5 ms·

Towards the end of the article, Mr. Bryne touches on a topic that is at the heart of a city devoid of culture --- people who buy large swaths of property and th

by so_says 13y ago

Towards the end of the article, Mr. Bryne touches on a topic that is at the heart of a city devoid of culture --- people who buy large swaths of property and then do not live here. We don't need rent control, but we do need to build affordable housing instead of luxury condo after luxury condo for people to use a few weeks out of the year. The least expensive average rental price for a studio is $1481/month. Landlords require you to earn 40x the monthly rent. That's $60K a year. That's a nice living in most places in the US. In NYC, it's just scraping by. http://www.mns.com/manhattan_rental_market_report http://www.mns.com/manhattan_rental_market_report

busterarm 13y ago
I really think that New York City needs to institute _massive_ tax penalties for people who don't reside in their apartments as a primary residence. I know that our property taxes are already high, but just about everywhere else has big incentives for residing in your property. There's a lot of apartments in manhattan that are only lived in ~4 weeks a year and aren't rented out otherwise. I wouldn't be opposed to a higher tax rate for those properties. They're effectively jacking up other people's rents and making them have to commute from farther away.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Would such tax penalties stop the rich from renting/owning in NYC? I doubt it, they are rich after all. Would those tax penalties convince them to declare those homes their primary residence? Maybe, if they were American. But would declaring those homes to be their primary residence actually get them to spend more time in them? No. Is it really a problem that rich people aren't living in all of their homes simultaneously? No. That is their own business, don't worry about what they do, worry about what you do. What is next, complaining that middle class families often leave one car sitting idly in their driveway?
  - busterarm 13y ago
    It could put some tax money into subsidized housing to offset their market effect of increasing other peoples' rents and commute times. It really kind of is a problem because of the effects that it has on the housing market. It's completely different from somebody having an idle car in their driveway because nobody else could park on their property. This is a situation where this is an apartment somebody else could rent and live in and decrease sprawl.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      If the objective is just to raise more money for subsidized housing, there are more ways to do that than just whining about rich people having underused apartments. Hell, tax caviar; a tax for cheap housing doesn't have to attack rich housing. The only reason to that is pandering to the envious. And I stand by my car analogy, a car a rich person has is a car that a poor person doesn't have. Artificially high demand for cars ('artificially high' in the sense of people buying more cars than they need) increases their prices. If you want more cheap cars for poor people, then get more cheap cars for poor people. Don't complain about how many cars rich people have.
      - busterarm 13y ago
        These arguments don't work when you have supply limitations, which with housing and cars we kinda do. It's not about taxing the rich. It's about taxing where appropriate to get the market effects you want. This is the same reason we have such high tax on cigarettes.
        jlgreco 13y ago
        Taxing rich people more for having multiple homes isn't going to make them give up those homes (we are talking about "1%"ers, right?), all it is going to do is increase your tax revenue. If you plan is to use that additional revenue to provide housing for the poor, the knock yourself out, I think that is a swell plan. However focusing on where that money comes from is a distraction. Rich people having multiple homes is a distraction that is engineered to tug on irrational anti-rich sentiment. Tax them if you want, but don't mistake them for the actual problem.
paddy_m 13y ago
NYC should remove zoning restrictions so that developers can build dense quickly. Density is what makes NYC great. Density is also what will bring down the rents. Increase the supply. We also need to remove parking minimums across the whole city, currently they don't apply in Manhattan. Parking minimums can increase the cost of apartments up to 50% http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/09/16/apartment-blockers/ http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/09/16/apartment-blockers/

by so_says 13y ago

busterarm 13y ago

I really think that New York City needs to institute _massive_ tax penalties for people who don't reside in their apartments as a primary residence. I know that our property taxes are already high, but just about everywhere else has big incentives for residing in your property. There's a lot of apartments in manhattan that are only lived in ~4 weeks a year and aren't rented out otherwise. I wouldn't be opposed to a higher tax rate for those properties. They're effectively jacking up other people's rents and making them have to commute from farther away.

jlgreco 13y ago
Would such tax penalties stop the rich from renting/owning in NYC? I doubt it, they are rich after all. Would those tax penalties convince them to declare those homes their primary residence? Maybe, if they were American. But would declaring those homes to be their primary residence actually get them to spend more time in them? No. Is it really a problem that rich people aren't living in all of their homes simultaneously? No. That is their own business, don't worry about what they do, worry about what you do. What is next, complaining that middle class families often leave one car sitting idly in their driveway?
- busterarm 13y ago
  It could put some tax money into subsidized housing to offset their market effect of increasing other peoples' rents and commute times. It really kind of is a problem because of the effects that it has on the housing market. It's completely different from somebody having an idle car in their driveway because nobody else could park on their property. This is a situation where this is an apartment somebody else could rent and live in and decrease sprawl.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    If the objective is just to raise more money for subsidized housing, there are more ways to do that than just whining about rich people having underused apartments. Hell, tax caviar; a tax for cheap housing doesn't have to attack rich housing. The only reason to that is pandering to the envious. And I stand by my car analogy, a car a rich person has is a car that a poor person doesn't have. Artificially high demand for cars ('artificially high' in the sense of people buying more cars than they need) increases their prices. If you want more cheap cars for poor people, then get more cheap cars for poor people. Don't complain about how many cars rich people have.
    - busterarm 13y ago
      These arguments don't work when you have supply limitations, which with housing and cars we kinda do. It's not about taxing the rich. It's about taxing where appropriate to get the market effects you want. This is the same reason we have such high tax on cigarettes.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        Taxing rich people more for having multiple homes isn't going to make them give up those homes (we are talking about "1%"ers, right?), all it is going to do is increase your tax revenue. If you plan is to use that additional revenue to provide housing for the poor, the knock yourself out, I think that is a swell plan. However focusing on where that money comes from is a distraction. Rich people having multiple homes is a distraction that is engineered to tug on irrational anti-rich sentiment. Tax them if you want, but don't mistake them for the actual problem.

paddy_m 13y ago

NYC should remove zoning restrictions so that developers can build dense quickly. Density is what makes NYC great. Density is also what will bring down the rents. Increase the supply. We also need to remove parking minimums across the whole city, currently they don't apply in Manhattan. Parking minimums can increase the cost of apartments up to 50% http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/09/16/apartment-blockers/ http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/09/16/apartment-blockers/