Rent control

Although I am definitely not a proponent or rent control or stabilization, I also don’t have a lot of sympathy for landlords or investors who buy these units for a (presumably) discount relative to non rent controlled units and then complain how tough it is for them to make money. My bigger issue is when governments unilaterally decide to impose rent controls on apartments that were previously market rate. Unless you are going to impose controls on expenses like taxes, utilities, insurance, maintenance, etc, etc, that seems really unreasonable to owners

Just an isolated case of course….
https://nypost.com/2024/08/17/us-news/greedy-posh-nyc-school-director-husband-evicted-for-writing-off-rent-stabilized-tribeca-pad/

Lets be realistic and recognize NYC and a handful of other HCOL cities are something of an exception in that there really are two different non-competing rental market participants.

On the one hand you have strivers/1%s/global rich/etc who have jobs that allow them to earn well-above-inflation raises. On the other hand you have.. well.. everyone else.

Teachers, cops, fire, EMT, nurses, various admin jobs, etc that basically earn the rate of inflation in raises. Most peoples wages go up roughly the rate of inflation.. because, that's what causes the inflation!!

In a normal housing market like Des Moines or New Haven or wherever, most of the market is "everyone else" and land is far less constrained. Local markets rise & fall with local jobs etc. The range from 10%ile to 90%ile incomes is not as broad as NYC.

In NYC, seemingly whatever industry or region is in/out of favor.. the rich (or their kids) come buy here, whether or not its the source of their job/income. Tech bros, PE, VC, Hedge Funders, Bankers, Big Law, Big Marketing, Midwestern industrial titans, Japanese keiretsu CEOs, Russian oligarchs, Chinese trying to protect wealth, oil/mining kleptocrats, Hollywood actors, etc. Globally there are probably enough of these people to fill Manhattan and the nearer parts of Queens/Brooklyn. I'm not sure any of us want to live in that version of the city.

If NYC were to be completely unregulated free market, and everyone not able to pay 1%-er rents/prices were flushed out, I don't know how the city would operate in a desirable way. Creates many problems from whatever angle you want to cut it - economic, moral, cultural, etc.

There's occasionally stories about places like the Hamptons where business owners cannot attract enough staff regardless of wage, because who wants to commute 2 hours to wait tables? You end up with all sorts of weird stuff like restauranteurs needing to provide employee housing. Or you hear about these beach towns where 100% of service staff are foreign workers from Eastern Europe on the worst most restrictive types of visas.

All that said, I think the regulations are mistructured and should not necessarily be a for-life guarantee with the ability to pass it down to future generations as if it were inherited property.

Steve, Do you realize that there are a lot of non 1% free market renters and median income renters.

"If NYC were to be completely unregulated free market, and everyone not able to pay 1%-er rents/prices were flushed out, I don't know how the city would operate in a desirable way."

Steve,

Looks at this one. Rent stabilized rents are less than legal rent in many cases. So there is plenty of cheaper housing in NYC with subway connection just not in prime areas. That is why rent destabilization after a certain income and certain legal rent was step in the right direction.

https://www.loopnet.com/viewer/pdf?file=https%3a%2f%2fimages1.loopnet.com%2fd2%2fD7Oth5JSZXQVz6ie0Z08ajRBc04ou9R1V8IuyBzJqmk%2f18311%2520Hillside%2520Avenue%2520Setup.pdf

Not sure why I am torturing myself and entering this fray, but I appreciate the points inonada has been making throughout - everyone finds a way to rationalize programs they like and villainize programs they don't. On the green card lottery, it is one of my favorites, but many citizens don't see the upside of that program and feel they are subsidizing that program in myriad ways. They see no benefit in Immigrant X entering their community; only downsides, but the USG has determined the program is an overall societal net benefit until further notice. As for what the city would look like with unregulated housing, you'd have horrific slums along the lines of what you see in other countries (mumbai anyone?) and shiny towers. I admit I only read half the thread; I am turning away.

Just want to be clear that i don’t like this program not because i don’t benefit from it, but because I think it is extremely poorly designed, resulting in a lot of waste, and questionable fulfillment of its unclear goals.

>>> All that said, I think the regulations are mistructured…

Yes, so if the program was structured differently, I could be feeling differently. This specific program has terrible features that I think are harmful to NYC overall

>>>If NYC were to be completely unregulated free market, and everyone not able to pay 1%-er rents/prices were flushed out …

Why would they be flushed out? 10y ago I literally made the median wage… I was still able to rent in NYC (not in manhattan). I would have been able to afford it better if market rents were lower.
Who is renting at market prices? They can’t all be 1%ers

Is there a list of rent controlled/stabilized buildings or units somewhere?

I'm a little vague on this but isn't it everything over three units built before 1974?

6 units

I remember a story of an owner who had a building with 5 residential units and a therapists office. They converted the therapists office to an apartment and the building became RS. This is what we want to see N of the professionals advising the owner warned them of this.

Under threat of heavy fines landlords "find"another 200,000 rent regulated units

https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2024/08/16/new-rent-control-law-prompts-thousands-more-filings-with-the-state/