. You should try leaving Downtown Manhattan by Disney World (tm) every once and a while. [1]http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/realestate/rent-stabilized-apartments-ever-more-elusive.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/realestate/rent-stabilized...
mikecane 13y ago
>>>and put up mid/high-rises that could house 10x more people and bring down prices. Except rent prices never go down. This is what you outsiders don't freakin understand. Even if you got rid of the rent control and stabilization laws, made it all "free" market, you'd never, ever see a decrease in rents. When people fled post-9/11 and no one was renting, rents did not go down. They side-stepped that by offering one or two or three months of "free" rent, while the registered rent remained in the city's books. Rents never decrease. And never will unless there is some catastrophe that makes the city inhospitable.
- rayiner 13y ago
  First, there is no reason to believe outsiders to NYC have a better or worse grasp of the underlying economics than insiders to NYC. Prices in NYC do go down. Rents in NYC fell 10-12% during the down turn (and of course 2-3 months of "free" rent is economically indistinguishable from a drop in rents). Moreover, rents are sticky like most prices. What increased supply does is keep the rent from going up so quickly.

michaelochurch 13y ago

These insane prices are driven up by people like you who come here, don't know the proper prices You should then do me a favor and tell me how I get a deal at the proper prices. I agree; the cost of living here is ridiculous. Show me how not to pay four-digit rents for a 1BR within 30 minutes of work and I will be very grateful. don't know why the hell we have rent control or what it is and never check to see if you're being ripped off Rent control was originally set in place in the 1940s to prevent a housing spike when people came back from the war. A good thing? It would be, if everyone could participate. Right now, though, that's not the case. I have no problem with those who were alive during that time keeping rent-control. However, I do have a problem with it when people making $250,000 per year get in on RC because they have connections and pay key money to the children of the deceased. That I have a problem with. And then these hypocritical limousine liberals brag about how they're "sticking it to The Man" by using their connections to get a deal literally superior to ownership.

mikecane 13y ago
>>>I have no problem with those who were alive during that time keeping rent-control. However, I do have a problem with it when people making $250,000 per year get in on RC because they have connections and pay key money to the children of the deceased. That I have a problem with. And then these hypocritical limousine liberals brag about how they're "sticking it to The Man" by using their connections to get a deal literally superior to ownership. Oh, I agree completely. I once worked for a boss making six figures who was paying the kind of rent I could afford and he was lucky because he'd been in that place for over twenty years. But what's the solution? If you charged him rent based on his income, the registered rent increases, and will never go down because the landlord will make sure the next tenant has a six-figure income. New York City rents are an insane system that really does no one any good, especially for those who work and don't make six figures -- which is most of the people who live in NYC.