The Struggling Rent-Stabilized

That's nothing ... I know someone who is paying a mortgage that's just a fraction of his neighbors', just because he bought in 1997. Totally unfair! The green demon in me is just bustin' out.

I know of at least 2 rent-stabilized tenants who have expensive second homes on Fire Island. If they can afford that, then why can't they afford to pay market rents?

I had a crazy stabilized deal that I benefitted imensely from, and I'm against our horrific stabilization rules.

I can top that ... people in London have NO rent regulations, and benefit from one of the cheapest housing markets the world has ever seen.

alanhart, good one. Ditto with Boston, if I'm not mistaken.

I do miss my old $400 RS 4th-floor-walkup tenement, with no central heat.

"I can top that ... people in London have NO rent regulations, and benefit from one of the cheapest housing markets the world has ever seen."

That would have been funny, except its true now. Their declines are bigger than ours. And the pound is worth less. And even at peak, rents were cheaper relative to prices!

Aside from the strong arguments to end rent stabilization, it is crazy not to have income requirements for the tenants, and to not have a rule that a person is ineligible for a rent-stabilized apartment if they own a second home.

It's crazy only if you buy the straw-man argument that RS is supposed to be a low-income housing program. That is not its purpose.

When tenants living in a rent-stabilized apartment paying a monthly rent of $2,000 or over, and their annual household income exceeds $175,000 for two years consecutively, the apartment becomes destabilized.

Some of us believe that rule should be adjusted to a more reasonable income level, like 40x the $2000/month rent (which is the multiplier for affordability that everyone else follows). If tenants' incomes exceed $80K, the apartment should become destabilized.

Eddie,

1. ...SO FAR
2. Sterling's returned to its "normal" $1.55-$1.65 range

Matt, you're still standing behind the straw man (or missing the point if you prefer to think of yourself as stupid rather than disingenuous).

RS exists to provide a large pool of inexpensive (and old) apartments during a housing shortage, and is designed to automatically cease as soon as the housing shortage (which predates it by decades) ends.

Whatever formula you use, the Calvinistic rationale throws the bathwater out with the baby. The result is a growing drought of affordable apartments, even for those earning less than 40x rent.

Wrong, Alan. RS actually CREATES housing shortages by circumventing capitalism's perfect solution for supply vs. demand -- a free marketplace.

No, that's from ideologues who like to point to NYC as an example. But in reality, new construction does not fall under the rent-regulation mandate -- which blows away that argument:

Higher rents make it more appealing for developers to invest and build. If you believe that RS causes housing shortages, which cause higher rents, then you also believe that RS causes more new housing to be built. You can't have it both ways.

I never alleged that RS "causes" new housing to be built.

But what it DOES cause is housing shortages and higher rents for everyone else.

Matt, are you talking about 40x the stabilized rent or the destabilized rent? The former seems harsh and punitive to me, but the latter might make sense.

No, you didn't allege that, you ignored it. But that's the reality, and you can keep spouting your right-wing bumper sticker economics "truth", but know that it's built on a shell-game.

They'll always imply that rent-regs apply to new construction, thus leading to a shortage. They'll always omit any discussion of the housing shortage that preceded the rent regulations.

Alan, we're no longer living in the 1960s, so there's really no reason to "discuss" the market forces that were in place at that time.

And further, since the current RS laws on the books were in response to a problem (real or perceived) that existed 40 years ago, perhaps we should just wipe those laws off the books altogether today.

It isn't a straw man argument. The reasoning for the RS laws at the time should not be applied now after circumstances have changed. It is not beneficial for a person with an income that can afford a market-rate rent should not have a way to milk the system by getting a low rent stabilized apartment.

Revised:

It isn't a straw man argument. The reasoning for the RS laws at the time should not be applied now after circumstances have changed. It is not beneficial for a person with an income that can afford a market-rate rent to have a way to milk the system by getting a low rent stabilized apartment.

Thank you, LIC. Exactly how is allowing someone with a HHI of $160K to pay $900/month for a three-bedroom in a coveted neighborhood helping to "alleviate" any housing "shortage"?

I grew up in a rent controlled apartment and then lived 25 years in a rent stabilized bonanza (at one point my rent was like 2% of income). If they had taken away my RS status I would have moved alot sooner and another deserving 20 something would have moved in>Damn it was fun to be rent rich in a city where most people are the opposite even if it meant having a place I could never invite friends to once I passed 35. It was fun and it was wrong....and he s/he who is without sin cast the first stone.

On the other hand my mother was under rent control for 65 years (even if at the end the "landlord" was me) and while it did mean she stayed in apartment that was too big because she couldn't afford a smaller place, at least with her limited means she could stay in her neighborhood. I think RS should be phased out BUT there MUST be provisions to protect seniors and the disabled not only through exemptions to the phase out but from ANY "polite hinting" from the landlord that its time to leave.

"When tenants living in a rent-stabilized apartment paying a monthly rent of $2,000 or over, and their annual household income exceeds $175,000 for two years consecutively, the apartment becomes destabilized."

There are literally people making many times $175k who nonethless live in rent controlled apartments because its under $2k. The $2k rule also makes no sense beccaue it does not distinguish between Lenox Hill doorman studios and 5 bedroom homes in Queens.

Let's see what people think of a few RS situations that I know of.

1 - Carroll Gardens - two brothers in their 50's are living in a browstone apartment paying approx $200 per month. Both employed. The 3 family browstone was sold for 1/3 off due to that. Do you feel that two people who are well employed should get $200 apartment in the area where this apartment is more like $2000 per month?
There are many browstones in Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope where the tenants pay almost nothing.
2 - Sheepshead Bay - a lady in her 60's living in a 3 bedroom apartment paying $127 per month. Her sister and an autistic son live above her in a 3 bedroom paying $104 per month. Does this makes sense?
3 - CPW - a professor living in a 2 bedroom with views of the park for $600 per month.

There's a problem here. Rent stabilization was meant to make things affordable. What the people mentioned above are getting is a highway robbery.

" I think RS should be phased out BUT there MUST be provisions to protect seniors and the disabled not only through exemptions to the phase out but from ANY "polite hinting" from the landlord that its time to leave."

I disagree. If you can no longer afford the home you're renting, you need to find more affordable housing, just like everyone else in the world does.

This is why God invented cheap housing in Florida.

You are all still missing the point. What happens when the $175K thing kicks in is not just that the sitting tenant goes away (that part is just there as a smokescreen. The APARTMENT is deregulated.

Rent controls were put into effect in the 1940s, to alleviate a shortage (at least in NYC) that had been in place for decades, and wasn't getting fixed by "the market". Nothing has changed since then, except the system was partially redefined as an income-related one when it had never been before ... in fact, if the housing shortage had ended, the rent-regulations would've followed suit.

Another thing all you arrivistes should consider is that had there been no rent control in NYC, there very likely would be no NYC that you would have liked to move to. Because there's a perfect correlation in large northern cities during the post-WWII era: those with long and strong rent regulations retained their middle class enough to be appealing for gentrification (NY, Boston, SF, microcities like Santa Monica). Those that didn't -- dead or near the brink of death (Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, Philly, microcity-like neighborhoods like Venice, CA).

"If you can no longer afford the home you're renting, you need to find more affordable housing" -- you can do the legwork to find a good rent-stabilized apartment. If you're too lazy to do so, don't complain about the system.

Alan, thank you for that brief history of how RS contributed to the growth of NYC in the past.

But the past is past, ad today is today.

No, we aren't missing the point at all -- YOU are. Artificially regulating rents of existing apartments doesn't somehow expand the number of available apartments. On the contrary, it only ensures that those apartments remain locked up and OFF the market by those privileged few who managed to luck into a government-imposed forced landlord subsidy, rather than allowing the market to work properly through supply and demand.

Didn't Boston cease rent stabilization? I don't think that city is near death. Even Paul Krugman says rent regulation leads to housing shortages and urban blight, and he is no conservative.

I'm thinking Mr. Alanhart has one of those landlord-subsidized "rent-stabilized" apartments!

Matt, can you elaborate on "the past is the past"? I'm having trouble getting 'past' the logic of eliminating something that was put in place to solve a problem that the free market wasn't solving simply because the calendar pages have flown by. Returning to free market is a classic case of GIGO. Keep saying "the market work properly through supply and demand" and maybe it'll come true.

Those "privileged few" "locking up" apartments would net out to zero -- they occupy space -- or perhaps result in a very minor reshuffling of apartment sizes (another straw man argument). And please don't tell me about the old lady who lives in a 7-room rent-controlled apartment (the conservative poster-gal), or I'll tell you about extended families of 15 people living in two rooms, and Ira Rennert living in a 100-room house. That's the key determinant of occupancy standards in the free market -- all you can buy, not what you "need".

Yes, LICC, Boston ended rent control, resulting in skyrocket housing costs and no alleviation to their housing shortage. Next time social trends and Federal policies cause money to flow from cities to burbs, from North to South, and from East to West, Boston will be much more vulnerable to abandonment than it was last time. Because face it, would you continue to own your home if you had solid reason to believe its value was going to keep plummeting in the years ahead, and stay down? Of course not -- you'd sell while you could.

Matt -- I knew you'd get around to that soon. No, wrong as always, sorry.

Did housing costs in Boston go up more than anywhere else? Did these laws prevent flight and urban decay in NY in the 1970s? NO. They worsened the problem.
Isn't one of the purposes of rent control to keep the middle class from leaving? There is no good reason to fail to income test rent stabilized tenants. All of alan's trying to argue otherwise, he can't come up with any valid reason to dispute that.

"Next time social trends and Federal policies cause money to flow from cities to burbs, from North to South, and from East to West, Boston will be much more vulnerable to abandonment than it was last time."

Explain this "abandonment" notion. I thought RS was put into place because of housing shortages. Now you're citing the opposite problem.

Which extreme is it?

Yes, that was my point. Rent control absolutely reduced flight and urban decay in NY in the 1970s. Middle-class people had a tender trap in their faded glory apartments, and stayed -- despite all the money being sucked out of the City. That allowed more upwardly-mobile people to come in and begin the organic process of gentrification. (I'm referring, of course, to The Gays). Upwardly-mobile people don't move in to bombed-out areas, e.g. virtually all of Philly, Chicago, Detroit, etc. Neither do businesses.

And yes, Boston rents and purchase prices went up by leaps and bounds more than anywhere else.

I might agree with income-testing RS tenants (even though its only purpose would be to placate the feral jealousies of other people) -- but not to remove those apartments from RS unless the overall vacancy rate is below 5%. But really it's amazingly assbackward logic for you to state that "there's no good reason to fail" to do anything. Doing something is what should have a good reason, and there is none except the Green Monster.

Actually, it has been repeatedly been proved that rent regulation actually causes rents to go up by reducing the supply. I have yet to understand what god-given right anyone has to live in Manhattan, and why we waste our money on subsidizing rents.

Rents initially spike when they are deregulated, and then they fall.

Matt, why do you seek extremes? Rent control had a stabilizing effect, as it was intended to. Instead of housing affordability issues causing the city to collapse upon itself and become vacated as people fled to cheaper pastures, enough middle-class people stayed to ensure its viability. It's not so complicated.

Well, Alan, why not just make ALL rental apartments in New York City rent-stabilized, if rent stabilization is such a good thing for the city?

What's good for the goose is good for the gander, right?

Mayor Bloomberg could sign into law an ordinance that overnight would cap rents on any and all residential apartments at 40x the city's median household income ($55K), which would top rents out at $1375/month.

Tell me, Alan -- in your utopia, what would happen then?

Were you even here in the 70s? RS didn't stop anything. It made things worse because owners were just letting their buildings decay because they couldn't afford to upgrade or renovate without rent increases.
So if people flee the cities and thus rents come down, RS will keep people in the cities???

"I disagree. If you can no longer afford the home you're renting, you need to find more affordable housing, just like everyone else in the world does.

This is why God invented cheap housing in Florida."

Is this any way to treat people who have worked hard, honest lives (and in many cases served their country in time of war) and just didn't have the luck to get rich while their neighborhood gentrified around them. Many seniors have NO interest in Florida. They enjoy the things New York has to offer: culture, diversity, sports and many of the same things that attract younger people here. They like being close to children, grandchildren, old friends and memories. And in particular New York is a "senior friendly" place because you can live a full life without driving. That is not true in Florida. Many NYC seniors never drove, and many who did shouldn't be doing it anymore. Living in New York means fairly convenient and reliable public transit is always available.

And as far as "looking for affordable housing"...an apartment search, particularly when budget constrained, is no fun at all at 24 or 38 or 50. Would you like to be doing it at 80? Remember not everyone has children to do the leg work for them.

Knew of a family on the Upper West who had a large RS apartment and lived there for something like 30 years and raised their children. It was so big that they were able to rent out one room and earn more than they paid to their landlord. Just a few years ago, the landlord approached them with a big payout which they used to purchase a nice place in Fort Lee. Please explain how any of this was far? When they initially rented, they took no risk of falling real estate prices (all on the owner). As market rent rates increased dramatically, they benefited from the RS. In a free market, they would have either had to pay more or move to a smaller place that they could afford. That would have opened up a larger space for someone willing to pay market. Many wealthy people in Manhattan live in RS apartments or keep pied a terre's because of the low cost. How does that improve the rental stock? Finally, people with "connections" are able to get RS apartments. This discriminates against recent immigrants and other honest people looking to settle here.

How about a Ways and Means Committee Chairman who owns 4 rent stabilized apartments in the same building and also owns vacation homes in the Dominican Republic?

***"Is this any way to treat people who have worked hard, honest lives (and in many cases served their country in time of war) and just didn't have the luck to get rich while their neighborhood gentrified around them."***

All men are created equal. We're not taking about "getting rich" -- we're talking about budgeting wisely for the future. This is a common fallacy among renters in this city -- that their rents should always remain "affordable" according to THEIR budgets, rather than allowing the landlord (the OWNER of the apartment) the freedom to price HIS apartment accordingly. Renting, believe it or not, was never intended to be a permanent situation. I realize that in New York City, the bar for home ownership is set considerably higher than it is in other cities and towns. But that's a variable that renters need to consider as they plan for the future. If you're expecting your income to drop considerably after retirement, and you're not planning on buying (and eventually paying off) your home, you're going to have to find a more affordable place to rent. As Steve pointed out above, no one has a God-given right to live ANYWHERE. If you can't afford it, leave.

***"Many seniors have NO interest in Florida. They enjoy the things New York has to offer: culture, diversity, sports and many of the same things that attract younger people here. They like being close to children, grandchildren, old friends and memories. And in particular New York is a "senior friendly" place because you can live a full life without driving. That is not true in Florida. Many NYC seniors never drove, and many who did shouldn't be doing it anymore. Living in New York means fairly convenient and reliable public transit is always available."***

Well, those seniors should have planned for HOW they were going to afford the luxury of living in New York City and enjoying all it has to offer. Landlords shouldn't be forced to accept lower rents just because some old couple "wants" to live there.

***"And as far as "looking for affordable housing"...an apartment search, particularly when budget constrained, is no fun at all at 24 or 38 or 50. Would you like to be doing it at 80? Remember not everyone has children to do the leg work for them."***

This is why, everywhere else in America, people buy homes -- so they can pay off the mortgage during their peak earning years, and live RENT-FREE throughout the rest of their retirement, paying only taxes and routine maintenance. (Hint: it works that way here in New York City, too!)

Liz, I absolutely agree with you about all of those things, but I would extrapolate it beyond veterans, the elderly, and (implied) handicapped. I especially commend your point about moving around when you're old -- for reasons of energy, social disruption, physical stress, moving costs.

LICC -- yes, I was in NYC in the 70s. The worst blight by far was in single-family rowhouses, not rent-regulated housing. Brownsville, East New York, South Bronx (as it came to be known, because nobody bothered anymore to use the individual neighborhood names once there was no point), Bed-Stuy, etc. etc. Blocks and blocks. Not so for, say, the Upper West Side, which became very very seedy, but not wholly blighted. Much of CPW and RSD retained wealthy residents. Same for most of the Upper East Side and Yorkville. In Chicago counterpart neighborhoods, not so much. Lincoln Park and the teeny Gold Coast neighborhood just squeaked by, while everything else turned to shit.

That, by the way, is why single-family houses pay 1/8 the real estate taxes as multiple-dwelling condos and coops -- a "subsidy" to retain that sector of the population, and a successful one at that. It made a dreary old house in Queens more appealing than a fancy new (and inexpensive) one in Long Island.

"How about a Ways and Means Committee Chairman who owns 4 rent stabilized apartments in the same building and also owns vacation homes in the Dominican Republic?" He doesn't own any of them, but I would agree that it's unethical -- primarily on the part of his landlord, who removed the other three apartments from bona fide housing use. Laws need to be tightened to prevent that, but right now neither side did anything illegal, except for the influence-peddling aspect of it (landlord's motive was what?).

Currently, the landlord is prohibited from charging above the legal rent, which he wasn't doing. He has a right, but not an obligation, to take an apartment from someone who's not using it as a primary residence. I'm sure even you can catch the distinction.

alan, you named some of the historically most poor neighborhoods in this city. That is why they became blighted, not because of lack of RS. Beside, those areas you mentioned do have RS. Bay Ridge, Forest Hills, Rego Park and other areas didn't become blighted either.

I do think that if the State does phase out RS, there must be protections for the elderly and disabled.

My mistake - I should have said Rangel rents 4 RS apartments.

"Liz, I absolutely agree with you about all of those things, but I would extrapolate it beyond veterans, the elderly, and (implied) handicapped."

Yes, let's extrapolate it beyond all those "deserving" of landlord subsidies. Why not include the young, who don't have the earning power of their elders. And by all means, let's include people who are raising children, since they have a built-in financial "hardship". Let's also include teachers, since they're making a special contribution to society's future. Oh, and let's not forget doctors and nurses -- oh hell, let's include ALL health care workers, since they're essentially doing God's Work. Wait -- we might as well include police and firemen, since we couldn't live without them! MTA workers, too. Oh yeah -- and the city infrastructure that supports them all -- so add in EVERYONE working a government job.

Geez, hang on ... we mustn't forget the artistic contributions that are so necessary to our society. So let's "extrapolate" to include painters, dancers, actors, actresses, voiceover artists, musicians, writers, editors, producers, directors, and stage hands.

Whoa! Hang on! We all need clothing! That's it -- everyone who works in the fashion industry is included! And let's not forget that other need -- FOOD! Let's also "extrapolate" any and all who have anything to do with the growing, production, distribution, and preparing of all foodstuffs.

Wow. All these people -- but let's not forget the entire legal and economic structure that's required to support them! So we need to "extrapolate" to include lawyers. And Wall Streeters. And accountants. And office support staff.

Have I "extrapolated" enough, Alan?

When many of today's seniors were in their working years...New York was hardly a "luxury" location. My parents were never overspenders or high livers. We never had a vacation home, nor did I know anyone of that generation that did. They did save enough money to live the solid lower middle class life they were accustomed to in retirement, they didn't plan for the overabunance of riches that late 20th/early 21st century Manhattan turned into. I hear what you say about owning, I am an owner as are most of my contemporaries, but we are talking about another generation that lived and worked with different values and different realities. (And this is becoming more and more of a mute discussion as we witness the numerous "estate sales" on the market and a similar dynamic in rent controlled--pre 1971--apartments.)

I didn't say it was illegal, but it is despicable. I thought there was some question as to the legality of Rangel using one of the apartments for his campaign?

patk14 --

"able to rent out one room and earn more than they paid to their landlord" -- this is an abuse that was eliminated in 1997

"landlord approached them with a big payout" -- this is an abuse that stems directly from the landlord's ability to remove the apartment from rent-regulations, which was not allowed when the system was set up. Changes to the law created the incentive to buy tenants out.

Please explain how market rate is fair. In the first economics class I took (from a Libertarian professor in a very conservative university), it was explained that resources could be allocated by a person's height, or a person's wealth, or a person's income ... but the class didn't address "should" or "fair". So let's just say nothing in life is fair.

But that's not true. If I buy a building (from the 1940s on, as almost all buildings in NYC have changed ownership in that time) and know that there are laws in place that will limit my profits, it's only fair for me to expect that those limitations will continue.

"Many wealthy people in Manhattan live in RS apartments" Data source?

"people with "connections" are able to get RS apartments" Most of those connections involved walking up and down streets and networking with supers and handymen, and with the old people sitting out front who don't want to be moved to Florida.

"we are talking about another generation that lived and worked with different values and different realities."

You can use that excuse to fit anyone, at any time.

The writing was on the wall as early as the '70s -- rent control and stabilization was an utter failure, and and not sustainable. They should have faced reality back then and revised their planning.

Matt:

"Renting, believe it or not, was never intended to be a permanent situation." Perhaps that's the case in western Pennsylvania, but in fact NYC has for generations had a much higher rate of renters than it does today. In fact, condos were illegal nationwide until the 1960s; banks loaned money for coops under only the most narrow circumstances until after that; single-family housing long ago became impractical for Manhattan and parts of the other boroughs.

"those seniors should have planned for HOW they were going to afford the luxury of living in New York City and enjoying all it has to offer." New York was not "luxurious" before the late 1980s and after the late 1920s -- it was very economically mixed. Learn to distinguish between townhouses, tenenments, and industrial buildings. Everywhere you see tenements, working class people lived (that's who they were built for); everywhere you see industrial buildings, know that working class people manufactured or warehoused things ... where do you suppose they lived? Everywhere you see a building built after WWII, you can be fairly certain that luxury housing wasn't torn down ... it was for the working class. Were old geysers supposed to predict that it would no longer be an economically diverse place, and budget for it? Have you blown your top?

"everywhere else in America, people buy homes" ... that's why we have so many poor elderly people in this country.

One nice unintentional byproduct of rent stabilization and control is that they kept a lot of nice old buildings from being torn down and replaced by developers, as the tenants could not be evicted. In my view, these buildings add much to the character of our city.

Rangel didnt pay taxes on the rent he received from his vacation place. He should be in jail instead of at the head of Ways and Means. As far as I am concerned, he's a disgrace.

I benifit from living in a rent stab. apartment, but the joke's on me. Had I bought an apartment 20 years ago, I would have made a lot more money than I have saved by staying put. I know there are many others like me.

Matt, you're almost there. Extrapolate to "everyone" and you'll understand the wisdom of rent regulations that were created for the community (a complex organism), not the individual. You're learning, despite what the doctors said about your chances of ever doing so. Keep it up, sport.

"Yes, that was my point. Rent control absolutely reduced flight and urban decay in NY in the 1970s. Middle-class people had a tender trap in their faded glory apartments, and stayed"

Alan, the problem with your argument is that you're saying RC helped reduce the flight that RC partially CAUSED. Maybe it mitigated it, but RC was part of the problem to begin with.

So saying it helped NYC is quite a stretch.

"alan, you named some of the historically most poor neighborhoods in this city. That is why they became blighted, not because of lack of RS. Beside, those areas you mentioned do have RS. Bay Ridge, Forest Hills, Rego Park and other areas didn't become blighted either."

Your sense of history is very short. These were middle-class neighborhoods of single-family homes. What remains of them after white flight and NO rent regs has just started getting renovated at the end of this last boom. Visit and you'll see beautiful houses, even if you need to use some imagination regarding their condition and surroundings. I forgot to mention Crown Heights, which belongs in the same list of neighborhoods and also started getting fixed up; and Fort Greene, which got fixed up in the last boom.

As for Bay Ridge and Forest Hills, they're newer neighborhoods that lost a lot of their shine, and were probably chief among the ones to get much lower tax rates imposed to stop the slide. Each was the center of its political party in its borough (Bay Ridge GOP, FH Dems).

"The writing was on the wall as early as the '70s -- rent control and stabilization was an utter failure, and and not sustainable. They should have faced reality back then and revised their planning." Chicago, Philly, Baltimore?

"Alan, the problem with your argument is that you're saying RC helped reduce the flight that RC partially CAUSED. Maybe it mitigated it, but RC was part of the problem to begin with." Chicago, Philly, Baltimore?

"I benifit from living in a rent stab. apartment, but the joke's on me. Had I bought an apartment 20 years ago, I would have made a lot more money than I have saved by staying put. I know there are many others like me." The tender trap.

Alan, you're doing a brilliant job here.

Thanks. I was supposed to leave work 8 minutes ago, but my job's not done!

""everywhere else in America, people buy homes" ... that's why we have so many poor elderly people in this country."

No, we have so many poor elderly people in this country because of either poor planning or being cheated out of pensions.

""Alan, the problem with your argument is that you're saying RC helped reduce the flight that RC partially CAUSED. Maybe it mitigated it, but RC was part of the problem to begin with." Chicago, Philly, Baltimore?"

You seem to be forgetting the rent controlled buildings abandoned by landlords in New York City... no matter how many other cities you name. Los Angeles, Timbuktu!

"You seem to be forgetting the rent controlled buildings abandoned by landlords in New York City" Au contraire, the other cities always remind me of that. They remind me that in large northern cities, landlords were abandoning buildings at a similar rate, even though they could charge whatever they wanted in rent. They remind me also of their commercial cousins, abandoned in huge numbers in inner-cities nationwide during the same period.

Best of all, they remind me of Danceteria. I think you're a tad young to remember that club, but it was the only thing that stood between ownership and abandonment in the 12-story it was in in "prime" (ha ha) Chelsea. The club was in the basement, plus the street level and two more floors above that, and on the roof. The rest of the building? Completely empty for years. Nothing. Not even rent regulations.

lizyak...ditto,ditto...posters who can afford market value rent should be grateful...i wish everyone (especially me) had affordable housing in Manhattan.

Me too, Julia!

And I wish Central Park was stocked with money trees, hens that lay golden eggs, and single malt scotch flowed from the tap!

alan, you are playing loose with the facts. White flight in the neighborhoods you mentioned happened before the 1970s. Forest Hills has sections of single family homes and sections of large apartment buildings that had been there for decades before the 1970s. The same holds true for Rego Park. Bay Ridge may not have as many, but it also has apartments buildings.

Also, the neighborhoods you mentioned are not all single family homes.

LICC, how come you have so much time to argue on this thread, when you can't answer the simple request for data from the other thread, which you've had a week to answer?

RC is an atrocity. If anything it has led people to abuse a system created to help. To stop the abuse, RC needs a makeover. No more "grandfathering" or "inheriting"... if you're "inheriting", you should pay a death tax on it just like the wealthy since the apt is a constant stream of savings. No more $2k, let's make it ratio driven like market rents are... 30x, 35x, 40x. Also, let's make it taxable otherwise. If you're benefiting from the RC while making more money than allowed, you get taxed on the difference between market and RC! What would create such a better environment for renters is publishing RC rates and market rates. I want to see if my neighbor is paying 2k less than myself.

What's significant about the 1970s for you? Rent regs began at WWII. Federal policies that destroyed cities began in the 1950s. The effects began to be readily apparent by the 1970s.

"Also, the neighborhoods you mentioned are not all single family homes." So you're saying that the rent-regulated buildings in those areas buffered their decline? Maybe you're right, but I would argue that they were able to buy a little time in the 1950s and 1960s by being fairly new and much closer in style to the Long Island houses that provided competition ... and then the RE tax incentive kept them together.

Why aren't the Rockaways on your list, by the way? No rent-regulations, and the most beautiful fields of wildflowers I've ever seen, what with the houses all burning down long ago. [I haven't been there since the recent redevelopment and installation of Section 8 vouchered families, so I'm talking about its appearance until a few years ago and for a few decades prior.]

Also, people who can't afford to live in a certain place naturally would go further out... this happens everywhere. You can't afford to live 5 mins walk away from work, you move 25 mins away from work. It is natural. If you can't afford to live in manhattan, there is nothing that should be keeping you in manhattan.

' No more "grandfathering" or "inheriting" ' ... this requires living with the primary tenant for two years or more.

Would you imagine many adults would want to live in their grandmother's apartment for that amount time, risking the possibility that she might buy the farm or change her mind about moving to Sunset, Florida?

More exactly, would YOU do that?

Straw man.

"Also, people who can't afford to live in a certain place naturally would go further out... this happens everywhere."

You've hit the nail on the head here, except with wildly wrong numbers. Most people don't have endless elasticity for travel time, and for affordable outer-borough neighborhoods, we're generally talking 45 minutes or much much more (South Jamaica, for example, almost always requires a long bus ride after a long subway ride).

My number one choice for government intervention in the housing shortage is not any kind of involvement in housing, but a phenomenal ramp-up in the construction of new rapid-transit lines. Unfortunately, the postwar period also saw the destruction of those -- elevated lines on 2nd and 3rd Aves, streetcars all over Brooklyn and other boroughs -- along with increasing private car use that makes buses farcical. More unfortunately, rapid transit lines have a wildly high initial cost. So it hasn't happened, and it won't happen.

To their credit, places like London and New Jersey (!) have been opening new rail lines like crazy over the past 15 years or so.

" No more "grandfathering" or "inheriting" ' ... this requires living with the primary tenant for two years or more.

Would you imagine many adults would want to live in their grandmother's apartment for that amount time, risking the possibility that she might buy the farm or change her mind about moving to Sunset, Florida?"

Yes. This is why there should be no grandfathering or inheriting.

" They remind me that in large northern cities, landlords were abandoning buildings at a similar rate, even though they could charge whatever they wanted in rent. "

Alan, where you getting your rates from?

"Why aren't the Rockaways on your list, by the way? No rent-regulations, and the most beautiful fields of wildflowers I've ever seen, what with the houses all burning down long ago"

You're talking about a neighborhood that was basically crappy sumemr bugalows, and then they built massive projects nearby. Nothing was going to save the rockaways, re or no.

> No more "grandfathering" or "inheriting" ' ... this requires living with the primary tenant for two
> years or more.
> Would you imagine many adults would want to live in their grandmother's apartment for that amount
> time, risking the possibility that she might buy the farm or change her mind about moving to
> Sunset, Florida?

I personally know 4-5 examples of people who "qualified" for the transfer and didn't actually live there.

Another problem with RS is the enforceability. Just a waste of freakin' time.

I'm paying $2495 for a tiny one bedroom in a non-doorman, elevator bldg. that to me is greed on the LLs part...so stop the complaining about rent stablization...rent control is a whole different thing and those that live in rent controlled apartments are mostly the elderly so leave them out of this.

"I'm paying $2495 for a tiny one bedroom in a non-doorman, elevator bldg. that to me is greed on the LLs part...so stop the complaining about rent stablization."

No, we won't stop "complaining" about rent stabilization. Paying $2495 for a tiny one bedroom is not greed, it's the market. If you don't like paying $2495, or if you can't afford it, find something more affordable.

Personally, I think that $98,000 for a Mercedes sedan is "greed" on the part of the automobile manufacturer. Maybe the government should enact "price stabilization" so that more people can afford transportation, and buy that Mercedes at the more "affordable" price of $22,000.

Its funny how the ONLY way cities with rent control (by whatever name you use) have ALL allowed new buildings to be market rate OR they offer generous tax subsidies to get them built. Because Berkeley, NYC, SF, etc all learned decades ago that no one will build new housing if you have universal rent control. So it did the opposite of stopping the shortage, it exacerbated it.

Housing construction boomed in SF and Berkeley (both of which I have lived in) once the cities exempted new buildings from rent control, and amazingly when vacancy control was abolished inventory shot up - people who had lived by themselves in two or three bedroom apartments were replaced by families or roommates. People started renting out spare rooms. Funny how ecnomics works.

I'm with NYCMatt. If you don't like paing $2,500 a month, then move acorss the river to the land mass known as Brooklyn and Queens.

Oh, and for the record, I am a huge fan of a luxury car gudelines board. I would like to buy a brand new Porsche for $25,000.

"I'm paying $2495 for a tiny one bedroom in a non-doorman, elevator bldg. that to me is greed on the LLs part...so stop the complaining about rent stablization."

Julia, if $2495 is really breaking the bank for you, try this: http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/abo/1239760471.html

"I am a huge fan of a luxury car gudelines board."

Be careful what you wish for, President. The REAL president is already trying to figure out how to "regulate" and cap salaries for "rich" people.

Affordable housing is a right of every American...and living in Manhattan is my right just as it is everyone's right...at an affordable price.

where in the Constitution does it say you have the right to live in Manhattan in an affordable apt.?

It's a political question, with advocates on both sides sparring for legislative change. The rules change all the time, as one side or the other wins a point.

Anybody truly bothered by it should put their money where their mouth is and donate to the RSA for their lobbying efforts in Albany.

alanhart, "feral jealousies" is a great line. I'm going to steal it as soon as I can....

"Affordable housing is a right of every American...and living in Manhattan is my right just as it is everyone's right...at an affordable price."

Where in the Constitution is this written?

don't worry, I'm sure that within 2 weeks from now, Obama will appoint a rental or affordable housing Czar. Mark my words.

jason, NYC didn't have mandatory rent regulations on new construction. If it was different in SF, that is the city that politiconomists should use as an example; and yet they always seem to use a highly distorted version of NYC's rent regs.

For laws that cover ALL rental housing regardless of when it's built, it's quite obvious that little rental housing would ever be built -- but it should shift development to owner-occupied new construction. Did that happen?

Alpine, "across the river" is a mass of something called New Jersey. Well, we call it that anyway. You call it home.

Much of Brooklyn and Queens isn't that much cheaper anyway.

I love Czars. My favorite Czars are the Cow Fart Czar and the Pay Czar. Ever since I was 5 years old, I always wanted to be a Czar. Come on Obama, make me a Czar. Hell, I'd be happy being the Garbage Czar!

"For laws that cover ALL rental housing regardless of when it's built, it's quite obvious that little rental housing would ever be built"

All the more reason to remove the poison of rent stabilization from the housing market altogether.

and don't forget about the land mass south known as Staten island, which once voted to become part of NJ!

"Much of Brooklyn and Queens isn't that much cheaper anyway."

Huh?

http://newyork.craigslist.org/que/fee/1239668567.html

Matt ... huh? Are you competing with Czarina Alpina of Bergen County?

My last post for Matt referred to his conclusion that Situation A's solution is somehow a reason for Situation B's solution (new construction vs. not) ... but could've referred to his bottom-feeder CL broker posting just the same.

Matt--as always you're opinions are based on the world according to matt.

bottom line--yeah, there are some cheats---as there always will be. (Charles Rangel is a pig.) RS has been a big contributor to the basic fabric of life in nyc which until our recent international problems has been pretty terrific. somehow or other, nyc managed to maintain and enhance its position in the world even with the dread RS. a lot of people got to stay in nyc that wouldn't otherwise would not have been able to.

yep...some landlords got screwed but a whole bunch also got filthy, stinking rich even with RS.

matt--try to get over yourself already. your posts and attitude are sad.

Doesn't Paterson also live in a rent stabalized apt.? Can someone tell me why the governor needs such an apt.?

"yep...some landlords got screwed but a whole bunch also got filthy, stinking rich even with RS."

Really.

Who?

columbiacounty....you said it better than i could.