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The Rent Guidelines Board approved 5-4 to raise rent-stabilized rents by the biggest increases since 2003 last night. And the hundreds of tenants on hand were going so wild, with their noisemakers and yelling, the RGB Chairman Marvin Markus had to recess the hearing for hours. Landlords and tenants disagreed about the chaotic scene (a board member called tenants efforts to shut down the meeting "undemocratic" while a tenants' protest organizer told the Times, "This meeting is a sham of the democratic process."), they did agree on one thing - the increases sucked. The tenants were upset, naturally, that the increases were so high - 4.25% for one year leases; 7.25% for two year leases - while landlords wished they were even higher to offset their increasing expenses. The increases will go into affect this fall.
The NY Times has a graphic of the rent increases and where most rent-stabilized apartments are. The tenants are also protesting for "home rule" - as in letting the City Council regulate rents, versus the board. (Tenants rights' group Metropolitan Council on Housing explains the situation more.)
Photograph from our May visit to a RGB meeting
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Grow up people. If you don't like it either a. buy something or b. move. Otherwise, deal with it.
I LOVE MY NEW CONDO!!!!!!!
Suck it rent guidelines board.
Indeed; this makes me happy. Your nearly-free ride, fcukers, will soon end.
are these the same people who gas guzzle, drink too much, smoke too many cigarettes and complain that the street value of drugs is too high?
gil, hr, and kevin... you're the kind of morons that make living in this city unbearable. the 80's are over – take your "me! me! me! fuck everyone else" attitude somewhere else.
furthermore, the sense of entitlement that the landlords have makes me crazy. the guy quoted in the nydn article says "he may be forced to sell his six-family unit in Kensington, Brooklyn."
ok – and the problem with that is............?
as with any business, if landlords feel like they're not making enough money to support themselves, they should find a new line of work. period.
me - thank you. I was getting worried thinking that everyone who was posting was going to be a complete and utter moron.
these people who need to "grow up" are the people who have lived in nyc for decades, who have created neighborhoods, and who are getting pushed out because of gentrification, yuppies and high rent. this is bullshit and "me" is correct:
" if landlords feel like they're not making enough money to support themselves, they should find a new line of work. period."
hey "me", the renters could take the same advice i.e. if you can't afford the rent, get a higher paying job or move.
We all know if the shoe was on the other foot the same people here would be clamoring for individual rights to set their own rents. New Yorker's love a free market when it works in their benefit because this city is full of raging hypocrits.
Even if it was raised 1%, the tenants wouldn’t be happy. Fact of the matter is costs along with inflation rise every year, so the rent must also go up accordingly.
I don't mean to be a complete dick to the tenants, but that’s how the cookie crumbles. Though 7.25 seems a little high.
In my book, as long as both the tenants and the landlords are unhappy, then the increase is a success. Not too low and not too high, it’s JUST right.
I hope it's your grandmothers that's getting thrown out due to the increase.
You heartless fuks. I can't wait till this summer.
one of my friends, a broker at morgan stanely, lives in a rent controlled apartment. he makes over 100k a year. he pays half of what i do.
so in effect, some of the people who are getting "pushed out" of the city are get pushed out by the wealthy who are taking advantage of the system.
so don't only blame the landlords. they have a right to a cover their costs. you should also look to the oil companies that increased costs to most buildings by about 15%.
furthermore, the sense of entitlement goes both ways. why should someone who is not making a lot of money be entitled to a prime apartment in manhattan?
if renters feel like they're not making enough money to support themselves to live in nyc, they should find a new line of work. period.
Sorry if the stuggle to find a reasonably priced domicile offends you fifteen-dollar-a-pop-martini-swilling, baby-vegetable-snarfing, emptily-ironic-che guevara t-shirt-topiing-two hundred-dollar-blue-jeans wearing destoyers of neighborhoods and all that is good about this city.
Working people have the right to homes, too, and housing in this city is for them as well as for you junior achievers making your pile in something that doesn't actually make anything but money.
Even with rent stabilaztion, rents are soaring and being a landlord is practically a license to mint money. Don't let any of those whiners fool you about heating oil prices when they often don't even bother turning on the heat.
Besides, thanks to the Rent Stabilztion Board, which is in the pocket of the landlords, more and more apartments are rapidly falling out of the purview of regulations, making your dream of a city peopled only by fancily overfed white burghers an incipient reality.
This is rent STABALIZED, which is different then rent CONTROLLED, and this doesn't affect prime apartments in manhattan.
It is proven that if you eliminate rent control/stabilization, average rent prices actually goes down. Chicago is a prime example of this.
Under stabilization, landlords price their non-stabilized apartments at an artificially higher price to offset the apartment where the tenant has been there for 40 years and is paying 1/5 of what the person living above them is paying.
When it is a free market, the low end comes up, the high end comes down…and middle class people actually benefit for once.
hypocrits all of you,
what your ilk always fails to realize is that a) people need a place to live, b) there is no god-given right to be a landlord and make a certain return on your investment, c) a family who's cutting it so close to the bone where 4.5% makes a significant difference can't very well afford the expenses related to moving, and d) even if they could, where are they going to go????
or is your idea of utopia a city with absolutely zero diversity or sense of community?
right... so the state should subsidize homeowners and developers through mortgage guarantees, tax refunds, and development inducements (the silent part of the free-market argument--there's no free market in housing), but the state should have no interest in protecting working citizens' abilities to establish stable lives and communities (that might someday enable their ability to become homeowners)?
...something just seems a little wrong here.
loose definition:
Free from confinement or imprisonment; unfettered: criminals loose in the neighborhood; dogs that are loose on the streets.
lose definition:
To be unsuccessful in retaining possession of; mislay: He's always losing his car keys.
Wow! Amazing!
i like how this stuff is always someone else's fault.
it's good that way. everyone's happy.
Gee, I wonder why the city took over half the buildings in the Bronx for unpaid taxes, and the other half burned down. Ya think maybe it was because rent regulation and inflation made the owners go broke?
Sure, would be nice if I could lock in a below-market rate. Then I'd be all set, and I could protest anytime anybody tried to build anything and block my view.
We need to increase supply of affordable housing! So let's make it as hard as possible for anyone to build anything and make any money doing it! Greedy landlords!
Hey Me Too(6), Me Three (9), Carl (11) and Me (14) -
Why is it that when someone happens to bring up a point that you don't agree with you assume they are "yuppies," "heartless," "martini-swilling," "destroyers of neighborhoods" who are all work in financial markets and are against diversity?
None of the prior comments gave any indication as to the commentors lines of work or views on diversity before you started yelling "Classism!" "Racism!" "-ism" "-ism" "-ism!"
Way to undercut your own moral highground. Maybe the reason your "side" keeps loosing these battles is that you frame everything as some moral battle rather then discuss the relative merits of your position. I thought clouding the issues by class destinction and race was something only the "bad guys" did.
Take a cue from comment 15, who does a good job framing the issue - too bad too few liberals understand rhetoric.
sounds like many of you should be building your own affordable housing with Habitat for Humanity. Sign up today!
"...too bad too few liberals understand rhetoric."
Shhh.. Last time I looked this isnt Fox News.
toliveandshaveinbrooklyn -
there are alternatives to rent regulation, like direct housing subsidies. the major problem with rent stabilisation is that it distorts the market -- price ceilings create shortages and in this case they also drive up the cost of unregulated apartments. and since the law is so spiteful to landlords, there's little incentive to invest in low income housing too (where there's potentially a lot of money to be had if the state weren't intent on taking everything away.)
the empirical evidence bears this out -- cities that don't have rent regulation tend to have more available housing for everyone not just the affluent.
You all don't know what you're talking about.
Related is not losing money,
Milstein properties is not losing money,
Trump is not losing money,
Look up 80/20, 421a, Tax exempt bond financing and Low income housing tax credits.
Why do so many people believe that the free market is the answer to everything?
Only the people who are most well off benefit most from the free market, everyone else eats shit. And that goes double for housing in NY if rent controls such as stabilization are thrown out. Not only that, but it will more then likely forever change the face of some neighborhoods. Talk about gentrification on a massive scale.
Honestly, who cares if Related and Milstein are making loads of cash. They are businesses and that's their raison d'etre. Normally, if businesses overcharge people though, the market reins them in but with rent stabilization creating a fake shortage in housing, it allows for these companies to charge absurd amounts of rent. If we are ever gonna get affordable housing in this city, we need to end rent stabilization.
My rent in Stuy Town just went up 11.8%.. I know that I'm paying more because ~80% of the complex is rent controlled.
If anyone complaining with the 7.25% increase wants to trade, call me!
I live in a luxury hi rise and my building is rent stabilized.
What that means is my rent won't go up drastically when it get's renewed.
A one bedroom here is around $4500/month.
as a poster wrote, you all don't know what you're talking about.
Where does it say you have either a God-given or Constitutional right to live in New York City?
Why don't you liberal types lobby your rich Hollywood friends to back some affordable housing projects instead of luxury condos in Las Vegas (cough-Clooney-cough)? Or maybe Bill Gates and Warren Buffet could spend some money here rather than Africa. Or maybe we can just pass a tax that says you can't make a profit on real estate in New York. Any gains you make are confiscated by the government. That would send the New York elite running for cover! Or how about the bumper sticker I saw years ago:
Homes: Everyone gets one before anyone gets two.
Let's see the liberal elite give up their Hamptons retreats.
Actually Kojak - Read my entire comment and you would understand that I did not come out on the "Fox News" side. The point is that calling people yuppies or saying they are on Fox News doesn't advance the debate (and it seems that the most 'liberal' commentors resort to this tactic first). I was praising the one comment (15) that actually discussed the merits of the debate and asking why the other commenters on the "side of the little guy" shift the debate so quickly. Good job missing the point and highlighting mine. For the record I am in favor of some form of regulation of apartment prices.
Oh yeah, "everyone else eats shit"? Did you pick up such cogent economic analysis from Marx or Mill? The point that you keep missing and proving is that the more you yell "-isms" and curse the less credibility you seem to have.
So, Shhh... This isn't Air America.
$4500 a month??
Just buy a freakin Condo. Thats money down the drain dude.
I didn’t read any of what you wrote and I frankly don't care, but the liberal tag was glaring so I decided to respond.
I guess I just don’t understand why people use the term liberal. I guess some find ‘forward thinking’ and ‘open mindedness’ offensive.
^This from a guy who claims Black people can't be Jewish, Jews have big noses and women who wear skimpy clothes deserve to get molested.
Anyway, all rhetoric aside, in these times and in this market it would make sense to buy instead of rent (which was not true in decades past, when a lot of now-popular neighborhoods went largely ignored), but for many middle- and lower-income New Yorkers this just isn't an option, considering all the paperwork, bureaucratic red-tape, and a sizeable down-payment this usually entails. (Closing costs, anyone?) I think people should be encouraged to consider this option but the solution isn't always that simple.
I'm not saying there aren't a few "yuppies" and "trust-funders" who take unfair advantage of rent stabilization and control, but in my experience they're usually an exception to the rule. The majority of hardworking NY'ers shouldn't be penalized for a few bad apples.
If you people care about expensive rents, just move to Northeast Jersey. Or ... do you not want to give up the glamor of New York City? If that's the case, deal with the premium and be quiet.
People want everything 100% their own way. There are affordable means to having 24 hour access to NYC, but so many people refuse to face reality. New York City was once a playground for the rich - and Brooklyn was the suburbs of the rich for those tired of the Manhattan grind.
History is repeating itself. Most of you people would *NEVER* have lived here when it as violent and scummy like it was 20 years ago, back when things were cheap. Stop complaining - you like the glamorous pseudo-Paris NYC, and it costs money to be a part of it.
The artsy, bohemian dream is very far from the city - go to NJ or Philly if you want that. Yet, some people would rather move to Bushwick or Canarsie, Brooklyn before that. Just grow up and face reality. Your beloved working people are all moving to PA without you.
That's a great idea,
REVERSE gentrification, everyone should move back to Grand Rapids, MI and find a squat. Just like the old days before coming to the big city.
Quick, get thee to Pittsburg.
lol @ ethos
Still have some sand left in your vagina from the academy awards don't ya?
No Kojak.
I find people who say they are progressive but then assume anyone with a different point of view is a racist or classist offensive. I find people who claim to be forward thinking but attack people who agree with them for asking to keep the debate on the issues instead of resorting to generalizations. I find ill-informed partisians on either side offensive. Didn't you say that just yesterday that a bike-rider deserved what they got when they were killed? I find you offensive. So go troll somewhere else. Hopefully you will get priced out of our city and have to ruin Phillyist.
Bitch bitch bitch. Here in Washington State we still have a rent-control BAN on the books thanks to the Right wing Republicans from the past legislature. It is illegal for any city or local government to pass any kind of Rent control laws. 60% of my town rents and over 80% of Seattle rents. It sucks. If I run for legislature I am going to propose a repeal of the ban.
LIFE IS NOT FAIR.
YOU ARE ENTITLED TO SHIT!!!
I'm rich, and selfish, and too fucking bad. That's just the way it is.
"Didn't you say that just yesterday that a bike-rider deserved what they got when they were killed?"
No. I did not say that. I'm insensitive, but not cruel.
Hey Me Too(6), Me Three (9), Carl (11) and Me (14) -
Why is it that when someone happens to bring up a point that you don't agree with you assume they are "yuppies," "heartless," "martini-swilling," "destroyers of neighborhoods" who are all work in financial markets and are against diversity?
None of the prior comments gave any indication as to the commentors lines of work or views on diversity before you started yelling "Classism!" "Racism!" "-ism" "-ism" "-ism!"
Way to undercut your own moral highground. Maybe the reason your "side" keeps loosing these battles is that you frame everything as some moral battle rather then discuss the relative merits of your position. I thought clouding the issues by class destinction and race was something only the "bad guys" did.
Take a cue from comment 15, who does a good job framing the issue - too bad too few liberals understand rhetoric.
You're a hypocrite and an idiot.
See how easy that was without calling you a repulsive, piece of shit, right-wing, pro-life, Christian zealot, gun wacko Republican?
Will, I’d be interested in seeing the studies you mention of comparative situations, including more on alternatives. my understanding of the current situation is that rent stabilization in manhattan has been pretty well eroded by decontrol so the effects of further decontrol might be fairly small. outside manhattan, rent stabilized and market rents are not so far apart (though this might be due to borough -wide rather than neighborhood statistics). one other thought: in the 1920s, a situation of similarly heavy development in nyc, government found it very difficult to encourage building of affordable housing while landlords continued to neglect old housing stock. this suggests caution about market stabilization arguments.
two general complaints (not for Will):
1) individual examples about your corporate raider neighbor who pays 15 cents/month for a rent-controlled apartment don’t do much for the debate. they are a red herring given the small number of extant rent controlled apartments. I genuinely feel for the landlord who can’t make expenses due to increasing costs, more often, these cases seem to be about how much profit can be milked out of a building. I’d also be interested in a study comparing the abusers of rent control with the number of older folks who arguably have some claim to its protection.
2) arguments over who deserves to live in nyc are similarly dull. new york is always authentic/cool the day you got here/were born here and has been declining ever since. the city changes. with that said, government should still have an interest in protecting the ability of citizens to carry on relatively stable lives, and the people in communities should have more of a say over these changes.
3) please don't ask me to leave or switch jobs. i work my ass off to stay here and the fact that i don't make that much money in no way makes my job less crucial to making certain that your children/potential children are educated for the job market/civil society. i don't know what you do, but i'm willing to accept that it's important.
thanks for the call for civil debate TJ.
The absolute lack of knowledge of basic economic principle in this city is breathtaking. Do you see a milk price control board? A falafel price control board?
It makes me feel like we live in 1970's russia sometimes..
nope..
#42 - Actual milk prices are regulated in NY http://www.agmkt.state.ny.us/DI/DIHome.html
Perry = pwned
Oh yeah thats right.. the milk price regulations that only effectively serve to drive up the prices of milk?
(read that last one, its from the department of justice antitrust department)
You can not scheme up a way to replicate fair market conditions. It is literally not possible for some board or legislator(s) to have the same knowledge as hundreds of thousands or millions of individual participants in a market.
You'd think that people learn from the mistakes of the past, but I guess not. I mean, we are back in Iraq, aren't we?
toliveandhaveinbrooklyn -
thank you.
all of your statements cut right to the point and actually make sense.
while I have no idea what the actual numbers are I can tell you that in my building alone (not counting the people on my block) the people who live in rent stabalized apartments are people who have been in this city for over 20 years - minimum. these people have lived through the bad times in the neighborhood and why should they have to move now that the neighborhood has become trendy and a magnet for rich kids who have no trouble footing the $3500 rent? where is the protection for people who have created lives and built a community but may not be a stockbroker or something that pays hundreds of thousands of dollars? where is the protection for senior citizens who have raised their children and their childrens children and who now live on the small social security checks? they should just pack up and move to new jersey like #33 suggests?
BULLSHIT. These landlords/slumlords are theives who complain about the cost of oil - but who don't heat the buildings. They complain about the cost of maintaining the building, but haven't painted in a decade. They bitch and moan about how expensive it all is but where is the money going?
bs, in any other place in the country if you cant afford where you live, you move. for some reason this seems to work without everything going to hell in a hand basket. all the wining is quite annoying. nyc has become a haven for old children who never grew up. i'm glad these people gamed the system for 20-30-40 years, but I for one do not want to subsidize them with my own rent that i struggle to pay as a 20 something.
all of this equals crappy, gentrified neighborhoods. . .poor ny.
BS:
if "you" have been in a community for 20 years "you" have enough savings plus net income or social security, pension, 401k, roth ira, etc. to flip the bill of your 7.25%-12% increase. or move to Florida where it's cheap to live like a king.
For 20 years minimum where has the money "you" were supposed to save gone? The landlords are theives? How about tenants are stupid. Save your money and stop bitching. Even if you think you can't save, you can. just cut out the little things in life like the daily visits to the bar and stop smoking or doing drugs or drinking $5 coffee or going out to dinner, or buying those $40 t-shirts.
Before the neighborhoods had trendy shops and restaurants, they were shit boxes, before the shit box drug infestation of the post 1960's they were liveable places that families could live in without fear. Who was there protesting the drug dealers for the last 30 years? No one. So get off your asses and stop bitching about the neighborhoods getting better—they were better, we're just taking them back. Maybe you should all make peace and try to be better people. get better, higher paying jobs and stop trying to save the world, save yourself first, then the world.
perry,
you're an idiot.
do you really see no distinction between falafel and the basic human necessity of having a place to live?
ah yo yo yo origami,
your ignorance of the lived economic realities of most new york families who do, in fact, rent by necessity rather than choice is matched only by your ability to condense complex social, political and economic histories into the thinnest of platitudes.
I LOVE toliveandshaveinbrooklyn.
that is all. carry on.
yo yo yo...
"pension, 401k, roth ira... $5 coffees"? do you really think that someone working some shit minimum wage job has a roth ira???
you're clueless
You said it, T.L.A.S.I.B.
The recurring bleating of "get a job that pays more" must seem like quite a revelation to those people out there fighting tooth and nail to do just that only to be met with glass ceilinged salaries.
Unless Goldman Sachs is planning on hiring everyone in the city, I just don't see that as realistic.
Part of what makes New York attractive to people not natively from New York (putting aside the draw of sky-high salaries which apparently grow on trees according to some of the morons posting comments) is the notion of community. As cold as a place as New York can be, it is also a place full of philanthropy, of civic-minded community involvement.
Keep pricing the do-gooders out - the people who bear more than mere economic investment in the city - as well as the creative/artistic types, and you have suburbia on steroids. New York will be full of white collar corporate drones living in a Sex & the City backdrop. That's where we're heading anyway. I guess it can't happen fast enough for certain (self-entitled) New Yorkers.
yo yo yo origami,
you are so far off base. maybe in your little world people don't love from paycheck to paycheck. . .must be nice.
who was there protesting the drug dealers? the people in the community.
"we're just taking them back" - who is this we that you speak of?
but I think toliveandshaveinbrooklyn said it best in comment #51.
toliveandshaveinbrooklyn: well said, but you're full of shit. Ignorance? no you and others just do not agree with the truth.
pay check to paycheck is a bunch of crap. my little world started "pay check to paycheck, but alas, i was still able to save $50 a week... if not $50 then $25. It's hard at the beginning, i know, but you need will power. WILL POWER.
$25 a week is $1200 a year—with a decent interest rate. Back when the economy was good in the mid to late 90's i was living pay check to pay check. I had and still do have an ING account. back then my interest rate was 3.15%. you do the math.
$1,944 a month stinks. I know, i have been there, in fact i was worse off at one point, but i got thru it. Get a second or third job if need be. I think budgeting your funds is more important than anything. sit down a figure out what your major expenses are, in order of importance, living like a rock star is not an option for most of us:
rent
food
gas/electric
travel (i.e. subway/bus)
phone
going out and partying is not a major expense and if your making minimum wage, you can't afford to go out and drink or do other things.
The internet is not a major expense, use the public library, it's free.
Cable, you'll be better off without a TV. Read a book and educate yourself and your family.
Food, buy the generic brands, it's the same thing, only cheaper.
cut coupons, look for deals, join a food co-op.
you can keep your ignorance to yourself... what i speak is the truth. I'm sorry your rents have increased 7.25% but you'd still be bitching if they were raised 3-4%... when is ever right in your dark eyes?
*Enters the fray of whinners bitching about the rent going up* I hate to say it but the whinners are right! It's not that the landlords don't make any money here. They are like all the rest of the bosses out in the market. They want to make as much dough as possible! I understand they have expenses to pay, As well as money to make off the renters . You all have to understand some things here, [1] The city is going through another one of them changes the likes of most have never seen. [2]The "Yuppy factor" or "Well off out of towners" moving into the city enabling these cocksucker landlords to jack up the rents to extradinary heights! That's your real problem (No not the out of towners)the landlords, They want that money ! That's what's driving the poor folk out of these neighborhoods they've occupied for generations. I bet if anyone traces the roots of the hood they're living in now you'll see what I'm saying. It's either a downfall of the general health of the area that drives people out, Or just could be a major change in the level of the "Money pit". Either way it's going to hurt one group and benefit the other!Education, Better job, etc,etc,etc! That may help you survive for a time until you reach your limit and get priced out by someone with the funds to met that owners demands! (Then what!!!!!)
Dammit! I meant "Meet" that owners demands! Sorry about people!