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With the record setting $5.4 billion sale of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village to Tishman Speyer last year, many residents suspected that the new owners would shake things up. But we doubt few tenants would have anticipated the rent increases sent in lease renewal papers. The NY Times speaks with some tenants about their sticker shock. The verdict? A lot of people are moving out. Check out these rents and the increases:
- Two bedroom rent increasing from $3,750 to $4,450 (18.7% increase)
- Two bedroom rent: $2,660 to $3,350 (25%)
- Two bedroom rent: $3,233 to $4,300 (33%)
Tishman Speyer's managing director Rob Speyer tells the Times, "We’re generating significant demand from existing residents as well as from the outside. Our rents are well within the market, and our renewal rates demonstrate that." Yeah, but while the renovated apartments are nice, they're not that nice. It'll be interesting to see what people want to pay to stay in the East Village/Gramercy area - they were getting some nice deals while they lasted. They could probably take their Stuy Town-Peter Cooper rent money and cause trouble just a few L stops away in Brooklyn.
What's the craziest rent increase you've had to endure? Did you stay or go? And even before the sale, we questioned the sanity of people paying market prices for STPCV rentals.
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I would just move out.
I'm amazed that anyone is surprised by this. Tishman Speyer doesn't give a fig about current tenants. It's about money, kids, not "community." The allure of living in these glorified projects was always affordable rent, and now that's history.
I had a rent increase of 41.3% in September and I moved out of my old place on the UES.
I remember reading some years back that STPCV tenants could not use window air conditioners due to the buildings' antiquated electric systems. Have the systems been upgraded?
Here’s an Idea: Move out of Manhattan, live in Queens/Brooklyn and invest in a Co-Op/Condo.
To pay that much for rent is a little nutty. Build up some equity in people.
Couldn't have said it better, D. The shock is that there is shock. Anyone who thinks that T-S's first move after signgin the papers was to begin getting everyone who lives there out, out, out is living in a dream land.
Apparently, in T-S's world, the old folks who have lived there since the 50's have no business living that long, anyway.
My roommate and I had 2 window AC units in our converted 1-br. We lived there for 2 years but moved out last May due to an 18% hike. It was a nice apt, but not THAT nice...and our unit's location was pretty far out (20th and C)
It's all about supply and demand. If one wants to live in Manhattan, one has to pay the market rate just like everywhere else. People in other large cities of developed countries pay just as much rent and do not make any more money. They have fewer possessions.
Way things are going, no on can afford to live in Manhattan...
Newsflash:
Manhattan is expensive!
Even the prices pre-increase are nuts. My father worked at Stuyvesant Town for 30 years, and he forgot to get me on the "list", and I never thought to ask. Now i'm glad I didn't...
www.forgotten-ny.com
"Move out of Manhattan, live in Queens/Brooklyn and invest in a Co-Op/Condo."
Sure, easy to do if you have $90,000 in cash handy.
That's what I told I would need to buy a condo in Brooklyn, IF you could find a building that would let you put 10% down at $400,000, or if you could find a one-bedroom for $250,000, which is not easy if you want to keep your commute under an hour each way.
So rent.
What's the big deal?
You want the convenience of Manhattan, shut up and pay Manhattan's ridiculous rents.
I honestly don't get these people and their perpetual bitching. That's what it's like in Manhattan and this ain't nothing new.
#12
I bought my 1bd in bushwick for under 200k and like it. neighborhood is still rough but coops/condos don't require 90k down. who ever told you that doesn't know what they are talking about. you need 5% and potentially on 3% down to buy a condo if you are a first time buyer. My commute is also quicker then my friends in the UES/UWS.
#14, I didn't say $90k down.I said $90k needed to buy - the $90k was what I was told I'd need for closing costs, down payment, and most co-ops/condos like to see a few months of mortgage payments in the bank. For the time being I plan to continue to rent (in Brooklyn), I just don't have enough cash on hand to buy something, even at $200k. Also, I'd be worried about the value of my condo/co-op in Bushwick depreciating, since there are so many new condos/co-ops being built in the area (see NY Times article today about glut of condos in DC making the value go down) so I don't know that I'd buy there.
please dont move to brooklyn.
Actually the article didn't say "A lot of people are moving out." It said that over 80% of the leases were being renewed.
Interestingly, it also mentioned that there are 38 non-primary residences cases being investigated, i.e. rent-stabilized tenants not actually living in the apartment full time.
Who is surprised? The Mayor told everyone in 2005, "New York is expensive". I weep for those in the former $2600 - $4000 price range.... NOT!
Thank you Vinnie!
I totally agree. In 2003 I lived in Manhattan for 1 1/2 years and I paid $1000 a month for a 6x10 room in a 3 bedroom apartment on St. Marks Place. The location WAS amazing, but puh-lease for me it was just too expensive and way too small. Brooklyn is a bit cheaper and the spaces are bigger. So i choose to live there. My commute is a bitch and I HATE it, but in the big City you just can't have it all.
Besides, I remember those Stuy-Town apartments (i was a broker in a past life) and they were extremely large and the renovated spaces were gorgeous. The prices seem fair considering all the space, amenities (free electicity, water, and gas!) and the downtown location.
a little compassion, folks.
The stuy town folks are getting screwed and hopefully, the tenants organization can fight it a little bit.
That NY times article is baloney. There are tons of "market-rate" apts that aren't selling, even when Met-Life had it. the rent increase is designed to get the current residence base out.
But, what happens to the folks that are still rent-stabilized. They're safe for now, right?
The biggest rent increase I ever got was when I lived down on Nassau St. by the WTC. When I moved in (1996), the rent was a reasonable $950 (for a 1-bedroom). After I declined to buy the apartment (the building was mixed rentals/coop), the owner raised the rent to $1500. So I moved to downtown Brooklyn and paid $700/mo. instead. And a few months later my old apartment was covered in toxic dust, so there.
Gee, it almost makes me feel bad about the 1000 bucks I pay for my two bedroom in Stuytown.
Gee, it almost makes me feel bad for the 1000 bucks I pay for my two bedroom in Stuytown.
Sackett St just off Smith in Carroll Gardens: brownstone 4BR duplex shared by 4 people: instantly went from 2400/mo for 99-00 to 3600/mo for 00-01. And then Halcyon moved away. :(
Too late to comment, I guess but here's some simple points:
1.
To the airheads who say "manhattan is expensive", DUH: the ONLY reason they invented cities is to LOWER costs, DUH. (It's easier to provide services to 1 million people in 10 square miles (cities) than 1 million people over 1,000 square miles (suburbs/rural areas). Manhattan should be the cheapest place in the USA to live, since we all forfeit so much freedom and quality of life to live here.
2.
Commuting is one of the biggest problems in the USA and accounts for much pollution/accidents/dependency on oil/lost productivity/noise/ and on and on.
To say people should move to queens or where the rent is cheap is INSANE at best. Commuting is WRONG. ANd when you factor in all the vacant apts in Manhattan, it's a total LIE.
If all humans lived within walking distance of their jobs (an easy goal; ask me for details) this would save trillions of dollars a year AND improve the environment AND a multitude of other wonders.
3.
Manhattan has thousands of VACANT apts, especially LUXURY ones, b/c the Crooks Of CIty Hall gave them taxmoney to build these ,even if they sit empty. (Hell, the CITY has how many vacant buildings? Plus Rudy Bloomberg has over 5,000 vacant apts just in Public Housing, at a loss of over 20 million a year! Rudy's "logic" was "no handouts for them niggers! Subsidized housing is WRONG--unless it's my staff jumping the line for Stuy Town housing as soon as I was elected in 1994---or me living in a mansion paid for by taxpayers against their will". So City Hall simply pulled them off the market using different scams and hope to move in the middle class for market rents someday. It's scary how corrupt Bloomberg is and how dishonest the media is in covering it all up.)
4.
This story PROVES yet again that Bloomberg is a crazy pathological liar. He promised on the campaign trail to PREVENT eviction as one way to combat homelessness, etc. He was of course lying.
ASK him why the quality of life of New Yorkers isn't his business!
(No wonder the piece of shit chickened out of debating me in 2001 while every other candidate didn't.)
The reason the rents are higher now are because they've started to offer one month OPs to brokers. This means that brokers can offer you the apartment at "no fee" and collect from the landlord instead. Here's the thing, the landlord then just adds what amounts to the fee (sometimes more) to your rent.
Which brings up a good point, almost every time you get an apartment at "no fee" you're actually paying more in rent than you would if you weren't "saving" on the fee.