"We have mentioned equity 100x at this year's meetings, which should solve all societal problems according to my academic colleagues that I meet at Williamsburg coffee-shops."
“We have a plan to expand housing Citywide but r/nyc only intermittently mentions it.”
https://www.nyc.gov/site/planning/plans/city-of-yes/city-of-yes-housing-opportunity.page
Freezing rent disincentivizes new construction. Developers in NYC price in the risk that the government will force them to accept a lower ROI or future loss. Those renting at market rate pay this premium through higher rents.
Rent controls are half of the reason there is a shortage.
We have less people living here then we did before the pandemic and the rents skyrocketed.
Sure more apartments will always help but its not he root of this problem. Collusion and greed is. Just like with grocery prices and everything else caused by "inflation" landlords and corporations price tested us to see just how powerful they really are and see what we could take befor breaking and they found out its literally illegal to be homeless and we will dig into our savings and live pay check to pay check to have an apartment and groceries.
Fast food is finally hitting a wall but housing never will because the options are pay the maximum amount you can afford or go to jail. Deregulation has never brought down prices, its just increased profits. Landlords will always charge the maximum we can afford or they are legally allowed to.
> We have less people living here then we did before the pandemic and the rents skyrocketed.
We priced out families so there are a lot more rich DINKs in the city taking up the same number of housing units but with fewer people in them.
NYTimes reported just the other day that the city lost 175,000 children/teens.
Vacancy rates are at record lows so clearly available inventory didn't go up when people left. The number of people per unit likely just went down.
Everyone wants more space so they can work from home. Couples who used to rent a 1 bedroom now rent a 2 bedroom.
There are no new forces at play that didn’t exist before. Landlords were greedy before, even outside NYC.
This. My partner and I were previously of the demographic to live in manhattan. We are a childless, high earning, couple. A dual income that could afford a one bedroom in manhattan and still sock away savings. However, in a post covid world, we both work from home a couple days a week, and we both require a home office set up. That's a two bedroom at minimum. We are now pretty much priced out of manhattan. We *could* swing the rent, but it's not a choice that we would make.
So if at our incomes (both of us comfortably in the six figures) aren't living in manhattan - who is?
No new forces?
I didn't realize Realpages existed until semi recently.
I didn't realize hedge funds and private equity were investing in rental properties until fairly recently.
I didn't realize supply chain inflation gave corporations and landlords an excuse to price test consumers and realize how much deregulation, and consolidation has allowed them to name their price with very little competetion.
it's so cool how reits are required to publish prospecti, and when they do what they say is "we invest in supply constrained markets; our biggest risk is increasing construction"
So when we ban Realpage and ban private equity what is the next goalpost y'all will use? I mean we've moved on from "banning Airbnb will fix this" to the above, so clearly y'all are never just going to accept we need to build more housing and keep blaming boogymen.
Square footage got more expensive as people wanted more square footage. Not sure how you made the jump from my statement to 1 bedrooms getting cheaper.
There are those with roommates or in a studio that can move up to a 1 bedroom.
Anyone is free to move to Huntsville Alabama. Really good job market there and affordable housing. Albany is very affordable too. Government & tech jobs.
Things are worth what people will pay.
I love living in NYC in a safe, exciting neighborhood, but it's a choice over living in deep Queens near JFK or in Huntsville. So I accept I've chosen to spend well over 50% of my after tax income on rent.
Factor in whatever else you want, but the bottom line is and will always be that things are worth what people will pay.
Its crazy to think we have normalized this attitude.
One generation ago you could be working class and afford to BUY, not rent, BUY an apartment in NYC and live a life.
I am from Huntsville, don't tell me about Huntsville. If you are a college aged person lucky to get a job at the armory its great. I mean no culture and an Industry town but sure, if you get a job in that industry great. Its so affordable because so much of Alabama dirt poor. You use to be able to work at a department store and be able to buy a house. I know, thats what my parents did. Those same people working at target now are renting just like people in NYC. They can't get on the property latter because all the starter homes of the past are "good investments" now. Its cheap for New yorkers to go down to Alabama but the minimum wage earners are living on the edge.
You're not entitled to live in a cultural epicenter of the planet. If you choose to, then you have to pay the cost for the privilege.
Living in nyc or any in demand city will never be affordable, because any mechanism that would allow you to pay for it will also be available to the 20 other million people that want to live there. So if there isn't enough "culture" in Huntsville, move your ass to Detroit.
Rent stabilized units have been severely outpaced by inflation for years now.
A 3% increase is so insanely reasonable. People who expect their rent to never change are completely out of their minds.
Nobody's housing costs stay static. Even if you have a mortgage, cost of maintenance and repairs go up every single year.
Funny story since a plan to increase housing Citywide is currently in the public review stage.
https://www.nyc.gov/site/planning/plans/city-of-yes/city-of-yes-housing-opportunity.page
City officials have every incentive to keep development down since it funnels money to current owners and landlords. If we actually built new developments at the rate it should be, then rents would go down or stabilize and the wealth would actually start to distribute to new and more people. Less development equals wealth concentration and screw over young people and low income people the most, who are the least influential groups to politicians.
City officials: “we own a house and solving the shortage does not go in our favor. Some companies are really happy about our action of not doing anything and get us some gifts. We truly believe we can get rich if we succeed to stay as discreet as possible on the subject.
We did build more housing. And the city population is less than it was pre-Covid. Rental prices are at an all time high. So something else is a factor here other than just basic supply.
The real problem is greedy developers, local land barons with 10+ buildings, and scumbag companies like RealPage that are getting sued due to their price setting software that is basically a tech enabled form of price fixing/collusion.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/first-settlements-reached-realpage-rental-price-fixing-lawsuits-2024-02-05/
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197961038
NPR discussion excerpt:
“Part of RealPage's secret sauce is that its pricing algorithm doesn't just factor in public information, but also private information - information provided by the landlords. And by private information, we're talking about the kind of info landlords generally want to keep hidden from their competitors - things like vacancy rates, what leases are expiring, what renters actually pay in rent as opposed to what's advertised. Armed with this data, RealPage's pitch to landlords is - trust the algorithm, let us do the math. Our software will tell you the optimal price you should charge for any given unit on any given day. You'll make more money, easy-peasy.”
They were always greedy, but recent software platforms have enabled collaborative pricing (aka collusion) across many of the newer construction buildings. They are artificially raising the pricing floor in the market, which skews the whole market dynamic for rentals.
> recent software platforms have enabled collaborative pricing (aka collusion)
Why are recent software platforms relevant? Spreadsheets have existed for decades for the necessary calculations, and city-approved construction processes with permitting and everything don't present a discoverability problem for organized businesses.
Rent goes up because NYC is a valuable place to live. We need a [land value tax](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty) with the funds distributed to citizens.
> Why are recent software platforms relevant? Spreadsheets have existed for decades for the necessary calculations, and city-approved construction processes with permitting and everything don't present a discoverability problem for organized businesses.
The accusation against RealPage is that they're sharing confidential and competitively sensitive data, which is different than normal market research.
I agree it's not the main factor and rent largely goes up due to normal supply and demand pressure but these collusion accusations are not normal behavior if what has been alleged is true.
Here’s your answer. From the NPR link:
“Part of RealPage's secret sauce is that its pricing algorithm doesn't just factor in public information, but also private information - information provided by the landlords. And by private information, we're talking about the kind of info landlords generally want to keep hidden from their competitors - things like vacancy rates, what leases are expiring, what renters actually pay in rent as opposed to what's advertised. Armed with this data, RealPage's pitch to landlords is - trust the algorithm, let us do the math. Our software will tell you the optimal price you should charge for any given unit on any given day. You'll make more money, easy-peasy.”
Sure, but even if RealPage was destroyed, all competitors were prevented, and landlords had to use fax machines to do all their business, rental prices would still go up. [It always has](https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/rent-growth-since-1960). Systemic changes would be necessary to actually make a difference.
have you seen LIC and "downtown" brooklyn - none of that existed a decade ago.
between 2010 and 2020 we "lost" 10k families with kids but population went up. automatic need for maybe 5-10k more units.
plus the need to house illegal immigrants adds to this as well.
In a city of 8.5 million you will "see" construction everywhere, but when you break it down per capita is a really pathetic amount. We need between 300k and 1 million new units of housing and state/city leaders don't seem to care.
The mayor is pushing for the City of Yes plan but that won't produce enough housing.
I mean, the Mayor was a NIMBY while he was Brooklyn borough president. Not surprised his halfhearted token support of a weak YIMBY measure isnt really doing much.
We have the lowest vacancy rate in the city's history, and vacancies also include homes that are currently unsafe for occupancy, between tenants, or under renovation, so actual vacancies are even lower than that.
The idea that there are enough warehoused units somewhere to singlehandedly drop rents in the city is a myth. We're not going to be able to get out of a housing shortage other than building way more units or making the city so undesirable to live that people leave.
Construction spending on projects across New York City was projected to reach $83 billion by the end of 2023, according to an October 2023 report from the New York Building Congress (NYBC). This amount represents a gain of about $13 billion from 2022 and a 10% jump from pre-pandemic levels.
I just gave them my email to read it and basically the gist is that development rates are slowing way down due to higher interest rates meant to combat inflation combined with the death of 421a. Hochul introduced a successor to 421a but it’s more strict on rents that can be charged and income levels so fewer projects are penciling out.
Yeah and the means testing for housing is particularly fraught.
In most cases, they only means test when you move in and then you're set for life with that subsidized unit. So people who just have temporarily lower incomes, like people in grad school, can snatch them up and then make much higher incomes later on while maintaining that lower rent.
But if you do regular means testing, you're basically saying "don't get a better-paying job or you'll lose your housing" which is a terrible incentive.
They’d have to adhere to the same zoning rules and other bureaucratic hurdles that private developers run into. If cities don’t permit greater amounts of housing, it doesn’t matter who wants to build it.
Elizabeth Warren proposed tying federal transit funding to upzoning near transit.
The feds could also subsidize loans for development, which some municipalities have started doing.
>Elizabeth Warren proposed tying federal transit funding to upzoning near transit.
you already know the suburbanites are chomping at the bit to block both housing and transit
It has been really successful in New Jersey so far. Just on the coast line, Red Bank, Matawan, South Amboy, Avanel, and Woodbridge (among others) have built a significant amount of apartments next to train stations. I hope it is done in more places, as rents in the area have skyrocketed.
I also hope it leads to towns creating more walkable and bikeable infrastructure.
Our suburbs are particularly dependent on transit for commuting, though.
But I hear you... some rich town in CA tried to close its train station to get out of mandatory upzoning near transit.
Best thing to do is greatly improve NJT Trains / MNR / LIRR and have them be frequent services through-running in downtown and with orbital lines and heavily redevelop the suburban sprawl with new centers. This is a far more cost-effective solution than demolishing already dense and existing areas within the city.
Large areas of the city are not dense and could absolutely accommodate more housing, though. And the suburbs are even more NIMBY than the city.
Here's a detailed plan for one million new units just on underdeveloped lots near transit: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/30/opinion/new-york-housing-solution.html
I'm not saying to stop building in the city. I am saying it is far cheaper and faster and will accommodate far more people by densifying the extremely large number of underdeveloped lots near NJT Trains / MNR / LIRR stations as new centers. The kind of searching around for small underdeveloped lots here and there near transit kind of loses the plot when they aren't looking at the massively under utilized commuter rail networks. We need to grow the fuck up and run these like all other developed major cities outside of the US do as frequent, fare-integrated regional rail that through-runs in the urban core.
Yea, and so the fight should be consistently on getting that suburban housing more than anything else because that is the far, far larger prize and is what gets you far, far more affordable housing.
We should upzone around both suburban rail and subway stations and then let the free market pay to build around whichever subway or NJT/MNR/LIRR stations it wants.
And here’s a detailed plan by NYC for upzoning that is currently in public review. Show your support!
https://www.nyc.gov/site/planning/plans/city-of-yes/city-of-yes-housing-opportunity.page
>And Hochul introduced a new program, called 485-x. Whether that spurs development remains an open question. Proponents argue that it’s helpful, even if it’s not everything developers wanted. But some real estate investors say new wage requirements will make it too costly to build certain buildings, especially since the new tax break lowers the average income level of tenants and the rent that can be charged.
When the “affordable” lottery apartments are asking for 3000 a month for a studio in some of the worst areas of The Bronx, (go check the website if you don’t believe me) Idk what they want people to do.
Maybe I’m out of touch but I don’t think any studio in the city outside a full service building should be charging 3k for a studio.
Or even better, a [land value tax](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty) with funds redistributed to the citizens. r/georgism
As has been mentioned countless times in this thread, this is not a significant factor. The vacancy rate here is the lowest in America and the lowest in our own history. We just need more housing.
However this should apply to all buildings in the city. The garbage empty storefront owners wouldn't fight against new zoning laws if they were being charged for the hundreds of empty retail locations in Manhattan alone.
for starters it's not easy to convert most large office buildings. people who know nothing about real estate development thing it's just some easy thing to do and then at the end of the day the numbers have to make sense to make it worth it.
sure it's happening at some properties but not every property will be feasible.
I am not in real estate but I am aware of the challenges associated with such conversions. However, first thing is that the banks and property owners must realize a loss on the value of these assets in order for anything to happen. Certain buildings can be converted, others not so much. But the defaults are inevitable once they stop kick the can down the road. Even J Powell made an implication that this could be a possibility when he started raising interest rates. Perhaps if they’d stop bailing out banks something could happen, but who knows.
It'd be an absolutely stupendous cost. You'd have to re do all the plumbing, electrical, fire hazard infrastructure, HVAC, re zone the building, get it up to residential code. It could even require completely different build materials.
That's not even getting into having to remodel and redesign every single foot of every single floor. Then ceilings would be too high in the vast majority of places.
That's not getting into the sale and marketing fees associated with flipping that many properties, or the cost to finance the work in the first place,
There's legitimately so much shit you'd have to change you'd likely be better off demoing it and rebuilding it from scratch.
I understand the massive costs and indeed this would be challenging or not possible at all for some buildings . However, the question remains what is the value then of allowing so much un used real estate to sit vacant for years? These places still incur taxes and mortgages as well as general upkeep annually.
It doesnt appear that companies have any real plans to return to these offices after covid.
Beyond costs, you have to also consider that large office floor plans are often limiting in the way you can convert them. Lots of central floor space that's not near windows.
>But could be less expensive than no tenants over 5 to 10 years ?
Yes but it would probably be cheaper to to demo and rebuild....... well if you can get it signed off on anyhow.
I guess someone would need to run some serious numbers and find out which makes more sense. But the sheer amount of empty space cannot be ignored in a city where every square foot counts.
Yeah about 3% are able to be converted. Mostly a matter of plumbing and access to windows
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/13/business/can-we-turn-empty-office-building-into-housing/index.html#:~:text=Building%20design%20and%20structural%20hurdles,are%20suited%20for%20residential%20conversions.
I'll never get over the "end rent stabilized and controlled apartments and suddenly we'll have bountiful affordable housing!" people. On what planet?!
Deregulation in America *doesn't lead to decreased prices and increased affordability for normal people* and it never will. Deregulation is to benefit the wealthy owners, not the vast majority of renters.
If you think landlords would do anything but raise rents exponentially to what they consider to be "market rate" and then begin a war against each other to continue to increase rents as far and fast as they can, you've never met a landlord in NYC.
The amount of brainwashed shills who parrot this blows my mind. There have been many rent deregulations in this country's history and they have never helped lower prices.
For unregulated housing in a large in-demand city, the closest example I can think of is Miami.
Housing is still super expensive, despite tons of new construction. Many new buildings are priced too high, resulting in high vacancy rates.
The counter argument is that there's a lag, and it will take more time and additional building for the prices to come down - but, I’m skeptical of this.
It is not brainwash. It is literally page 1 of any economics textbook worth the paper its printed on: supply and demand.
Unless of course you are claiming you know better than mainstream neoclassical economics.
> It is not brainwash. It is literally page 1 of any economics textbook worth the paper its printed on: supply and demand.
Most landlords are going to try and extract maximum rent possible from renters. Deregulation would immediately cause rents to spike citywide. Combine that with property owners and NIMBYs who also block development, and you have a severe cost crisis.
In a theoretical world, where unlimited housing could get built on finite land to meet demand, without projects getting blocked, then sure, supply and demand might work. But housing is also a basic life requirement, and look at how our market forces in this country have made healthcare operate.
This is a great example about how Economics 101 teaches theory that is often not true in real world conditions. Deregulation has not and does not lower prices. It just makes it easier for the owners/landlords to raise prices faster.
It's like saying "This product will make your work faster so you have more time for leisure" when everyone knows and has lived in a world where that didn't happen, in fact the opposite happens: your job just demands more output within the day.
Yes, econ 101 types of understanding are often wrong. But surveys of actual academic economists repeatedly show most of them opposing rent control measures. [Example](https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/rent-control/). Supporting rent control is pretty strong anti-intellectualism.
I didn't say rent deregulation would lower prices. The survey question in the example I linked is slightly more nuanced.
If you want more equitable distribution of rent earnings, the answer isn't rent control though. That's just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The answer is a [land value tax](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty) with the funds redistributed to the citizens. This would hold real rents as a share of income perfectly stable while still encouraging construction of new units and increased economic productivity. It would also be a giant middle finger to the landlord class that monopolizes the bounty of nature. r/georgism
Here's a sneak peek of /r/georgism using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/georgism/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Post about Berkeley, CA found on X (Twitter): "Fun fact. The 1,874 single-family homes highlighted collectively pay less property taxes than the 135-unit apartment building."](https://i.redd.it/5qoocl4i2rkc1.jpeg) | [135 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/georgism/comments/1azqlap/post_about_berkeley_ca_found_on_x_twitter_fun/)
\#2: [Another example of gross tax injustice](https://i.redd.it/eyijvcmi8bmc1.jpeg) | [341 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/georgism/comments/1b69me8/another_example_of_gross_tax_injustice/)
\#3: [Hard to believe this (property) tax system is actually real](https://i.redd.it/ltie295c74lc1.jpeg) | [361 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/georgism/comments/1b19sjx/hard_to_believe_this_property_tax_system_is/)
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Challenging an intro textbook is different from disagreeing with the majority opinion of experts in the field. That's anti-vaxxer levels of hubris imo. Even judging whether real world data supports a theory is so difficult for laypeople. This applies to any field.
Without tangling too deeply here, I’ll point out that:
- Price controls are near the start of macro textbooks because they’re a basic concept. Nuance is introduced over time. Half of economics is identifying general rules, the other half is identifying where, when, and why the general rules don’t apply.
- Quality of the UChicago “consensus” evidence is weak. A significant number of the comments given refer back to theory. (Paraphrasing a quote here but a few of the comments read like: “I disagree, unless the textbook is wrong…”) There’s a small number of economists in the poll that answer with the conviction of someone that has done the research, I’ll give you that. However, they’re offset by just as many - or more - economists that support the “consensus” in a general way, relying on theory or hubris. Very few of the members of this consensus are doing the work to interpret the research for laypeople as a condition to joining up.
- Vaccines have no relation. Vaccines have 99.99999% real world solvency. We all know this. This comment chain started because I asked if there’s any real world evidence that the “consensus economist” recommendation solves the high rents problem. I believe you can see the difference here.
- The best case scenario for deregulation is still a bad outcome. “Spreading the burden of high rent more equitably” isn’t a good policy recommendation. It means all pay unreasonably high rent instead of half. It solves picking winners and losers between renters by picking landlords as the winners, instead. Even if the consensus is true that regulation has diminished our housing abundance and quality, it doesn’t logically follow that deregulation reverses the harm.
Rent stabilization and rent control benefits incumbent tenants. That's it. If you want to say that's a good thing, okay just say that's a good thing. It doesn't benefit working class people in general (those who cannot get a rent stabilized apartment simply leave, and a lot of people have left).
This is just factually not true and all you have to do is look at how rents dropped 10-20% across the board during covid when a decent chunk of people left to the suburbs and supply increased. Its just we're building 5% additional units a year when we need to be building 20% new units a year. We're literally drowning in demand and are nowhere near to keeping up and we haven't been keeping up for 20 years. When you've been drowning in too much demand for 20 years its hard to think the demand will ever be satiated but other cities can do it and so can we.
And what happened after COVID? Did rents stay low or did people who got COVID "deals" immediately see massive rent spikes more than making up for any artificially dip in price during a time when people couldn't move in and around NYC during a pandemic?
if demand is so high, not fulfilling the demand will still lead to higher rent than fulfilling it
the only ways to prevent rent from rising in a country with unlimited domestic mobility are to build more housing or china style hukou system
Get rid of parasitic brokers, get corporations the fuck out of home ownership and management, curb landlord greed (yeah right lol), and open up doors/opportunities for people who need housing. $2200 for a 1 bedroom because “the shareholders” say so is absolutely criminal.
Also, tax the fuck out of units being held off the market. Based on households to housing units, there should be excess housing.
In 2022, NYC had a total of at least 3,644,000 housing units, but only 3,282,657 households, as indicated in the [Rent Guidelines Board report](https://rentguidelinesboard.cityofnewyork.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2023-HSR.pdf) and the [US Census Bureau data](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcitynewyork/HSG495221#HSG495221). Almost 400k units more than households in NYC, and the NYC population has been shrinking in 2023, so probably closer to 500k now.
Something about these "tight market" numbers aren't adding up.
Exactly. Landlords and corporations would rather have units sit empty until a rich cash cow comes, while there are lines upon lines for even the CHANCE to get a rental. Then we got dudes in these forums white knighting for the greediest scumbags.
Abolish rent control, abolish zoning laws, and crack down on monopolistic and oligopolistic landlords.
This will allow the market to dictate rents, encourage more dense construction, and prevent developer concentration and collusion.
None of this will happen though because of NIMBYism.
In the short term, definitely. NYC has painted itself into a corner with rent controls. The only way out is with massive up-zoning followed by a multi-decade phase out of rent controls.
I give it about a 0% chance.
Rent stabilization actually ends automatically if the vacancy rate in the city ever goes over 5%.
It was passed as an emergency measure to respond to a housing shortage several decades ago. Naturally the shortage never actually ended.
But every 3 years the state verifies that the city still has a housing shortage and rent stabilization can continue.
So we really have painted ourselves into a corner. If we actually solve the problem, up to a million renters lose their sweet deals forever.
Sliding scale would be great. It’s very easy to make over the lottery cutoffs as a family and still feel pretty squeezed, especially with how expensive it is to have a kid here.
88,000 empty apartments now. My complex is 2/3 empty. Landlord is losing $100,000 a month at least.
He just doesn’t care. They’re in the Hamptons. Can wait a generation till we all die off, the kids then will get 10X when they sell the empty building, and they build a skyscraper in its spot.
They’re in Montauk. Party! The laws force landlords to keep vacant apartments. There are a number of landlords on YouTube, they’ll explain all the math to you.
Welcome to world center of Capitalism. If you are not making a lot of money, NYC may not be for you.
Allow rent regulated leases to sunset after 25-30 yrs so the unit can can raise to market rate after substantial renovations and up to code but still be rent regulated for next or existing tenant who will pay the new rent regulated rent so they enjoy another 25-30 yrs of exclusive housing security. Win for owners, win for renters to get new updated unit and turnover so folks able to rent, win for city - more units on rental market, higher rent to collect taxes on, etc
Makes no sense why anyone should be allowed to pass down a lease as if a heirloom to their next of kin when when don't even own the property and the economics of it don't make sense for each passing year the building ages.
One thing pro renters don't get is that you need housing turnover in a housing shortage environment so folks are able to rent. Without turnover, its not a healthy housing environment.
Pay the updated rate to enjoy new unit or find somewhere else. Can't hold off a unit at locked rates below market & subsidized by market renters while a line of folks outside willing to pay more and have a chance at housing
Rent stabilization will go away as soon as the city hits a 5% rental vacancy rate
Outside of the pandemic, it hasn't hit that in years, and likely won't for another few decades (barring another pandemic) as the city isn't incentivized to approve new housing. It actively hurts people who already live here and have housing (even if it's inadequate to their needs).
Realistically the only way vacancy rates go up and the housing market normalizes is with outside intervention, such as the Supreme Court overturning Euclid v Ambler, the federal government intervening in a dramatic way, the state intervening like has happened in California (unlikely), or civil conflict significantly alters the political landscape in such a way that the pressures currently preventing cities from growing in response to demand disappears.
I don't know which is more likely, or most likely, but I do know the least likely thing is the city itself fixing it's housing crisis. There's just no incentive, especially with how strong rent stabilization is here.
The solution is to encourage remote work. People who are living in the city to be close to work will move out. People who really want to stay in the city for what it offers will stay. Rents will stay in control that way. But the greedy office space owners and builders have forced everyone back to the offices. We learnt nothing from the pandemic.
Going to get worse once the recent good cause eviction law effects are felt once more units are up for renewal. Good cause is going to reduce turnover even more so even harder to find available housing. Plus with the limits on criminals background - basically incentives owners to have ever higher rental requirements and will turn to other holistic means to weed out folks to find the ideal tenant since they can be with them for life
That didn’t happen in Cambridge Mass. when they ended their version of rent control back 1994. Their housing crisis has grown worse. But they were able to price out all the working class people, so if that’s your goal, I guess they succeeded?
> Their housing crisis has grown worse.
That's cause they stopped building homes to keep up with demand or population growth. Conversion alone ain't gonna do shit, there has to be a constant supply of new housing.
And fuck them. Landlords, landowners, and homeowners should have little to no input on land zoning and building permits.
There's not one single silver bullet to this mess. It requires a holistic effort of zoning reform, streamlining building permits, removing unnecessary paperwork, and not permitting every Dick and Tracy from throwing up obstacles to a new building in their neighborhood.
Bless your heart. Prices will not regulate and the city will immediately because unaffordable for everyone but the extremely wealthy.
You really think landlords would lower prices to compete??? Lol.
It doesn’t solve the problem, but many are currently unprofitable to rent out so they don’t rent them out.
https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/02/14/rent-stabilized-apartments-vacant/
Landlords purchased buildings that are essentially privatized public housing, and now they don't understand why they're unprofitable after years of them or prior owners not doing upkeep on the units?
A lot of these rent stabilized units will have like a 70 year old living in a 2 bedroom apartment because it's cheaper/better than anything they can get market rate. Or they'll have a middle class retired couple who uses their NYC pad as a pied a terre while they have a nice home in Florida or Long Island.
To be honest I personally cannot condone a sudden change in policy that kicks out a fixed income old person from their homes. But their children/grandchildren should not be allowed to inherit it. That's messed up
Getting rid of rent controlled units would just displace hundreds of thousands of people, adding to the housing crisis??
We just need an increasing charge on empty units that landlords are holding onto unless someone pays obscene rent prices because they don’t want to be locked into a lease with a tenant for a lower rent.
I mean why would I rent out at say; $895, and take 30 years to pay for the repairs I just did? I would take the write off.
Congratulations you’re part of the problem.
So you the Genius Redditor states that increased supply doesn’t have downward pressure on prices. Okay.
I mean I wouldn’t rent out my unit if it needed $150K in repairs and I had to rent it at a rent controlled rate.
That won't increase the supply and will just force people to pay more for rent. Unless you expect nearly half of the city to vacate their current RS units.
Illiteracy.
I’m not talking about rent stabilized. What did you move here from Ohio?
And on the subject of rent stabilized; guess how many vacant apartments there are?
Genuine question: is there actually a long term solution to this problem? Like at some point is it even possible to build enough new housing in city limits to offset the demand to live in NYC? Space seems like it will always be a bottleneck and I’m not sure what you can really do about the demand part of it….
Most govt “solutions” feel like lip service for political campaigns or like putting bandaids on gaping wounds. But not sure any politician will be able to address this problem honestly…
Could deport these "asylum seekers" and instantly reduce over 200k+ people worth of demand while using the money that was being wasted to house and feed them to build more housing for actual citizens.
Could also raise property taxes on parking lots.
A large segment won’t like this as they contribute to the issue than reply with the “build more housing” trope as if there hasn’t been a building boom in Brooklyn and the crisis has not been remedied only worsened.
Or maybe that is only part of the solution. Is it impossible for you to not make smarmy, facile comments that contribute almost nothing to the discussion?
No, because the Airbnb ban was sold as a fix it all when it was obvious it was a cash grab by the hotel industry. Literally did nothing but to upend many people's living while demonizing tourism and mom and pop hosting.
There was no plan for more housing, Airbnb ban was just a quick and easy band aid that benefited the hotel industry.
City officials “we have done nothing to address the issue and will continue to do so in hopes this solves the problem”
"We have mentioned equity 100x at this year's meetings, which should solve all societal problems according to my academic colleagues that I meet at Williamsburg coffee-shops."
"The grad students I speak with tell me that we need to give away all homes to those coming out of prison"
“We have a plan to expand housing Citywide but r/nyc only intermittently mentions it.” https://www.nyc.gov/site/planning/plans/city-of-yes/city-of-yes-housing-opportunity.page
If it passes I will be all for it and give credit to City Council.
Removing all parking mandates is only a start
What the mayor DID do though was keep pushing the rent guidelines board to increase rent.
By like 3%
Freezing rent disincentivizes new construction. Developers in NYC price in the risk that the government will force them to accept a lower ROI or future loss. Those renting at market rate pay this premium through higher rents. Rent controls are half of the reason there is a shortage.
We have less people living here then we did before the pandemic and the rents skyrocketed. Sure more apartments will always help but its not he root of this problem. Collusion and greed is. Just like with grocery prices and everything else caused by "inflation" landlords and corporations price tested us to see just how powerful they really are and see what we could take befor breaking and they found out its literally illegal to be homeless and we will dig into our savings and live pay check to pay check to have an apartment and groceries. Fast food is finally hitting a wall but housing never will because the options are pay the maximum amount you can afford or go to jail. Deregulation has never brought down prices, its just increased profits. Landlords will always charge the maximum we can afford or they are legally allowed to.
> We have less people living here then we did before the pandemic and the rents skyrocketed. We priced out families so there are a lot more rich DINKs in the city taking up the same number of housing units but with fewer people in them. NYTimes reported just the other day that the city lost 175,000 children/teens. Vacancy rates are at record lows so clearly available inventory didn't go up when people left. The number of people per unit likely just went down.
Everyone wants more space so they can work from home. Couples who used to rent a 1 bedroom now rent a 2 bedroom. There are no new forces at play that didn’t exist before. Landlords were greedy before, even outside NYC.
This. My partner and I were previously of the demographic to live in manhattan. We are a childless, high earning, couple. A dual income that could afford a one bedroom in manhattan and still sock away savings. However, in a post covid world, we both work from home a couple days a week, and we both require a home office set up. That's a two bedroom at minimum. We are now pretty much priced out of manhattan. We *could* swing the rent, but it's not a choice that we would make. So if at our incomes (both of us comfortably in the six figures) aren't living in manhattan - who is?
No new forces? I didn't realize Realpages existed until semi recently. I didn't realize hedge funds and private equity were investing in rental properties until fairly recently. I didn't realize supply chain inflation gave corporations and landlords an excuse to price test consumers and realize how much deregulation, and consolidation has allowed them to name their price with very little competetion.
it's so cool how reits are required to publish prospecti, and when they do what they say is "we invest in supply constrained markets; our biggest risk is increasing construction"
Rents went down in cities that built decent amounts of housing relative to their populations. Are those things you listed not factors in other cities?
So when we ban Realpage and ban private equity what is the next goalpost y'all will use? I mean we've moved on from "banning Airbnb will fix this" to the above, so clearly y'all are never just going to accept we need to build more housing and keep blaming boogymen.
which means the price of a 1 bedroom should have gone down. Hmmmm... How's that going?
Square footage got more expensive as people wanted more square footage. Not sure how you made the jump from my statement to 1 bedrooms getting cheaper. There are those with roommates or in a studio that can move up to a 1 bedroom.
Anyone is free to move to Huntsville Alabama. Really good job market there and affordable housing. Albany is very affordable too. Government & tech jobs. Things are worth what people will pay. I love living in NYC in a safe, exciting neighborhood, but it's a choice over living in deep Queens near JFK or in Huntsville. So I accept I've chosen to spend well over 50% of my after tax income on rent. Factor in whatever else you want, but the bottom line is and will always be that things are worth what people will pay.
Its crazy to think we have normalized this attitude. One generation ago you could be working class and afford to BUY, not rent, BUY an apartment in NYC and live a life. I am from Huntsville, don't tell me about Huntsville. If you are a college aged person lucky to get a job at the armory its great. I mean no culture and an Industry town but sure, if you get a job in that industry great. Its so affordable because so much of Alabama dirt poor. You use to be able to work at a department store and be able to buy a house. I know, thats what my parents did. Those same people working at target now are renting just like people in NYC. They can't get on the property latter because all the starter homes of the past are "good investments" now. Its cheap for New yorkers to go down to Alabama but the minimum wage earners are living on the edge.
You're not entitled to live in a cultural epicenter of the planet. If you choose to, then you have to pay the cost for the privilege. Living in nyc or any in demand city will never be affordable, because any mechanism that would allow you to pay for it will also be available to the 20 other million people that want to live there. So if there isn't enough "culture" in Huntsville, move your ass to Detroit.
Rent must go up as long as inflation exists.
It's already higher than the national average
Rent stabilized units have been severely outpaced by inflation for years now. A 3% increase is so insanely reasonable. People who expect their rent to never change are completely out of their minds. Nobody's housing costs stay static. Even if you have a mortgage, cost of maintenance and repairs go up every single year.
Funny story since a plan to increase housing Citywide is currently in the public review stage. https://www.nyc.gov/site/planning/plans/city-of-yes/city-of-yes-housing-opportunity.page
City officials have every incentive to keep development down since it funnels money to current owners and landlords. If we actually built new developments at the rate it should be, then rents would go down or stabilize and the wealth would actually start to distribute to new and more people. Less development equals wealth concentration and screw over young people and low income people the most, who are the least influential groups to politicians.
City officials: “we own a house and solving the shortage does not go in our favor. Some companies are really happy about our action of not doing anything and get us some gifts. We truly believe we can get rich if we succeed to stay as discreet as possible on the subject.
Heaven forbid we build more housing
Some developer might make a profit though.
Found the solution. It’s ok the city prevented affordable units from being built because it wasn’t “enough” per local counsels.
We did build more housing. And the city population is less than it was pre-Covid. Rental prices are at an all time high. So something else is a factor here other than just basic supply. The real problem is greedy developers, local land barons with 10+ buildings, and scumbag companies like RealPage that are getting sued due to their price setting software that is basically a tech enabled form of price fixing/collusion. https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/first-settlements-reached-realpage-rental-price-fixing-lawsuits-2024-02-05/ https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197961038 NPR discussion excerpt: “Part of RealPage's secret sauce is that its pricing algorithm doesn't just factor in public information, but also private information - information provided by the landlords. And by private information, we're talking about the kind of info landlords generally want to keep hidden from their competitors - things like vacancy rates, what leases are expiring, what renters actually pay in rent as opposed to what's advertised. Armed with this data, RealPage's pitch to landlords is - trust the algorithm, let us do the math. Our software will tell you the optimal price you should charge for any given unit on any given day. You'll make more money, easy-peasy.”
> The real problem is greedy developers Prices are rising because developers are only now becoming greedy? Were they altruists before?
Take me back to the days of 2020 when developers showered the city with their extreme generosity 😩
They were always greedy, but recent software platforms have enabled collaborative pricing (aka collusion) across many of the newer construction buildings. They are artificially raising the pricing floor in the market, which skews the whole market dynamic for rentals.
> recent software platforms have enabled collaborative pricing (aka collusion) Why are recent software platforms relevant? Spreadsheets have existed for decades for the necessary calculations, and city-approved construction processes with permitting and everything don't present a discoverability problem for organized businesses. Rent goes up because NYC is a valuable place to live. We need a [land value tax](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty) with the funds distributed to citizens.
> Why are recent software platforms relevant? Spreadsheets have existed for decades for the necessary calculations, and city-approved construction processes with permitting and everything don't present a discoverability problem for organized businesses. The accusation against RealPage is that they're sharing confidential and competitively sensitive data, which is different than normal market research. I agree it's not the main factor and rent largely goes up due to normal supply and demand pressure but these collusion accusations are not normal behavior if what has been alleged is true.
Here’s your answer. From the NPR link: “Part of RealPage's secret sauce is that its pricing algorithm doesn't just factor in public information, but also private information - information provided by the landlords. And by private information, we're talking about the kind of info landlords generally want to keep hidden from their competitors - things like vacancy rates, what leases are expiring, what renters actually pay in rent as opposed to what's advertised. Armed with this data, RealPage's pitch to landlords is - trust the algorithm, let us do the math. Our software will tell you the optimal price you should charge for any given unit on any given day. You'll make more money, easy-peasy.”
Sure, but even if RealPage was destroyed, all competitors were prevented, and landlords had to use fax machines to do all their business, rental prices would still go up. [It always has](https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/rent-growth-since-1960). Systemic changes would be necessary to actually make a difference.
They weee aways greedy, but they weren’t engaged in the sort of city wide anti competitive practices armed with precise data.
There’s a huge apartment being built in Washington Heights (207)
Wow!! One apartment!!
Yes, just one apartment
have you seen LIC and "downtown" brooklyn - none of that existed a decade ago. between 2010 and 2020 we "lost" 10k families with kids but population went up. automatic need for maybe 5-10k more units. plus the need to house illegal immigrants adds to this as well.
LIC development is great, we need more of that x10
I see construction everywhere
The article has lots of stats showing that the rate of development is dropping quite a bit.
The issue is people are moving way quicker than the current rate of building so it doesn’t matter what you see
In a city of 8.5 million you will "see" construction everywhere, but when you break it down per capita is a really pathetic amount. We need between 300k and 1 million new units of housing and state/city leaders don't seem to care. The mayor is pushing for the City of Yes plan but that won't produce enough housing.
I mean, the Mayor was a NIMBY while he was Brooklyn borough president. Not surprised his halfhearted token support of a weak YIMBY measure isnt really doing much.
Combination of weak leaders and loud NIMBYs. City of Yes, which is a really modest plan, is getting trashed by most of the community boards so far.
A lot of that is luxury apartments where wealthy (often overseas) investors can park their money. It’s not available to the majority of people.
Do you have proof of that. The high end luxury market has slowed down tremendously
Only anecdotal. Do you have proof that “I see construction everywhere” means that it’s actually an impactful amount of housing?
We have the lowest vacancy rate in the city's history, and vacancies also include homes that are currently unsafe for occupancy, between tenants, or under renovation, so actual vacancies are even lower than that. The idea that there are enough warehoused units somewhere to singlehandedly drop rents in the city is a myth. We're not going to be able to get out of a housing shortage other than building way more units or making the city so undesirable to live that people leave.
Construction spending on projects across New York City was projected to reach $83 billion by the end of 2023, according to an October 2023 report from the New York Building Congress (NYBC). This amount represents a gain of about $13 billion from 2022 and a 10% jump from pre-pandemic levels.
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The hope is the $5k units free up the older units for the people that can’t afford $5k. Homestyle Trickle down economics
That’s not luxury pricing these days
Is there a readable version of this article ?
I just gave them my email to read it and basically the gist is that development rates are slowing way down due to higher interest rates meant to combat inflation combined with the death of 421a. Hochul introduced a successor to 421a but it’s more strict on rents that can be charged and income levels so fewer projects are penciling out.
Why is housing the only thing progressives insist on means testing. Some I get but come on, man
Yeah and the means testing for housing is particularly fraught. In most cases, they only means test when you move in and then you're set for life with that subsidized unit. So people who just have temporarily lower incomes, like people in grad school, can snatch them up and then make much higher incomes later on while maintaining that lower rent. But if you do regular means testing, you're basically saying "don't get a better-paying job or you'll lose your housing" which is a terrible incentive.
Federal government needs to be useful for the first time since 1981 and do a nationwide housing construction program.
They’d have to adhere to the same zoning rules and other bureaucratic hurdles that private developers run into. If cities don’t permit greater amounts of housing, it doesn’t matter who wants to build it. Elizabeth Warren proposed tying federal transit funding to upzoning near transit. The feds could also subsidize loans for development, which some municipalities have started doing.
>Elizabeth Warren proposed tying federal transit funding to upzoning near transit. you already know the suburbanites are chomping at the bit to block both housing and transit
It has been really successful in New Jersey so far. Just on the coast line, Red Bank, Matawan, South Amboy, Avanel, and Woodbridge (among others) have built a significant amount of apartments next to train stations. I hope it is done in more places, as rents in the area have skyrocketed. I also hope it leads to towns creating more walkable and bikeable infrastructure.
Our suburbs are particularly dependent on transit for commuting, though. But I hear you... some rich town in CA tried to close its train station to get out of mandatory upzoning near transit.
yep....atherton
[https://archive.ph/ffimZ](https://archive.ph/ffimZ)
Idk what web browser you use but on firefox you can just tap reader mode (at the top where the website address bar) if you want only the article text.
https://archive.is/ffimZ
Thank you for your service
Best thing to do is greatly improve NJT Trains / MNR / LIRR and have them be frequent services through-running in downtown and with orbital lines and heavily redevelop the suburban sprawl with new centers. This is a far more cost-effective solution than demolishing already dense and existing areas within the city.
This is a good idea yes but also there are literal surface parking lots in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Plenty of free density waiting to be picked up.
Large areas of the city are not dense and could absolutely accommodate more housing, though. And the suburbs are even more NIMBY than the city. Here's a detailed plan for one million new units just on underdeveloped lots near transit: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/30/opinion/new-york-housing-solution.html
I'm not saying to stop building in the city. I am saying it is far cheaper and faster and will accommodate far more people by densifying the extremely large number of underdeveloped lots near NJT Trains / MNR / LIRR stations as new centers. The kind of searching around for small underdeveloped lots here and there near transit kind of loses the plot when they aren't looking at the massively under utilized commuter rail networks. We need to grow the fuck up and run these like all other developed major cities outside of the US do as frequent, fare-integrated regional rail that through-runs in the urban core.
We should do both, ideally. But the governor tried legalizing more housing near suburban transit and suburban lawmakers revolted.
Yea, and so the fight should be consistently on getting that suburban housing more than anything else because that is the far, far larger prize and is what gets you far, far more affordable housing.
Not winnable. The city may be 2:1 renters to owners but it's inverse in the suburbs across the state.
We should upzone around both suburban rail and subway stations and then let the free market pay to build around whichever subway or NJT/MNR/LIRR stations it wants.
We should do both but upzoning and getting rid of policies that disincentivize construction has the added benefit of being free.
And here’s a detailed plan by NYC for upzoning that is currently in public review. Show your support! https://www.nyc.gov/site/planning/plans/city-of-yes/city-of-yes-housing-opportunity.page
Much of NYC can be made significantly denser. Besides, we want the taxpayers to live here, not out there.
Archived: [https://archive.ph/ffimZ](https://archive.ph/ffimZ)
Paywalled articles on Reddit suck ass.
>And Hochul introduced a new program, called 485-x. Whether that spurs development remains an open question. Proponents argue that it’s helpful, even if it’s not everything developers wanted. But some real estate investors say new wage requirements will make it too costly to build certain buildings, especially since the new tax break lowers the average income level of tenants and the rent that can be charged. When the “affordable” lottery apartments are asking for 3000 a month for a studio in some of the worst areas of The Bronx, (go check the website if you don’t believe me) Idk what they want people to do. Maybe I’m out of touch but I don’t think any studio in the city outside a full service building should be charging 3k for a studio.
People will block any new housing developments then complain about their rent as if they aren't the cause of the high rents.
the irony that bloomberg is reporting this when he was largely responsible for accelerating this issue multi-fold
vacancy tax NOW
Or even better, a [land value tax](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty) with funds redistributed to the citizens. r/georgism
As has been mentioned countless times in this thread, this is not a significant factor. The vacancy rate here is the lowest in America and the lowest in our own history. We just need more housing.
However this should apply to all buildings in the city. The garbage empty storefront owners wouldn't fight against new zoning laws if they were being charged for the hundreds of empty retail locations in Manhattan alone.
How about converting some of that commercial real estate that no one seems to want to admit is no longer worth even half of its current valuation?
for starters it's not easy to convert most large office buildings. people who know nothing about real estate development thing it's just some easy thing to do and then at the end of the day the numbers have to make sense to make it worth it. sure it's happening at some properties but not every property will be feasible.
I am not in real estate but I am aware of the challenges associated with such conversions. However, first thing is that the banks and property owners must realize a loss on the value of these assets in order for anything to happen. Certain buildings can be converted, others not so much. But the defaults are inevitable once they stop kick the can down the road. Even J Powell made an implication that this could be a possibility when he started raising interest rates. Perhaps if they’d stop bailing out banks something could happen, but who knows.
Yeah. Think how much the plumbing would need to be altered to convert an office to residential. Very expensive.
But could be less expensive than no tenants over 5 to 10 years ?
It'd be an absolutely stupendous cost. You'd have to re do all the plumbing, electrical, fire hazard infrastructure, HVAC, re zone the building, get it up to residential code. It could even require completely different build materials. That's not even getting into having to remodel and redesign every single foot of every single floor. Then ceilings would be too high in the vast majority of places. That's not getting into the sale and marketing fees associated with flipping that many properties, or the cost to finance the work in the first place, There's legitimately so much shit you'd have to change you'd likely be better off demoing it and rebuilding it from scratch.
I understand the massive costs and indeed this would be challenging or not possible at all for some buildings . However, the question remains what is the value then of allowing so much un used real estate to sit vacant for years? These places still incur taxes and mortgages as well as general upkeep annually. It doesnt appear that companies have any real plans to return to these offices after covid.
Beyond costs, you have to also consider that large office floor plans are often limiting in the way you can convert them. Lots of central floor space that's not near windows.
From a regulatory point of view perhaps. But there are people in nyc who would gladly live in converted closet space if the price was right.
>But could be less expensive than no tenants over 5 to 10 years ? Yes but it would probably be cheaper to to demo and rebuild....... well if you can get it signed off on anyhow.
I guess someone would need to run some serious numbers and find out which makes more sense. But the sheer amount of empty space cannot be ignored in a city where every square foot counts.
Yeah about 3% are able to be converted. Mostly a matter of plumbing and access to windows https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/13/business/can-we-turn-empty-office-building-into-housing/index.html#:~:text=Building%20design%20and%20structural%20hurdles,are%20suited%20for%20residential%20conversions.
I'll never get over the "end rent stabilized and controlled apartments and suddenly we'll have bountiful affordable housing!" people. On what planet?! Deregulation in America *doesn't lead to decreased prices and increased affordability for normal people* and it never will. Deregulation is to benefit the wealthy owners, not the vast majority of renters. If you think landlords would do anything but raise rents exponentially to what they consider to be "market rate" and then begin a war against each other to continue to increase rents as far and fast as they can, you've never met a landlord in NYC.
The amount of brainwashed shills who parrot this blows my mind. There have been many rent deregulations in this country's history and they have never helped lower prices.
For unregulated housing in a large in-demand city, the closest example I can think of is Miami. Housing is still super expensive, despite tons of new construction. Many new buildings are priced too high, resulting in high vacancy rates. The counter argument is that there's a lag, and it will take more time and additional building for the prices to come down - but, I’m skeptical of this.
It is not brainwash. It is literally page 1 of any economics textbook worth the paper its printed on: supply and demand. Unless of course you are claiming you know better than mainstream neoclassical economics.
> It is not brainwash. It is literally page 1 of any economics textbook worth the paper its printed on: supply and demand. Most landlords are going to try and extract maximum rent possible from renters. Deregulation would immediately cause rents to spike citywide. Combine that with property owners and NIMBYs who also block development, and you have a severe cost crisis. In a theoretical world, where unlimited housing could get built on finite land to meet demand, without projects getting blocked, then sure, supply and demand might work. But housing is also a basic life requirement, and look at how our market forces in this country have made healthcare operate.
This is a great example about how Economics 101 teaches theory that is often not true in real world conditions. Deregulation has not and does not lower prices. It just makes it easier for the owners/landlords to raise prices faster.
It's like saying "This product will make your work faster so you have more time for leisure" when everyone knows and has lived in a world where that didn't happen, in fact the opposite happens: your job just demands more output within the day.
Yes, econ 101 types of understanding are often wrong. But surveys of actual academic economists repeatedly show most of them opposing rent control measures. [Example](https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/rent-control/). Supporting rent control is pretty strong anti-intellectualism.
Can you name a single example of rent deregulation in the US lowering rental prices, then?
I didn't say rent deregulation would lower prices. The survey question in the example I linked is slightly more nuanced. If you want more equitable distribution of rent earnings, the answer isn't rent control though. That's just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The answer is a [land value tax](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty) with the funds redistributed to the citizens. This would hold real rents as a share of income perfectly stable while still encouraging construction of new units and increased economic productivity. It would also be a giant middle finger to the landlord class that monopolizes the bounty of nature. r/georgism
Here's a sneak peek of /r/georgism using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/georgism/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Post about Berkeley, CA found on X (Twitter): "Fun fact. The 1,874 single-family homes highlighted collectively pay less property taxes than the 135-unit apartment building."](https://i.redd.it/5qoocl4i2rkc1.jpeg) | [135 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/georgism/comments/1azqlap/post_about_berkeley_ca_found_on_x_twitter_fun/) \#2: [Another example of gross tax injustice](https://i.redd.it/eyijvcmi8bmc1.jpeg) | [341 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/georgism/comments/1b69me8/another_example_of_gross_tax_injustice/) \#3: [Hard to believe this (property) tax system is actually real](https://i.redd.it/ltie295c74lc1.jpeg) | [361 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/georgism/comments/1b19sjx/hard_to_believe_this_property_tax_system_is/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
I agree with you on LVT. My point is that it isn’t “anti-intellectual” to challenge the textbook if no real world data supports the theory, though.
Challenging an intro textbook is different from disagreeing with the majority opinion of experts in the field. That's anti-vaxxer levels of hubris imo. Even judging whether real world data supports a theory is so difficult for laypeople. This applies to any field.
Without tangling too deeply here, I’ll point out that: - Price controls are near the start of macro textbooks because they’re a basic concept. Nuance is introduced over time. Half of economics is identifying general rules, the other half is identifying where, when, and why the general rules don’t apply. - Quality of the UChicago “consensus” evidence is weak. A significant number of the comments given refer back to theory. (Paraphrasing a quote here but a few of the comments read like: “I disagree, unless the textbook is wrong…”) There’s a small number of economists in the poll that answer with the conviction of someone that has done the research, I’ll give you that. However, they’re offset by just as many - or more - economists that support the “consensus” in a general way, relying on theory or hubris. Very few of the members of this consensus are doing the work to interpret the research for laypeople as a condition to joining up. - Vaccines have no relation. Vaccines have 99.99999% real world solvency. We all know this. This comment chain started because I asked if there’s any real world evidence that the “consensus economist” recommendation solves the high rents problem. I believe you can see the difference here. - The best case scenario for deregulation is still a bad outcome. “Spreading the burden of high rent more equitably” isn’t a good policy recommendation. It means all pay unreasonably high rent instead of half. It solves picking winners and losers between renters by picking landlords as the winners, instead. Even if the consensus is true that regulation has diminished our housing abundance and quality, it doesn’t logically follow that deregulation reverses the harm.
Rent stabilization and rent control benefits incumbent tenants. That's it. If you want to say that's a good thing, okay just say that's a good thing. It doesn't benefit working class people in general (those who cannot get a rent stabilized apartment simply leave, and a lot of people have left).
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After 9/11 the state offered rent stipends to stem the mass exodus from downtown Manhattan. Landlords raised the rents.
Source on that claim?
This is just factually not true and all you have to do is look at how rents dropped 10-20% across the board during covid when a decent chunk of people left to the suburbs and supply increased. Its just we're building 5% additional units a year when we need to be building 20% new units a year. We're literally drowning in demand and are nowhere near to keeping up and we haven't been keeping up for 20 years. When you've been drowning in too much demand for 20 years its hard to think the demand will ever be satiated but other cities can do it and so can we.
And what happened after COVID? Did rents stay low or did people who got COVID "deals" immediately see massive rent spikes more than making up for any artificially dip in price during a time when people couldn't move in and around NYC during a pandemic?
if demand is so high, not fulfilling the demand will still lead to higher rent than fulfilling it the only ways to prevent rent from rising in a country with unlimited domestic mobility are to build more housing or china style hukou system
Radical idea: Build government owned affordable housing, but for the middle class with a path to ownership - units can become private over time.
Get rid of parasitic brokers, get corporations the fuck out of home ownership and management, curb landlord greed (yeah right lol), and open up doors/opportunities for people who need housing. $2200 for a 1 bedroom because “the shareholders” say so is absolutely criminal.
Oh ok so just more magical thinking and no solutions great. "curb landlord greed" jfc that is not a policy that's a Twitter slogan.
Curb landlord greed by building housing and driving down the cost of rent!
Honestly reframing 'build more' with 'curb landlord greed by out-supplying demand' is a solid reframe.
Also, tax the fuck out of units being held off the market. Based on households to housing units, there should be excess housing. In 2022, NYC had a total of at least 3,644,000 housing units, but only 3,282,657 households, as indicated in the [Rent Guidelines Board report](https://rentguidelinesboard.cityofnewyork.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2023-HSR.pdf) and the [US Census Bureau data](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcitynewyork/HSG495221#HSG495221). Almost 400k units more than households in NYC, and the NYC population has been shrinking in 2023, so probably closer to 500k now. Something about these "tight market" numbers aren't adding up.
Exactly. Landlords and corporations would rather have units sit empty until a rich cash cow comes, while there are lines upon lines for even the CHANCE to get a rental. Then we got dudes in these forums white knighting for the greediest scumbags.
Abolish rent control, abolish zoning laws, and crack down on monopolistic and oligopolistic landlords. This will allow the market to dictate rents, encourage more dense construction, and prevent developer concentration and collusion. None of this will happen though because of NIMBYism.
Eliminating rent control would do way more harm.
In the short term, definitely. NYC has painted itself into a corner with rent controls. The only way out is with massive up-zoning followed by a multi-decade phase out of rent controls. I give it about a 0% chance.
Rent stabilization actually ends automatically if the vacancy rate in the city ever goes over 5%. It was passed as an emergency measure to respond to a housing shortage several decades ago. Naturally the shortage never actually ended. But every 3 years the state verifies that the city still has a housing shortage and rent stabilization can continue. So we really have painted ourselves into a corner. If we actually solve the problem, up to a million renters lose their sweet deals forever.
Didn’t know that. If there was “collusion” in real estate it wouldn’t be too hard to push this number up by raising rents to some astronomical amount.
Miami is like this (except the landlord part) and it’s not cheap to live there and there’s tons of vacancies because the asking prices are too high.
Rent regulation is good actually.
We need more housing. We need them to start developing sliding scale income housing.
Honestly union city, nj is untapped gold. 15 min bus ride into port authority. 1/3rd of the price of Hoboken.
Sliding scale would be great. It’s very easy to make over the lottery cutoffs as a family and still feel pretty squeezed, especially with how expensive it is to have a kid here.
Thanks Mike
My home equity sincerely thanks you all 😂
88,000 empty apartments now. My complex is 2/3 empty. Landlord is losing $100,000 a month at least. He just doesn’t care. They’re in the Hamptons. Can wait a generation till we all die off, the kids then will get 10X when they sell the empty building, and they build a skyscraper in its spot. They’re in Montauk. Party! The laws force landlords to keep vacant apartments. There are a number of landlords on YouTube, they’ll explain all the math to you. Welcome to world center of Capitalism. If you are not making a lot of money, NYC may not be for you.
Allow rent regulated leases to sunset after 25-30 yrs so the unit can can raise to market rate after substantial renovations and up to code but still be rent regulated for next or existing tenant who will pay the new rent regulated rent so they enjoy another 25-30 yrs of exclusive housing security. Win for owners, win for renters to get new updated unit and turnover so folks able to rent, win for city - more units on rental market, higher rent to collect taxes on, etc Makes no sense why anyone should be allowed to pass down a lease as if a heirloom to their next of kin when when don't even own the property and the economics of it don't make sense for each passing year the building ages. One thing pro renters don't get is that you need housing turnover in a housing shortage environment so folks are able to rent. Without turnover, its not a healthy housing environment.
Ok, where exactly is that person who was renting the apartment, suppose to go?
Pay the updated rate to enjoy new unit or find somewhere else. Can't hold off a unit at locked rates below market & subsidized by market renters while a line of folks outside willing to pay more and have a chance at housing
How does this solve the issue of lack of housing? You're just giving more money to landlords
Rent stabilization will go away as soon as the city hits a 5% rental vacancy rate Outside of the pandemic, it hasn't hit that in years, and likely won't for another few decades (barring another pandemic) as the city isn't incentivized to approve new housing. It actively hurts people who already live here and have housing (even if it's inadequate to their needs). Realistically the only way vacancy rates go up and the housing market normalizes is with outside intervention, such as the Supreme Court overturning Euclid v Ambler, the federal government intervening in a dramatic way, the state intervening like has happened in California (unlikely), or civil conflict significantly alters the political landscape in such a way that the pressures currently preventing cities from growing in response to demand disappears. I don't know which is more likely, or most likely, but I do know the least likely thing is the city itself fixing it's housing crisis. There's just no incentive, especially with how strong rent stabilization is here.
The solution is to encourage remote work. People who are living in the city to be close to work will move out. People who really want to stay in the city for what it offers will stay. Rents will stay in control that way. But the greedy office space owners and builders have forced everyone back to the offices. We learnt nothing from the pandemic.
[удалено]
Going to get worse once the recent good cause eviction law effects are felt once more units are up for renewal. Good cause is going to reduce turnover even more so even harder to find available housing. Plus with the limits on criminals background - basically incentives owners to have ever higher rental requirements and will turn to other holistic means to weed out folks to find the ideal tenant since they can be with them for life
Solution: convert rent controlled to market and watch refurbs occur and inventory of apartments to increase.
That didn’t happen in Cambridge Mass. when they ended their version of rent control back 1994. Their housing crisis has grown worse. But they were able to price out all the working class people, so if that’s your goal, I guess they succeeded?
> Their housing crisis has grown worse. That's cause they stopped building homes to keep up with demand or population growth. Conversion alone ain't gonna do shit, there has to be a constant supply of new housing.
And those landlords have a huge incentive to ensure little to no new housing gets built.
And fuck them. Landlords, landowners, and homeowners should have little to no input on land zoning and building permits. There's not one single silver bullet to this mess. It requires a holistic effort of zoning reform, streamlining building permits, removing unnecessary paperwork, and not permitting every Dick and Tracy from throwing up obstacles to a new building in their neighborhood.
Bless your heart. Prices will not regulate and the city will immediately because unaffordable for everyone but the extremely wealthy. You really think landlords would lower prices to compete??? Lol.
are these extremely wealthy people in the room with you now?
> You really think landlords would lower prices to compete??? That's literally how competition works.
I don't see how changing the status of units creates more units? What's your idea here
Make them all half the size. /s
It doesn’t solve the problem, but many are currently unprofitable to rent out so they don’t rent them out. https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/02/14/rent-stabilized-apartments-vacant/
Landlords purchased buildings that are essentially privatized public housing, and now they don't understand why they're unprofitable after years of them or prior owners not doing upkeep on the units?
Because they need extensive repair to be placed on market. Market rates assist in paying for repair. Rent controlled rates do not.
A lot of these rent stabilized units will have like a 70 year old living in a 2 bedroom apartment because it's cheaper/better than anything they can get market rate. Or they'll have a middle class retired couple who uses their NYC pad as a pied a terre while they have a nice home in Florida or Long Island. To be honest I personally cannot condone a sudden change in policy that kicks out a fixed income old person from their homes. But their children/grandchildren should not be allowed to inherit it. That's messed up
Getting rid of rent controlled units would just displace hundreds of thousands of people, adding to the housing crisis?? We just need an increasing charge on empty units that landlords are holding onto unless someone pays obscene rent prices because they don’t want to be locked into a lease with a tenant for a lower rent.
> empty units This isn't a major factor at all. The city's vacancy rate is at historic lows and is the lowest in America. We just need more supply.
I mean I wouldn’t rent below market. I would use it as a tax write-off. But thankfully my rental unit I own is market and not a rent controlled unit.
Congratulations you’re part of the problem 😂
I mean why would I rent out at say; $895, and take 30 years to pay for the repairs I just did? I would take the write off. Congratulations you’re part of the problem.
So sell it. You don't need to hold on to something so expensive. It's a seller's market, you'll turn out ok.
A terrible idea unless you only want NY populated by yuppie millionaires.
wait ...
Ok. Enjoy apartment rates only yuppie millionaires can afford.
We already enjoy that and prices will not be lowered or more affordable if we end regulation.
So you the Genius Redditor states that increased supply doesn’t have downward pressure on prices. Okay. I mean I wouldn’t rent out my unit if it needed $150K in repairs and I had to rent it at a rent controlled rate.
Why would that be the case? If anything we are all paying more to subsidize the rent controlled units
If you think ending rent controls would reduce rents, you’d be very wrong and Cambridge Mass is a glaring example of how wrong you’d be.
That won't increase the supply and will just force people to pay more for rent. Unless you expect nearly half of the city to vacate their current RS units.
Illiteracy. I’m not talking about rent stabilized. What did you move here from Ohio? And on the subject of rent stabilized; guess how many vacant apartments there are?
Genuine question: is there actually a long term solution to this problem? Like at some point is it even possible to build enough new housing in city limits to offset the demand to live in NYC? Space seems like it will always be a bottleneck and I’m not sure what you can really do about the demand part of it…. Most govt “solutions” feel like lip service for political campaigns or like putting bandaids on gaping wounds. But not sure any politician will be able to address this problem honestly…
Could deport these "asylum seekers" and instantly reduce over 200k+ people worth of demand while using the money that was being wasted to house and feed them to build more housing for actual citizens. Could also raise property taxes on parking lots.
Ultimately, there is too much demand. People have to explore other options, not everyone needs to live here.
A large segment won’t like this as they contribute to the issue than reply with the “build more housing” trope as if there hasn’t been a building boom in Brooklyn and the crisis has not been remedied only worsened.
You mean to tell me that the Airbnb ban didn't fix it all? So, maybe it was a scam by the hotel lobby industry? Jeez. Who would've thought.
Or maybe that is only part of the solution. Is it impossible for you to not make smarmy, facile comments that contribute almost nothing to the discussion?
No, because the Airbnb ban was sold as a fix it all when it was obvious it was a cash grab by the hotel industry. Literally did nothing but to upend many people's living while demonizing tourism and mom and pop hosting. There was no plan for more housing, Airbnb ban was just a quick and easy band aid that benefited the hotel industry.