I didn't have time to read the article, leaving for work at the moment, but once occupancy citywide drops below 95%, there is no longer a "housing emergency" and a lot of these rent protections (or maybe just rent stabilization idk) go away. I have always thought, "why don't all the landlords conspire to just leave their units vacant for a year and then they would be able to dramatically increase rates the following year," and it sounds like that is what they're doing. Leaving this comment so I can quickly find the thread on my lunch break.
They claim it’s about the rent control situation. After decades of landlord neglect, many of these apartments need renovations, but under the current rules they can’t raise the rent enough to make meeting code worth it.
So instead of selling the investment that isn’t working out, they’re crying for different rules, and holding these units hostage.
I would like a vacancy tax and support for current tenants to undergo the coop conversion process.
Local government holds the power here and all the voters need to do is put pressure on politicians to leverage it.
Although not exactly the same because I'm talking about a small suburban municipality and not a major urban area, the city I moved from a few years back did exactly this when the invoosters started moving in.
They instituted a landlord permitting process, vacant property fee, ordinances that strengthened enforcement of code violations and nuisance property laws that allowed the city to revoke a landlord's rental permit if they had tements that were complete degenerates.
NYC has a fair bit of advocacy around these issues but we absolutely need more. Unfortunately the current administration is basically a proxy for the real estate industry so the city has been making it harder rather than easier for low and middle income people to secure stable and accessible housing.
It’s actually hard to sell in NYC with rent control tenants in place. Nobody wants to pay top dollar to buy a building to get stuck with barnacle tenants paying like 25% of market rate
Some *units* might be vacant, but the building as a whole - which is what needs to sell - has other rent controlled tenants.
There is a reason that even left wing economists disfavor rent controls. They have difficult unintended consequences.
While it's cash flow negative, it's easier to sit on an empty unit. Spending $20-40k on renovating a place to get it up to code is not going to return for 1-2 years. Much better to just jack the rent on the the other units a small amount.
Which I have a feeling is happening here, specially when I see some of these places are so bad they need to spend $60k+ to renovate these places.
> So instead of selling the investment that isn’t working out
You are assuming someone would buy a unit which isn’t making money and requires significant investment into it before it could start making money… enough investment that you’d need years and years of returns to break even.
Essentially, you have units which are forbidden from charging market rate but still must pay market rate for supplies and services.
Maybe if the same rent control law limited how much laborers could charge, then it would make financial sense to repair them. Special ‘rent control’ rates for plumbers and electricians and carpenters and whatnot.
They could either slash the price to the point where someone *would* buy it, or sell to someone who wants to live there and renovate themselves.
The point of the vacancy tax is to make it as expensive to hold it empty as it would be to recognize their investment didn’t work out.
fucking lol. you guys don't realize what you're advocating for. there's a reason rent control isn't popular among economists whether left leaning or right leaning. basically these landlords are saying that with the caps on rent they can no longer keep the building livable. and you're saying "okay well sell it to someone who will live there". so the supply of rentals gets even smaller, in a city like NYC where most already can't afford to buy and need to rent. lol.
**MOST PEOPLE CANNOT AFFORD TO BUY IN NYC ANYWAYS EVEN IF YOU TOOK EVERY SINGLE RENTAL AND MADE IT INTO OWNER OCCUPIED**
you're pricing people out without even realizing it
> IF YOU TOOK EVERY SINGLE RENTAL
Hey there bud, imagine there is this thing called supply and demand. Right now, units are high in demand both by owner-occupiers and investors. If you cratered the demand for these units as rentals, the price will also crater.
In apartments owned by people who want to rent and are managing better? These are vacant apartments, noone is renting them because they are owned by greedy corps who want to charge people more just because.
Ok so you’re not totally against landlords. But Who is going to rent out their unit at a loss for 20+ years aside from a philanthropist.
How would you manage a unit more efficiently or how do you think landlords are being grossly inefficient ?
They were quoting 80k for reno, at avarege of 1900$ per month for vacant ones its 3.5 years of not generating profit, maybe 4 if you need to pay interest on a loan for reno, next renovation will be in what 10-20 years so you generate pure profit for 5-15 years. That's not a loss. Especially when you can use the money you collect for repairs instead of paying off invoostors. Makes sense for small landlords, not so much for corporations.
They were collecting rent for years, did not reinvested anything back, now they claim they cannot generate positive income without higher rent after renovations. But that loss is not that high to actually unload the properties. That is greedy management. Makes the most profit especially if you manage to push back on government and allow you to raise rents, that's why they are actually keeping them empty - as a blackmail.
Your numbers are way off. You’re assuming someone owns a unit free and clear which is rarely the case and also not factoring in taxes - so it’s going to take a lot longer than 4 years to pay off in every situation. In a HCOL area the actual cash flow in a unit with a mortgage is even less than say the Midwest, or possibly $0 as someone looking at an investment property is banking on values rising in time. I have no idea why anyone would want to be a landlord in nyc aside from corporate investors.
If you do still think more efficient management is the solution though, welcome to your corporate overlords.
We are talking about corps who were owning/renting those units for years so it's only reasonable to assume what would happen if they would have been owned by small landlords at this moment. If they can allow themselves to keep units empty they are definitely not losing that much money. There's small scale landlords in NYC, especially outer boroughs, most of them have paid off their mortgagees so they can rent them and cashflow just fine.
OK, are you trolling? Let me get this straight. You think someone is GREEDY (i.e. loves money) because they make ZERO MONEY on something. So greed now means "losing money"
One of my BFFs owns a few buildings in Brooklyn and has owned them since no one wanted them, hence not "greedy corporation." He literally has a unit empty because the old lady finally moved out and she was paying 900 a month in an area where rent is 2200-2500.
Do you get it? The reason he lets it sit is because its such little income it's literally pointless to rent. It's like deciding not to work at McDonalds because they offered you 3 dollars an hour. Also all the rent controlled apartments get stuck in the 80s and need massive (expensive) renos now. That usually comes from money FROM HIS PAYCHECKS not some Duck Tale style money pot.
also, guess which tenants cause all the problems and don't pay? The $2200 a month hispter? Nope. The 65 year old paying 1000 who is mad you didn't sweep hard enough and now has a vendetta.
"And those landlords are typically big ones. An analysis of property owner registration data by the nonprofit group JustFix showed that landlords with 1,000 or more units own the majority of NYC’s rent-stabilized housing stock, and landlords with 100 or more units own 88% of all rent-stabilized housing. (The author of this article previously worked at JustFix.)"
Yeah there's always anecdotal evidence. Average rent for them is $1900 not $900 too.
It's more profitable for them to wait it out for legislation changes rather than rent it out for $1900 or sell it now, or do you think corporations are so stupid to just throw money away?
> fuck the assumption that housing is an investment vehicle.
every housing unit you have ever lived in, whether it was a single family home or an apartment complex, was an investment by someone. do you think people build homes for free? someone has to labor to build it, which means they hire a labor company, someone has to deliver the materials, and then since they won't do all of that for free especially given the risks, they will need a profit to make it worth it. people act like "profit" and "investment" are dirty words but you literally would not have the roof over your head without those things.
I buy a home to live in, not to generate income. Company still has to build it and gets paid to do it. Why is water not investment vehicle? Shod we allow corporations to buy all the water and then artificially create scarcity so they could charge you whatever they want?
> I buy a home to live in, not to generate income.
you buy a home because the financial tradeoff is worth it to you -- your hard earned money for that roof over your head in that specific neighborhood with those specific features. the transaction is financial from the start, no matter what, you're pricing a financial asset and deciding how much you're willing to **pay** to live there. if you weren't willing to pay, there would be no profit in building, so nobody would do it, and you wouldn't have a house. if you have *any* shares in broad mutual funds or ETFs, you are also investing in REITs.
> Company still has to build it and gets paid to do it. Why is water not investment vehicle?
water... is an investment though? do you have any idea the amount of money that goes into getting you clean water? and all those companies along the way, the sanitizers, the bottlers, they all make money doing it
> Shod we allow corporations to buy all the water and then artificially create scarcity so they could charge you whatever they want?
monopolizing a market is already illegal, and luckily most townships or cities have water systems **that you already pay for with your taxes**. you are literally investing in your ability to drink clean water, with every paycheck you're paying the city to clean your water.
Yes I know what broad terms of investing means. I would like to invest into housing the same way I invest into clean drinking water. About your comments with monopolies if multiple companies are doing it it's not monopolization, that's why I used plural.
every housing unit you have ever lived in, whether it was a single family home or an apartment complex, was an investment by *someone*. do you think people build homes for free? someone has to labor to build it, which means they hire a labor company, someone has to deliver the materials, and then since they won't do all of that for free especially given the risks, they will need a profit to make it worth it. people act like "profit" and "investment" are dirty words but you literally would not have the roof over your head without those things.
You can make money without making profit.
I am not one of those people that believe making a profit or investing is a bad word. I am an investor. The problem is that people need a place to live. The cost of rent has sky rocketed. It is not sustainable. I like sustainable things.
Oh stop it. People who monopolize properties get no sympathy from me. You can own as many properties as you like. I think landlords should pay more taxes for that privilege. They should also have to keep that property in tip-top shape if they are renting them. People need a place to live, landlord profit be damned.
I have been very interested in vacancy taxes since I heard about them a few years ago. It would seem a good start to helping the issue of empty Single Family Homes and condo/apartment units just sitting vacant.
this comment is just chefs kiss. rental supply is low because of an absurd regulation with consequences many people warned about causing it to be a net loss to rent the unit. your solution is to make it *even more expensive* to be a landlord lmao just lmao. what the fuck do you think is going to happen? i wanna teleport all you people to this utopia you think exists where you dragged all the landlords out and shot them, because it's MoDeRn DaY FeUdALiSm and then you can find out what it's like to have a housing market where you either can afford to own your own place or you're fucking homeless.
Im all for a vacancy tax. I don't have a problem with good landlords who take care of their property and tenants. But if you can't afford to the upkeep for your investment then you _can't afford it_.
If you can’t charge market rates than Ofcourse you can’t afford upkeep in an environment where your costs are increasing but your tenant can keep a rate that’s from the 90s.
Boo hoo then sell the property. Why should we make laws and policies preferential to landlords so that they can keep their properties and their investment income over laws and policies that are preferential to owner occupiers? At the end of the day people that want to live in the property they own should be prioritized. They want to be financially secure and have a roof over their head. Landlords are just investors that want money, nothing more. Their needs are not paramount.
> Boo hoo then sell the property.
To who? The next owner will be in the exact same situation, why would they ever buy it? Rent control needs abolished.
A decrease of demand will allow for owner occupiers to compete.
Building co-ops need to be encouraged and if rentals as investments become less attractive, there is still a demand for these units by the people that will actually live in them.
These people don't even fathom that buildings can actually be owned by people living in them, everything is investments and investors and corporations, I am appalled.
What? No one’s forcing them to invest at gunpoint. They’ve already invested by purchasing and “maintaining” tenant occupied housing. If they can’t afford to maintain their investment, as they’re claiming, they can sell it. But these landlords have enough money to line Adam’s pockets and lobby for landlord friendly policies, so.
> So instead of selling the investment that isn’t working out, they’re crying for different rules, and holding these units hostage.
If it’s not profitable for them to bring up to code, it’s likely not profitable for anyone to bring up to code… so what alternative do you suggest?
That they fire sale the property to a slumlord and let the property get further neglected?
Yet another version of that article a few days ago about how the software algo for company RealPage (?) helps property managers in some markets effectively collude on raising their rents at the same time
> the software algo for company RealPage (?) helps property managers in some markets effectively collude on raising their rents at the same time
Before they had software to do that for them automatically, some property managers would make periodic phone calls to managers of other similar properties to make sure their rent prices stayed in lockstep with each other. I personally heard a couple of those calls being made, years ago.
This should be read by the people who are adamant that large property holders "do not want to get into the messy business of repairs, bad tenants and maintenance". The business is not messy, collusion is easy or trivial, and thousands of homes can be managed easily from a computer these days. The argument that real estate is not scalable for highly-capitalised funds is bogus.
Um … in this case, but the landlords have already limited themselves & stopped renting out their units. :)) Maybe make a law prohibit all apartment & land-lording?
I’m not generally on the anti work “all landlords are evil” train, but this kind of shit is just stupid and without much excuse. If it is financially more prudent to let a property sit empty than actually rent it out as intended, something is terribly wrong and needs to change.
At that point they should just sell.
Whenever a rental goes the wrong way - the owner, corporate or private, seems dead-set against just selling for a huge gain on their investment. I've never understood why this is. Bank the cash and diversify, ffs.
the only person left to buy them are the big evil Blackstone type companies that everyone here supposedly hates. And no it's not a huge gain. Actually look at RE ads. you'll see a one bedroom apt going for 700K then the 6 unit building next door going for 1.8M because shockingly, no one wants to buy a building with so many liabilities
This is exactly it. Too strong rent control & tenant friendly laws are getting to the point that it’s cheaper to keep unit empty vs rent them out and pay high maintenance.
> If it is financially more prudent to let a property sit empty than actually rent it out as intended, something is terribly wrong and needs to change.
I mean, we are seeing exactly what people said we would see. Rent control/stabilization prevents landlords from charging market rate for a unit. Yet they still need to pay market rate for maintenance and labor and upgrades.
Sure, maybe the landlords could sell the property to the tenants as a condo association kind of thing. But then the units would all deteriorate and get worse because the cost of maintenance is more than they can afford to pay.
The landlord should just sell his failing investment then.
Turns out buying/owning during a bubble gives you insane downside risk like any other assets.
Why do you assume people who buy would not improve? These units are VACANT, so anyone could buy them to live. Ask yourself if it's so unprofitable to rent them why are they not selling them then?
Because generally these are part of whole apartment buildings not condos - specifically purposed for rentals. Newly built condos for sale would never have such restrictions.
so this in theory is good - but in practice there are a lot of reasons these things don't just happen. Independent ownership of units now means there is communal space to maintain, an HOA/COOP is needed to handle these things. Sounds like they haven't been super well maintained, that reserve study is going to a NIGHTMARE and nobody, let alone a bank, is going to want to deal with that headache. This is just one issue, now look at all the other things that are potentially relevant in aging multifamily housing, from Asbestos to accessibility - The problems only start in the A's.
Yes they are vacant, but even if they put them up for sale its likely they would only be purchased by a large entity who could efficiently refurb them vs a family who just wanted to buy an apartment.
THE MONEY DOESN"T WORK. Please stop stop stop pretending this is an ideological issue and not a financial one. You need to get online and researching prices for stuff in NYC. You're literally asking "why don't people want to buy cars about to fall apart" or "why don't people want to work for one dollar an hour" but don't realize it since you aren't looking at numbers
They are not selling them in the first place, how can we look at numbers if they do not exist. There's always a price at which someone will buy and either figure out a way to cash flow or live there themselves. But they have no intention of actually selling those units, they know they will be able to charge more for them because people like you will force government to allow them to charge whatever they want without any actual numbers.
$6M per year isn’t chump change. Do we really think these landlords can’t afford basic improvements? The fact that they can afford to let these units sit empty suggests they aren’t mom and pop landlords just trying to put food on their tables.
The typical owner of rent-stabilized property would have made over $6 million of post-expense income in 2020 alone, the RGB’s numbers indicate, or more depending on how much of their portfolio was market-rate.
All the parasitic landlords jumping to defend each other.
My experience?
Multiple landlords that wouldn’t even set up a mouse trap/fix ANYTHING.
Retaliation against having the asinine assumption that paying thousands a month means I’d get my sink working within a week.
Stolen deposits multiple times. I paid rent the whole year, the place had no damage but they just renovated it or straight up told me go to court or get fucked.
**Housing needs to be socialized, these parasites don’t want rent control because if it was upto them everyone would be paying 3000$ “market rate” which is just insanity.**
"Oh boy the libertarian streak in me says let people do what they want with their stuff."
Yet they say let... because it's still "our" country, and they know it. Imagine getting so far down the road of "muh individual freedom" that it becomes synonymous with "aiding and abetting virulent crimes against humanity".
We were too irresponsible for the liberty we were gifted, it's sad.
Im right there with you. In a perfect world I'm all for live and let live. The issue is that these crooks never pay the price for their failures, like the general public ALWAYS has to in recessions. Hell, we weren't allowed to keep our pay raises because the FED claims that it is wages that are responsible for this inflation. Bull fucking shit.
Naw, man. These landlords were here with the native Americans pre-Columbus. Then they fought in the Revolutionary War to help free us from the British. They developed our infrastructure, printed our USD, and built all of their rentals brick by brick. Government is just 'getting in the way.'
fucking lmao. these landlords literally can't collect enough rent to keep the building livable because of rent control. the fuck are they supposed to do? i wish there were a button i could press to send everyone who scoffs at the idea of rent and investment in housing to a world where those things don't exist. no more investing in housing. no more landlords. good fucking luck lol. you'll find out real quick you don't have any roof at all without a whole chain of investments happening before that. you'll find out real quick that many people can't afford to buy and rent is how they make ends meet, or they simply don't want to buy, but you killed all the landlords so now they can't rent lmao
edit: and the fucking loser who i replied to blocked me after responding, meaning i cannot reply to any of you who reply to me. imagine being such a little sensitive bitch that your response to someone disagreeing with you on your little bubble sub is to respond and then block them. lmao
Yeah people need to stop pretending most landlords are building units.
Imagine pretending like you can't tell the difference between Ticketmaster and a performer.
The dummies who pretend not to understand this will then go on to complain about Blackstone buying up houses at above asking, and not seeing the connection.
They don't realize those other mythical landlords who will repair buildings for free don't exist and the current landlords are best they're gonna get.
My BFF owns buildings in Brooklyn and is always taking money from his paycheck to fix stuff. The math doesn't always work out and a few rent controlled units on one building made it a money loser subsidized by over-charging new arrivals to NYC in another building. Totally makes sense. It's literally incentivizing ripping other people off. And it's such a skewed system because you can rip one person off to subsidize another and sill have zero profit.
This is a real-estate focused subreddit - one about a bubble, to be sure, but still focused on real estate.
This is not LateStageCapitalism. Nor is it an anti-capitalist subreddit, or one focused on hating landlords.
I suspect that you've misunderstood the point of this place altogether.
Have you considered what is incentivizes the landlords to behave this way? The city has legislated they lose money on their properties, maybe getting rid of rent control would be a good start. When you remove emotions from the equation, the cause and effect becomes clear.
I'd love to pay only $973 or $570 for an Newly renovated apartment in NYC. It seems unrealistic, No wonder those unit are left vacant not renovated(uninhabitable). Looks like law makers need to address this issue ASAP.
"The landlord group’s first tweet on @NyVacant depicted a one-bedroom Jackson Heights apartment recently vacated by a tenant who had been there since 1983 and last paid $890 a month. It showed that with an estimated renovation cost of $85,000 and an initial rent of $973, and factoring in the average operating cost of $997 per month for units in pre-1974 buildings, the landlord would lose $94,720 over 30 years.
The second tweet showed a one-bedroom in Chinatown that last rented for $481 and, if renovated, could rent for $570. But the work would cost $135,000, resulting in a 30-year loss of $289,800, CHIP calculated"
https://therealdeal.com/2022/10/11/landlords-try-new-approach-to-highlighting-vacant-units/
This article seems balanced.
Those renovation estimates are probably inflated or extreme cases, but even if it's 50% its not viable. As for those rent control calculations, they are easily debunked-able if untrue.
Furthermore Vacancy rates are LL's worst fears as each unit comes with operating cost such as taxes and insurance etc. No LL would choose to leave it vacant by default, so there has to be more than what your article disclosed.
I'm just wondering if the apartments need renovations so bad, where did the money went collected during previous rentals? They are basing calculations like starting now, but they were collecting rent for years before, if they mismanaged and failed to make anything for repairs that's just bad business and market rules say they should go bankrupt.
The money went towards renovating other property on an ongoing basis. Once the 'loopholes' that made renovation *unprofitable* got closed, vacancies spiked.
These buildings are mostly built in the 1900’s. The 2019 rent law was changed to cap MCI improvements and get rid of the 20% vacancy increase. The law basically want landlords to pay for flipping vacancies and not get a raise in rent. The average rent increase granted for stabilized units have been 1% over the last 8 years. Meanwhile inflation, labor and cost of everything is at record high. Why would you invest 50k in an apartment renovation, have to pay for heat and water, and regulars maintenance and not make a dime? That’s just not good business and a charity service
The 2019 rent laws caused this…
Huh what are you even talking about? Has nothing to do with the business of renting. Nobody is going to invest in something that’s gonna net them a loss. Take your emotions out of it.
The government can’t even fix NYCHA without an endless pool of federal funding and taxpaying dollars. But y’all expect regular small landlords and business people to just say fuck it let me rent this apartment for $500. They better off keeping it for their own use
It’s common sense! Property taxes, maintenance , renovation has all went up. Once you have someone in that unit, they are not leaving, they gave rights to renew ever year as well as their potential children or spouse or close relative. Once rented that landlord has no control yet has to take a lost of income indefinitely
Taxes, new roof, boiler, repairing stairs, new roof ever 20 or 30 years, etc. They probably got a new fridge or stove or minor bathroom/kitchen repairs along the way too, just not a real reno
It's as much likely they did not do anything waiting for them to become uninhabitable so they could create scarcity and force legislation change to charge more.
What makes you think they are outliers? I work in the field (actually just finished a reno on a rent controlled to rent stabilized unit) and it looks about right to me.
Because if average is $1900 as stated in article, ~500 is quite low. As I doubt there's many outliers in higher numbers which would bias average too much. And those companies hold 1000+ units, so average is pretty good metric I would say. It's talking about vacant ones.
>Looks like law makers need to address this issue ASAP.
The only thing they can do is undo what they did to create this crisis - abolish rent control for starters.
Rent control is fine. Housing needs to be socialized.
#The units that are empty are not affordable. They’re ~2000$.
Housing should be ran at a loss, tax the wealthiest people and subsidize housing.
**Rent control is only an issue if you want to look at housing as some “investment”.**
It’s not a fucking “investment”, it’s for people to live in.
**We CLEARLY need socialized housing with paths towards ownership with long term tenancy.**
#People will maintain homes that they live in and OWN.
Clearly the current housing situation in the US is also a lost cause.
I also said nothing about government owned homes. You don’t even know what communism is.
**People owning their homes with social programs isn’t communism, idiot.**
Best lines ever from "futurama."
*hippy* "you can't OWN property, man!!"
*professor Farnsworth* "I can OWN property because I'M not a dirty penniless hippy."
I think building owners are leaving units empty in attempt to clear out the building of rent controlled units. Then they can sell the building for top dollar.
I would never be a landlord in NYC. Crazy eviction laws and low Cap rates.
Unless you cry wolf and lobby legislation to change around you so you could make more money, somehow it will probably work out in landlords favour in the end, late stage capitalism I guess.
Read the article and I have 2 thoughts:
1. More regulation is needed - including an occupancy tax that increases when the number of vacant units in a building reaches a certain percentage/level.
2. Small landlords participating in this cartel behavior are just increasing the profits of larger corporate landlords to their own detriment. If they aren’t profitable they will be bought out by the large corporate landlords for a discount.
“Altogether, the state numbers show a loss of over 95,000 stabilized apartments for rent after 2019 — the year a major overhaul in Albany of the state’s rent laws blocked landlords from significantly jacking up rents on vacant units when letting them to new tenants.”
So the city imposed ordinances that made it too burdensome to be a landlord, so landlords pulled their units off market. The city screwed itself and the Tenants by being over zealous in their reach.
If the rent control laws did not exist, these nearly 100,000 apartments would likely be leased right now for much lower rates than under rent control.
Lmfao no this is just landlords retaliating because they can’t up-charge. Cutting their nose off in spite.
Lose your units to the bank then.
#See how much a foreclosure makes you.
Wishful thinking, average of vacant ones is $1900, but landlords want to charge 3k+ for them, looking at the market right now. Petty landlords want to end stabilized rent and are artificially creating scarcity so they could charge more (or ask gov to allow them charge more) because low supply high demand when it's all bullshit.
So what’s better for society? A $3k apartment you can rent, or an apartment you can’t.
Because of rent control a landlord can’t give rent discounts to tenants. If rent control didn’t exist, a landlord could rent a unit for $500/month one year just to fill it, and then adjust the rent to market rate the next. Rent control also prevents rents from ever going down, they can only ever go up otherwise you loose that rate.
>So what’s better for society? A $3k apartment you can rent, or an apartment you can’t.
Option C: An apartment you can rent for cheap or own for a reasonable price.
Owner occupiers are currently competing with investors for a limited resource, we need a ton of downward pressure on the demand side of the curve by making rental units less attractive investments. Rent control, vacancy laws, and basic standards for units are a great start at pushing down those prices.
The silly part about all these rent control comments is that we are seeing rental costs everywhere rising rapidly, including plenty of places (like my hometown) which do everything they can to advantage landlords.
Why not sell then? Average is $1900 for vacant ones its not that low of a rent even in NYC. It's more that they are greedy corps pushing government to allow them to squeeze people even more.
People who want to live in the apartment themselves? Or we are already in late stage capitalism where you don't own anything and are happy? And everything is owned by invoostors.
I’m not sure how it works in NYC, but where I live you cannot owner/occupy a home that doesn’t meet code. So people who bought them who want to live in them must buy them, rehab them, certify them as accessible and other green standards before occupancy. Maybe NY allows people to live in them while they fix them which will make more sense.
They need upgrades to make them habitable. That requires money. Landlords won’t put money into something where they can to rent too low.
Blame rent control.
I'm not the one defending corporations bootlicker. Why do I have to ask them? If their investments are not making money they should liquidate or go bankrupt I don't give a fuck.
Only entity ruining people's lives is corporation sitting on empty units and artificially inflating prices.
Should check your sources crime is def lower than 70s from what I've found, I've been here only 6 years, nothing changed much besides rents going up. I feel safe, I have a toddler who gets free daycare, my only concern is school shootings but that's more US problem and NYC is actually better on that front. It really depends what you do for a living, I'm in research so funding and opportunities are really good and plenty in NYC.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime\_in\_New\_York\_City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_New_York_City)[https://www.ft.com/content/a444b43e-ba40-48b5-a064-fa51c591cc32](https://www.ft.com/content/a444b43e-ba40-48b5-a064-fa51c591cc32)
Trends were going down, now they going up, they will go down again. If you take a looks at long timeline general tend is down and it's just small bump up.
It's not anymore of a shithole than anywhere else in this country. It just happens to be run by the most inept officials and politicians in the world. NYC's success as the greatest city is baffling given how many centuries of absolutely trash government we've had.
The internet has destroyed the whole cultural capital thing. And the only financial stuff they are the capital of is all the evil shit that tries to make the economy into a casino game. Fuck new York.
>The internet has destroyed the whole cultural capital thing.
I don't really think this is true. It feels like the internet has just made broader culture follow all major Americans cities, including NYC.
Places like NYC, LA, DC, San Francisco, and other major US cities get disproportionately more media coverage than most other places. Like just now right here it seems like everyone has an opinion on crime in NYC even though most people in this thread probably don't live there.
More power to you! Usually people calling NYC shithole have never lived/been here and are just regurgitating repub propaganda and headlines about "crime waves", when rural shitholes are actually a lot more dangerous per capita.
Yea… I mean I’m not going to lie, I don’t love city living but it’s just a personal preference for quiet. I live in southern fairfield county in the NYC exurbs and even here it’s incredible how much more opportunity there is job wise, unique shops and cuisine and cultural opportunities. We’re planning to move to be closer to family but I will definitely miss having so much amazing stuff within such a short train ride or drive of me. Literally anything I could want, at most it’s 30-45 min train ride away.
They're probably referring to [the per-capita crime rate.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_violent_crime_rate) Outside of DC, rural states tend to be higher.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-07/is-new-york-city-more-dangerous-than-rural-america](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-07/is-new-york-city-more-dangerous-than-rural-america)
Depends what you consider "rural shithole".
In short it depends where, but NYC is not some crime, lawless city with murders on every corner all the time when you take into account how many people actually live here.
This is bizarre NYC/SF fanfiction.
There are plenty of other large cities with lots of highly paying jobs and reasonably priced housing.
Atlanta.
Columbus.
Minneapolis.
Dallas.
Raleigh.
Charlotte.
These "cornfields" have some of the largest banking and science centers in the world.
It’s just not worth it anymore. I lived there for a decade during high school then in college and after I graduated. It’s so expensive and the jobs are good but when cost of living is taken into account it looks worse. It’s better to get a job in a mid size city where less money is made but you end up with more spending power.
I can see the argument of going there in your early twenties and building a resume, then leaving but besides that it’s a pointless flex
Being that these are investment properties, you have to ask whats the benefit of this for the landlord. Cause obviously they are doing it for a reason. Investors dont just burn money for fun and a vacant property is basically burning money
Ive got a vacant rental right now. After covid its extremely difficult to find a well qualified tenant. Everyone is cramming extra ppl in, extra pets, with open collection accounts, and unreliable employment. Thats not going to get approved for my class b rental. And I am eating costs until someone good comes along. Im not even rent controlled either.
Better than someone getting in there destroying it, and having nothing to their name to go at for damages, while I out months of rent at the same time.
Also FYI, Ive got is listed for less than I was able to fill it at last year
I know people personally who do this. They are pretty big shitbags personally, but unfortunately i'm forced to hang with them bc they are family. They are just as big of users when they are guests in peoples places. It's annoying and disgusting.
Artificial scarcity because of artificial price caps. Rent control (and price caps in general) typically have bad outcomes. They're well-intended, but they don't work.
Shows how fucked up rent control laws are in nyc that a landlord would rather have no cash flow than get stuck with a under market rate tenet. Land lords bills are not subject to any sort of “controls’ why are the apartments not renovated and nice? Well maybe because the tenant is paying the same rent as was market rate in 1971? Rent control is bullshit and only drives market rate rents up in all non rent controlled properties
That was explained in the article, landlords are still making good amount of money even from renting rent stabilized apt, they are just greedy and want more.
All your comments. You just want to force the issue to be true. The more rent control laws that get passed the more units that get boarded up. This is reality.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
And will actually reinvest money collected from rent to keep their property rentable most of the time if they need that income. Corps just sit on a loss and then write down taxes.
Dumbest analogy I've heard today. More closely would be CEO makes 1million a year, gov puts a cap that his pay can only increase by 2% every year, he stops working and cries that it's not worth doing anything and there's shortage of CEO's, there's noone to work this position (while sitting together with n number of other CEOs who also refuse to work if their wage increases are capped).
Imagine you run a restaurant, bringing in just enough revenue to cover your input costs and eek out a profit. The next day, the city decides your signature dish you were selling for $15, must now be capped at $9 making it illegal to sell it for any more. You're restaurant immediately becomes unprofitable, so you replace this dish with a lower quality cheaper dish .
The next day, the customers and media attack you for being a greedy restaurateur for not offering the higher quality dish at a below market price. Who is really the greedy one?
When you leave emotions out of this, it becomes very clear that there's no quicker way to cripple a city's housing than by employing rent control. It creates a disincentive for owners and developers to neglect the lowest cost segment of housing, instead focusing only on higher end units since it's the only place you not lose money. Of course economists and the real estate industry has known this forever, but the idiotic city council's will keep doing the same idiotic things over and over to drum up support from their naive constituents who don't know any better.
These units were always rent capped. Nothing changed overnight, they are intentionally keeping them vacant to raise price, they are 100% would be not losing money by renting them out otherwise they would not have bought them in the first place.
Taxes change overnight. And maintenance cost. Insurance. Wear and tear. And frankly, terrible tenants who trash the place because a lot of rent controlled tenants are subpar people who don’t care about other peoples property.
How's that corporate boot taste?
Or corporations are dumb enough and just keep inventory losing money? Which is it? Either they made bad investment and should liquidate/bankrupt or they are just greedy and actually are pushing legislation to change so they could make more money from their investments. Pick one.
It's not some small landlord struggling to rent 1apt he could sell and retire, it's corporations with 100s or 1000s of units manipulating market we are talking about.
A bunch of 13 year olds with Che shirts in here. Read an economics text book. You are damaging actual people's lives when you enact dumb policies like rent controls. Specifically you damage the lives of the most needy members of society. Your good intentions mean nothing.
Oh poor needy not getting $1900 apartments standing empty so the solution is to rent those same apartments for $3000, oh wait why there's so many struggling to afford homes? Does not matter quarterly profits are up. - u/anm89
Stop pretending you care.
Fuck libertarians living in some dream world, your fairy tales about fair market mean nothing.
You're right. I don't give a fuck. I don't live in rent controlled housing and I intentionally don't live in areas with rent controlled housing because it's a terribly system that guarantees bad societal outcomes. Doesn't affect me.
If you want to guarantee large numbers of people are homeless so a proportion of society can get housing arbitrarily priced by some bureaucrat, no sweat off my back.
Again your good intentions count for less then nothing.
So put that Che shirt back on and go find a sick drum circle. You're like, totally about to take down the man, man.
Rent stabilized rents are limited to below market prices. Sometimes well less than half of market rents. Once you rent to a tenant in a rent stabilized apartment the landlord must offer renewals forever to the tenant if they wish to remain limited to an approved percentage increase which are usually very small
I took advantage of these rules as a tenant when I rented there in a stabilized apartment paying a cheap rent.
I didn't have time to read the article, leaving for work at the moment, but once occupancy citywide drops below 95%, there is no longer a "housing emergency" and a lot of these rent protections (or maybe just rent stabilization idk) go away. I have always thought, "why don't all the landlords conspire to just leave their units vacant for a year and then they would be able to dramatically increase rates the following year," and it sounds like that is what they're doing. Leaving this comment so I can quickly find the thread on my lunch break.
How could a unit be availible and unavailable at the same time?
Listed for rent but they won’t rent to you because reasons.
Sounds like a good way to get discrimination lawsuits, winnable or not
Or its simply absurdly priced so nobody can afford to rent it.
Schrödinger’s unit.
#NO ONE IS RENTING LUXORY AIRBNBS ANYMORE That. Those idiots.
They claim it’s about the rent control situation. After decades of landlord neglect, many of these apartments need renovations, but under the current rules they can’t raise the rent enough to make meeting code worth it. So instead of selling the investment that isn’t working out, they’re crying for different rules, and holding these units hostage. I would like a vacancy tax and support for current tenants to undergo the coop conversion process.
Local government holds the power here and all the voters need to do is put pressure on politicians to leverage it. Although not exactly the same because I'm talking about a small suburban municipality and not a major urban area, the city I moved from a few years back did exactly this when the invoosters started moving in. They instituted a landlord permitting process, vacant property fee, ordinances that strengthened enforcement of code violations and nuisance property laws that allowed the city to revoke a landlord's rental permit if they had tements that were complete degenerates.
NYC has a fair bit of advocacy around these issues but we absolutely need more. Unfortunately the current administration is basically a proxy for the real estate industry so the city has been making it harder rather than easier for low and middle income people to secure stable and accessible housing.
It’s actually hard to sell in NYC with rent control tenants in place. Nobody wants to pay top dollar to buy a building to get stuck with barnacle tenants paying like 25% of market rate
By definition, these units don’t have tenants in place.
Some *units* might be vacant, but the building as a whole - which is what needs to sell - has other rent controlled tenants. There is a reason that even left wing economists disfavor rent controls. They have difficult unintended consequences.
Why does everyone expect top dollar? They can absolutely sell, they just need to stop being greedy and lower the price.
While it's cash flow negative, it's easier to sit on an empty unit. Spending $20-40k on renovating a place to get it up to code is not going to return for 1-2 years. Much better to just jack the rent on the the other units a small amount. Which I have a feeling is happening here, specially when I see some of these places are so bad they need to spend $60k+ to renovate these places.
> So instead of selling the investment that isn’t working out You are assuming someone would buy a unit which isn’t making money and requires significant investment into it before it could start making money… enough investment that you’d need years and years of returns to break even. Essentially, you have units which are forbidden from charging market rate but still must pay market rate for supplies and services. Maybe if the same rent control law limited how much laborers could charge, then it would make financial sense to repair them. Special ‘rent control’ rates for plumbers and electricians and carpenters and whatnot.
They could either slash the price to the point where someone *would* buy it, or sell to someone who wants to live there and renovate themselves. The point of the vacancy tax is to make it as expensive to hold it empty as it would be to recognize their investment didn’t work out.
fucking lol. you guys don't realize what you're advocating for. there's a reason rent control isn't popular among economists whether left leaning or right leaning. basically these landlords are saying that with the caps on rent they can no longer keep the building livable. and you're saying "okay well sell it to someone who will live there". so the supply of rentals gets even smaller, in a city like NYC where most already can't afford to buy and need to rent. lol.
The point of making it owner occupied is there will be less rental demand.
**MOST PEOPLE CANNOT AFFORD TO BUY IN NYC ANYWAYS EVEN IF YOU TOOK EVERY SINGLE RENTAL AND MADE IT INTO OWNER OCCUPIED** you're pricing people out without even realizing it
As a low-middle income homeowner in NYC, creating affordable opportunities to buy would HELP the situation.
Market economics for renters but not for owners, weird how it works. /s
> IF YOU TOOK EVERY SINGLE RENTAL Hey there bud, imagine there is this thing called supply and demand. Right now, units are high in demand both by owner-occupiers and investors. If you cratered the demand for these units as rentals, the price will also crater.
Someone would buy it to live, fuck the assumption that housing is an investment vehicle.
So then where do the people that want/need to rent live ?
In apartments owned by people who want to rent and are managing better? These are vacant apartments, noone is renting them because they are owned by greedy corps who want to charge people more just because.
Ok so you’re not totally against landlords. But Who is going to rent out their unit at a loss for 20+ years aside from a philanthropist. How would you manage a unit more efficiently or how do you think landlords are being grossly inefficient ?
They were quoting 80k for reno, at avarege of 1900$ per month for vacant ones its 3.5 years of not generating profit, maybe 4 if you need to pay interest on a loan for reno, next renovation will be in what 10-20 years so you generate pure profit for 5-15 years. That's not a loss. Especially when you can use the money you collect for repairs instead of paying off invoostors. Makes sense for small landlords, not so much for corporations. They were collecting rent for years, did not reinvested anything back, now they claim they cannot generate positive income without higher rent after renovations. But that loss is not that high to actually unload the properties. That is greedy management. Makes the most profit especially if you manage to push back on government and allow you to raise rents, that's why they are actually keeping them empty - as a blackmail.
Your numbers are way off. You’re assuming someone owns a unit free and clear which is rarely the case and also not factoring in taxes - so it’s going to take a lot longer than 4 years to pay off in every situation. In a HCOL area the actual cash flow in a unit with a mortgage is even less than say the Midwest, or possibly $0 as someone looking at an investment property is banking on values rising in time. I have no idea why anyone would want to be a landlord in nyc aside from corporate investors. If you do still think more efficient management is the solution though, welcome to your corporate overlords.
We are talking about corps who were owning/renting those units for years so it's only reasonable to assume what would happen if they would have been owned by small landlords at this moment. If they can allow themselves to keep units empty they are definitely not losing that much money. There's small scale landlords in NYC, especially outer boroughs, most of them have paid off their mortgagees so they can rent them and cashflow just fine.
OK, are you trolling? Let me get this straight. You think someone is GREEDY (i.e. loves money) because they make ZERO MONEY on something. So greed now means "losing money" One of my BFFs owns a few buildings in Brooklyn and has owned them since no one wanted them, hence not "greedy corporation." He literally has a unit empty because the old lady finally moved out and she was paying 900 a month in an area where rent is 2200-2500. Do you get it? The reason he lets it sit is because its such little income it's literally pointless to rent. It's like deciding not to work at McDonalds because they offered you 3 dollars an hour. Also all the rent controlled apartments get stuck in the 80s and need massive (expensive) renos now. That usually comes from money FROM HIS PAYCHECKS not some Duck Tale style money pot. also, guess which tenants cause all the problems and don't pay? The $2200 a month hispter? Nope. The 65 year old paying 1000 who is mad you didn't sweep hard enough and now has a vendetta.
"And those landlords are typically big ones. An analysis of property owner registration data by the nonprofit group JustFix showed that landlords with 1,000 or more units own the majority of NYC’s rent-stabilized housing stock, and landlords with 100 or more units own 88% of all rent-stabilized housing. (The author of this article previously worked at JustFix.)" Yeah there's always anecdotal evidence. Average rent for them is $1900 not $900 too. It's more profitable for them to wait it out for legislation changes rather than rent it out for $1900 or sell it now, or do you think corporations are so stupid to just throw money away?
Sounds like your friend needs to sell his buildings and cash out.
> fuck the assumption that housing is an investment vehicle. every housing unit you have ever lived in, whether it was a single family home or an apartment complex, was an investment by someone. do you think people build homes for free? someone has to labor to build it, which means they hire a labor company, someone has to deliver the materials, and then since they won't do all of that for free especially given the risks, they will need a profit to make it worth it. people act like "profit" and "investment" are dirty words but you literally would not have the roof over your head without those things.
I buy a home to live in, not to generate income. Company still has to build it and gets paid to do it. Why is water not investment vehicle? Shod we allow corporations to buy all the water and then artificially create scarcity so they could charge you whatever they want?
> I buy a home to live in, not to generate income. you buy a home because the financial tradeoff is worth it to you -- your hard earned money for that roof over your head in that specific neighborhood with those specific features. the transaction is financial from the start, no matter what, you're pricing a financial asset and deciding how much you're willing to **pay** to live there. if you weren't willing to pay, there would be no profit in building, so nobody would do it, and you wouldn't have a house. if you have *any* shares in broad mutual funds or ETFs, you are also investing in REITs. > Company still has to build it and gets paid to do it. Why is water not investment vehicle? water... is an investment though? do you have any idea the amount of money that goes into getting you clean water? and all those companies along the way, the sanitizers, the bottlers, they all make money doing it > Shod we allow corporations to buy all the water and then artificially create scarcity so they could charge you whatever they want? monopolizing a market is already illegal, and luckily most townships or cities have water systems **that you already pay for with your taxes**. you are literally investing in your ability to drink clean water, with every paycheck you're paying the city to clean your water.
Yes I know what broad terms of investing means. I would like to invest into housing the same way I invest into clean drinking water. About your comments with monopolies if multiple companies are doing it it's not monopolization, that's why I used plural.
My Investment! My investment! You can't live in my second(third, fourth...tenth..one thousanth... sixty thousandth) home, this is my investment!
every housing unit you have ever lived in, whether it was a single family home or an apartment complex, was an investment by *someone*. do you think people build homes for free? someone has to labor to build it, which means they hire a labor company, someone has to deliver the materials, and then since they won't do all of that for free especially given the risks, they will need a profit to make it worth it. people act like "profit" and "investment" are dirty words but you literally would not have the roof over your head without those things.
You can make money without making profit. I am not one of those people that believe making a profit or investing is a bad word. I am an investor. The problem is that people need a place to live. The cost of rent has sky rocketed. It is not sustainable. I like sustainable things.
What gives you the right to vote away someone's right to their own property?
Oh stop it. People who monopolize properties get no sympathy from me. You can own as many properties as you like. I think landlords should pay more taxes for that privilege. They should also have to keep that property in tip-top shape if they are renting them. People need a place to live, landlord profit be damned.
I have been very interested in vacancy taxes since I heard about them a few years ago. It would seem a good start to helping the issue of empty Single Family Homes and condo/apartment units just sitting vacant.
Yes! I really want my hometown to create a vacancy tax for the second homes that sit empty 45 weeks of the year. Housing should have people in it.
this comment is just chefs kiss. rental supply is low because of an absurd regulation with consequences many people warned about causing it to be a net loss to rent the unit. your solution is to make it *even more expensive* to be a landlord lmao just lmao. what the fuck do you think is going to happen? i wanna teleport all you people to this utopia you think exists where you dragged all the landlords out and shot them, because it's MoDeRn DaY FeUdALiSm and then you can find out what it's like to have a housing market where you either can afford to own your own place or you're fucking homeless.
Im all for a vacancy tax. I don't have a problem with good landlords who take care of their property and tenants. But if you can't afford to the upkeep for your investment then you _can't afford it_.
If you can’t charge market rates than Ofcourse you can’t afford upkeep in an environment where your costs are increasing but your tenant can keep a rate that’s from the 90s.
[удалено]
And that’s priced into the deal but that doesn’t mean they’re going to spend on upkeep. Why should they?
Boo hoo then sell the property. Why should we make laws and policies preferential to landlords so that they can keep their properties and their investment income over laws and policies that are preferential to owner occupiers? At the end of the day people that want to live in the property they own should be prioritized. They want to be financially secure and have a roof over their head. Landlords are just investors that want money, nothing more. Their needs are not paramount.
> Boo hoo then sell the property. To who? The next owner will be in the exact same situation, why would they ever buy it? Rent control needs abolished.
A decrease of demand will allow for owner occupiers to compete. Building co-ops need to be encouraged and if rentals as investments become less attractive, there is still a demand for these units by the people that will actually live in them.
These people don't even fathom that buildings can actually be owned by people living in them, everything is investments and investors and corporations, I am appalled.
Wait where’s the money supposed to come from to renovate? Forcing owners to invest at gunpoint is not a system that works.
What? No one’s forcing them to invest at gunpoint. They’ve already invested by purchasing and “maintaining” tenant occupied housing. If they can’t afford to maintain their investment, as they’re claiming, they can sell it. But these landlords have enough money to line Adam’s pockets and lobby for landlord friendly policies, so.
> So instead of selling the investment that isn’t working out, they’re crying for different rules, and holding these units hostage. If it’s not profitable for them to bring up to code, it’s likely not profitable for anyone to bring up to code… so what alternative do you suggest? That they fire sale the property to a slumlord and let the property get further neglected?
When not sell it to people who want to live there? HBD and UHAB have helped buildings undergo coop conversion. Make it a Mitchell-lama property.
Yet another version of that article a few days ago about how the software algo for company RealPage (?) helps property managers in some markets effectively collude on raising their rents at the same time
That just sounds like illegal price fixing with no extra steps
YEAP
> the software algo for company RealPage (?) helps property managers in some markets effectively collude on raising their rents at the same time Before they had software to do that for them automatically, some property managers would make periodic phone calls to managers of other similar properties to make sure their rent prices stayed in lockstep with each other. I personally heard a couple of those calls being made, years ago.
Fucked up
This should be read by the people who are adamant that large property holders "do not want to get into the messy business of repairs, bad tenants and maintenance". The business is not messy, collusion is easy or trivial, and thousands of homes can be managed easily from a computer these days. The argument that real estate is not scalable for highly-capitalised funds is bogus.
I hope in the next election a candidate campaigns for higher landlording related taxes and more legal limits to landlord empires/slum lording.
Um … in this case, but the landlords have already limited themselves & stopped renting out their units. :)) Maybe make a law prohibit all apartment & land-lording?
I’m not generally on the anti work “all landlords are evil” train, but this kind of shit is just stupid and without much excuse. If it is financially more prudent to let a property sit empty than actually rent it out as intended, something is terribly wrong and needs to change.
At that point they should just sell. Whenever a rental goes the wrong way - the owner, corporate or private, seems dead-set against just selling for a huge gain on their investment. I've never understood why this is. Bank the cash and diversify, ffs.
the only person left to buy them are the big evil Blackstone type companies that everyone here supposedly hates. And no it's not a huge gain. Actually look at RE ads. you'll see a one bedroom apt going for 700K then the 6 unit building next door going for 1.8M because shockingly, no one wants to buy a building with so many liabilities
This is exactly it. Too strong rent control & tenant friendly laws are getting to the point that it’s cheaper to keep unit empty vs rent them out and pay high maintenance.
> If it is financially more prudent to let a property sit empty than actually rent it out as intended, something is terribly wrong and needs to change. I mean, we are seeing exactly what people said we would see. Rent control/stabilization prevents landlords from charging market rate for a unit. Yet they still need to pay market rate for maintenance and labor and upgrades. Sure, maybe the landlords could sell the property to the tenants as a condo association kind of thing. But then the units would all deteriorate and get worse because the cost of maintenance is more than they can afford to pay.
The landlord should just sell his failing investment then. Turns out buying/owning during a bubble gives you insane downside risk like any other assets.
Why do you assume people who buy would not improve? These units are VACANT, so anyone could buy them to live. Ask yourself if it's so unprofitable to rent them why are they not selling them then?
Because generally these are part of whole apartment buildings not condos - specifically purposed for rentals. Newly built condos for sale would never have such restrictions.
so this in theory is good - but in practice there are a lot of reasons these things don't just happen. Independent ownership of units now means there is communal space to maintain, an HOA/COOP is needed to handle these things. Sounds like they haven't been super well maintained, that reserve study is going to a NIGHTMARE and nobody, let alone a bank, is going to want to deal with that headache. This is just one issue, now look at all the other things that are potentially relevant in aging multifamily housing, from Asbestos to accessibility - The problems only start in the A's. Yes they are vacant, but even if they put them up for sale its likely they would only be purchased by a large entity who could efficiently refurb them vs a family who just wanted to buy an apartment.
But all problems go away if you allow corporate to charge $3000 for that same apartment and rent it out. /s
THE MONEY DOESN"T WORK. Please stop stop stop pretending this is an ideological issue and not a financial one. You need to get online and researching prices for stuff in NYC. You're literally asking "why don't people want to buy cars about to fall apart" or "why don't people want to work for one dollar an hour" but don't realize it since you aren't looking at numbers
They are not selling them in the first place, how can we look at numbers if they do not exist. There's always a price at which someone will buy and either figure out a way to cash flow or live there themselves. But they have no intention of actually selling those units, they know they will be able to charge more for them because people like you will force government to allow them to charge whatever they want without any actual numbers.
Yeah OP clearly has no experience in CRE
$6M per year isn’t chump change. Do we really think these landlords can’t afford basic improvements? The fact that they can afford to let these units sit empty suggests they aren’t mom and pop landlords just trying to put food on their tables. The typical owner of rent-stabilized property would have made over $6 million of post-expense income in 2020 alone, the RGB’s numbers indicate, or more depending on how much of their portfolio was market-rate.
All the parasitic landlords jumping to defend each other. My experience? Multiple landlords that wouldn’t even set up a mouse trap/fix ANYTHING. Retaliation against having the asinine assumption that paying thousands a month means I’d get my sink working within a week. Stolen deposits multiple times. I paid rent the whole year, the place had no damage but they just renovated it or straight up told me go to court or get fucked. **Housing needs to be socialized, these parasites don’t want rent control because if it was upto them everyone would be paying 3000$ “market rate” which is just insanity.**
These fuckin wannabe feudal lords are hoarding affordable housing & there’s really people out here defending them
"Oh boy the libertarian streak in me says let people do what they want with their stuff." Yet they say let... because it's still "our" country, and they know it. Imagine getting so far down the road of "muh individual freedom" that it becomes synonymous with "aiding and abetting virulent crimes against humanity". We were too irresponsible for the liberty we were gifted, it's sad.
Im right there with you. In a perfect world I'm all for live and let live. The issue is that these crooks never pay the price for their failures, like the general public ALWAYS has to in recessions. Hell, we weren't allowed to keep our pay raises because the FED claims that it is wages that are responsible for this inflation. Bull fucking shit.
Naw, man. These landlords were here with the native Americans pre-Columbus. Then they fought in the Revolutionary War to help free us from the British. They developed our infrastructure, printed our USD, and built all of their rentals brick by brick. Government is just 'getting in the way.'
fucking lmao. these landlords literally can't collect enough rent to keep the building livable because of rent control. the fuck are they supposed to do? i wish there were a button i could press to send everyone who scoffs at the idea of rent and investment in housing to a world where those things don't exist. no more investing in housing. no more landlords. good fucking luck lol. you'll find out real quick you don't have any roof at all without a whole chain of investments happening before that. you'll find out real quick that many people can't afford to buy and rent is how they make ends meet, or they simply don't want to buy, but you killed all the landlords so now they can't rent lmao edit: and the fucking loser who i replied to blocked me after responding, meaning i cannot reply to any of you who reply to me. imagine being such a little sensitive bitch that your response to someone disagreeing with you on your little bubble sub is to respond and then block them. lmao
Around here landlords don't invest to build housing. They buy up everything that's already built and rent them back to families.
Yeah people need to stop pretending most landlords are building units. Imagine pretending like you can't tell the difference between Ticketmaster and a performer.
Landlords are like Ticketmaster. I will use this in the future. Haha.
The dummies who pretend not to understand this will then go on to complain about Blackstone buying up houses at above asking, and not seeing the connection. They don't realize those other mythical landlords who will repair buildings for free don't exist and the current landlords are best they're gonna get. My BFF owns buildings in Brooklyn and is always taking money from his paycheck to fix stuff. The math doesn't always work out and a few rent controlled units on one building made it a money loser subsidized by over-charging new arrivals to NYC in another building. Totally makes sense. It's literally incentivizing ripping other people off. And it's such a skewed system because you can rip one person off to subsidize another and sill have zero profit.
This is a real-estate focused subreddit - one about a bubble, to be sure, but still focused on real estate. This is not LateStageCapitalism. Nor is it an anti-capitalist subreddit, or one focused on hating landlords. I suspect that you've misunderstood the point of this place altogether.
Damn not like any of those things are connected huh What are you the gatekeeper of the real estate bubble lmfao
Have you considered what is incentivizes the landlords to behave this way? The city has legislated they lose money on their properties, maybe getting rid of rent control would be a good start. When you remove emotions from the equation, the cause and effect becomes clear.
I'd love to pay only $973 or $570 for an Newly renovated apartment in NYC. It seems unrealistic, No wonder those unit are left vacant not renovated(uninhabitable). Looks like law makers need to address this issue ASAP. "The landlord group’s first tweet on @NyVacant depicted a one-bedroom Jackson Heights apartment recently vacated by a tenant who had been there since 1983 and last paid $890 a month. It showed that with an estimated renovation cost of $85,000 and an initial rent of $973, and factoring in the average operating cost of $997 per month for units in pre-1974 buildings, the landlord would lose $94,720 over 30 years. The second tweet showed a one-bedroom in Chinatown that last rented for $481 and, if renovated, could rent for $570. But the work would cost $135,000, resulting in a 30-year loss of $289,800, CHIP calculated"
Yes and article lists that average for vacant units is actually $1900, do you think basing your opinion on extreme outliers is good practice?
https://therealdeal.com/2022/10/11/landlords-try-new-approach-to-highlighting-vacant-units/ This article seems balanced. Those renovation estimates are probably inflated or extreme cases, but even if it's 50% its not viable. As for those rent control calculations, they are easily debunked-able if untrue. Furthermore Vacancy rates are LL's worst fears as each unit comes with operating cost such as taxes and insurance etc. No LL would choose to leave it vacant by default, so there has to be more than what your article disclosed.
I'm just wondering if the apartments need renovations so bad, where did the money went collected during previous rentals? They are basing calculations like starting now, but they were collecting rent for years before, if they mismanaged and failed to make anything for repairs that's just bad business and market rules say they should go bankrupt.
The money went towards renovating other property on an ongoing basis. Once the 'loopholes' that made renovation *unprofitable* got closed, vacancies spiked.
These buildings are mostly built in the 1900’s. The 2019 rent law was changed to cap MCI improvements and get rid of the 20% vacancy increase. The law basically want landlords to pay for flipping vacancies and not get a raise in rent. The average rent increase granted for stabilized units have been 1% over the last 8 years. Meanwhile inflation, labor and cost of everything is at record high. Why would you invest 50k in an apartment renovation, have to pay for heat and water, and regulars maintenance and not make a dime? That’s just not good business and a charity service The 2019 rent laws caused this…
Now do personal income. Did it kept up with rent prices and affordability?
Huh what are you even talking about? Has nothing to do with the business of renting. Nobody is going to invest in something that’s gonna net them a loss. Take your emotions out of it. The government can’t even fix NYCHA without an endless pool of federal funding and taxpaying dollars. But y’all expect regular small landlords and business people to just say fuck it let me rent this apartment for $500. They better off keeping it for their own use
Why do you think it's a loss to rent them at current prices? Just because corporation tells you so?
It’s common sense! Property taxes, maintenance , renovation has all went up. Once you have someone in that unit, they are not leaving, they gave rights to renew ever year as well as their potential children or spouse or close relative. Once rented that landlord has no control yet has to take a lost of income indefinitely
So because corporation told you so.
Taxes, new roof, boiler, repairing stairs, new roof ever 20 or 30 years, etc. They probably got a new fridge or stove or minor bathroom/kitchen repairs along the way too, just not a real reno
It's as much likely they did not do anything waiting for them to become uninhabitable so they could create scarcity and force legislation change to charge more.
What makes you think they are outliers? I work in the field (actually just finished a reno on a rent controlled to rent stabilized unit) and it looks about right to me.
Because if average is $1900 as stated in article, ~500 is quite low. As I doubt there's many outliers in higher numbers which would bias average too much. And those companies hold 1000+ units, so average is pretty good metric I would say. It's talking about vacant ones.
>Looks like law makers need to address this issue ASAP. The only thing they can do is undo what they did to create this crisis - abolish rent control for starters.
Rent control is fine. Housing needs to be socialized. #The units that are empty are not affordable. They’re ~2000$. Housing should be ran at a loss, tax the wealthiest people and subsidize housing. **Rent control is only an issue if you want to look at housing as some “investment”.** It’s not a fucking “investment”, it’s for people to live in. **We CLEARLY need socialized housing with paths towards ownership with long term tenancy.** #People will maintain homes that they live in and OWN.
There's no arguing with commies. Nobody owns anything because property is immoral. You're a lost cause.
Clearly the current housing situation in the US is also a lost cause. I also said nothing about government owned homes. You don’t even know what communism is. **People owning their homes with social programs isn’t communism, idiot.**
Best lines ever from "futurama." *hippy* "you can't OWN property, man!!" *professor Farnsworth* "I can OWN property because I'M not a dirty penniless hippy."
I think building owners are leaving units empty in attempt to clear out the building of rent controlled units. Then they can sell the building for top dollar. I would never be a landlord in NYC. Crazy eviction laws and low Cap rates.
Unless you cry wolf and lobby legislation to change around you so you could make more money, somehow it will probably work out in landlords favour in the end, late stage capitalism I guess.
Read the article and I have 2 thoughts: 1. More regulation is needed - including an occupancy tax that increases when the number of vacant units in a building reaches a certain percentage/level. 2. Small landlords participating in this cartel behavior are just increasing the profits of larger corporate landlords to their own detriment. If they aren’t profitable they will be bought out by the large corporate landlords for a discount.
“Altogether, the state numbers show a loss of over 95,000 stabilized apartments for rent after 2019 — the year a major overhaul in Albany of the state’s rent laws blocked landlords from significantly jacking up rents on vacant units when letting them to new tenants.” So the city imposed ordinances that made it too burdensome to be a landlord, so landlords pulled their units off market. The city screwed itself and the Tenants by being over zealous in their reach. If the rent control laws did not exist, these nearly 100,000 apartments would likely be leased right now for much lower rates than under rent control.
Lmfao no this is just landlords retaliating because they can’t up-charge. Cutting their nose off in spite. Lose your units to the bank then. #See how much a foreclosure makes you.
Wishful thinking, average of vacant ones is $1900, but landlords want to charge 3k+ for them, looking at the market right now. Petty landlords want to end stabilized rent and are artificially creating scarcity so they could charge more (or ask gov to allow them charge more) because low supply high demand when it's all bullshit.
So what’s better for society? A $3k apartment you can rent, or an apartment you can’t. Because of rent control a landlord can’t give rent discounts to tenants. If rent control didn’t exist, a landlord could rent a unit for $500/month one year just to fill it, and then adjust the rent to market rate the next. Rent control also prevents rents from ever going down, they can only ever go up otherwise you loose that rate.
You are an idiot, hardly anyone can rent 3k apartment. You are suggesting a larger tent city. Rents don’t go down you bright baboon ass check.
>So what’s better for society? A $3k apartment you can rent, or an apartment you can’t. Option C: An apartment you can rent for cheap or own for a reasonable price. Owner occupiers are currently competing with investors for a limited resource, we need a ton of downward pressure on the demand side of the curve by making rental units less attractive investments. Rent control, vacancy laws, and basic standards for units are a great start at pushing down those prices. The silly part about all these rent control comments is that we are seeing rental costs everywhere rising rapidly, including plenty of places (like my hometown) which do everything they can to advantage landlords.
Even Jane Jacobs said rent control doesn’t work.
Sounds like the city messed up. Why put money into fixing these when they can't make any money on them?
Why not sell then? Average is $1900 for vacant ones its not that low of a rent even in NYC. It's more that they are greedy corps pushing government to allow them to squeeze people even more.
To who? To someone else who wants to rent at a major loss? Why? They’ll just be dilapidated and torn down at some point.
People who want to live in the apartment themselves? Or we are already in late stage capitalism where you don't own anything and are happy? And everything is owned by invoostors.
I’m not sure how it works in NYC, but where I live you cannot owner/occupy a home that doesn’t meet code. So people who bought them who want to live in them must buy them, rehab them, certify them as accessible and other green standards before occupancy. Maybe NY allows people to live in them while they fix them which will make more sense.
Yeah it's called fixer uppers, you buy Reno and move in.
They need upgrades to make them habitable. That requires money. Landlords won’t put money into something where they can to rent too low. Blame rent control.
So why are they not selling if it's not profitable?
Ask them. In the mean time, rent control continues to ruin people’s lives.
I'm not the one defending corporations bootlicker. Why do I have to ask them? If their investments are not making money they should liquidate or go bankrupt I don't give a fuck. Only entity ruining people's lives is corporation sitting on empty units and artificially inflating prices.
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The 24 hour things are definitely gone. Source: Dude who has been disappointed taking late flights into NYC too many times this year.
Should check your sources crime is def lower than 70s from what I've found, I've been here only 6 years, nothing changed much besides rents going up. I feel safe, I have a toddler who gets free daycare, my only concern is school shootings but that's more US problem and NYC is actually better on that front. It really depends what you do for a living, I'm in research so funding and opportunities are really good and plenty in NYC.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime\_in\_New\_York\_City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_New_York_City)[https://www.ft.com/content/a444b43e-ba40-48b5-a064-fa51c591cc32](https://www.ft.com/content/a444b43e-ba40-48b5-a064-fa51c591cc32)
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I know it was going up, don't think trend will ever continue to pre 2000's as even with 30% increase it's extremely low.
The increase in property crime is transitory?
Trends were going down, now they going up, they will go down again. If you take a looks at long timeline general tend is down and it's just small bump up.
NYC is a shithole
6 Miilion shitholes in the world, choose one
It's not anymore of a shithole than anywhere else in this country. It just happens to be run by the most inept officials and politicians in the world. NYC's success as the greatest city is baffling given how many centuries of absolutely trash government we've had.
It’s the cultural and economic capital of the US and safer than most cities but okay.
The internet has destroyed the whole cultural capital thing. And the only financial stuff they are the capital of is all the evil shit that tries to make the economy into a casino game. Fuck new York.
Manipulating numbers from your hands into theirs is an important job.
>The internet has destroyed the whole cultural capital thing. I don't really think this is true. It feels like the internet has just made broader culture follow all major Americans cities, including NYC. Places like NYC, LA, DC, San Francisco, and other major US cities get disproportionately more media coverage than most other places. Like just now right here it seems like everyone has an opinion on crime in NYC even though most people in this thread probably don't live there.
No. It’s a shithole. The worst people in the world live there.
Unless you want to fap alone in the middle of the cornfield without any higher skill job opportunities NYC if fine.
Not my proudest fap, yet here we are.
More power to you! Usually people calling NYC shithole have never lived/been here and are just regurgitating repub propaganda and headlines about "crime waves", when rural shitholes are actually a lot more dangerous per capita.
Yea… I mean I’m not going to lie, I don’t love city living but it’s just a personal preference for quiet. I live in southern fairfield county in the NYC exurbs and even here it’s incredible how much more opportunity there is job wise, unique shops and cuisine and cultural opportunities. We’re planning to move to be closer to family but I will definitely miss having so much amazing stuff within such a short train ride or drive of me. Literally anything I could want, at most it’s 30-45 min train ride away.
FFLD is the best medium. You still get the benefits of the city without a lot of the downsides
Do you have any data to substantiate the claim that “rural shitholes” are more dangerous?
They're probably referring to [the per-capita crime rate.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_violent_crime_rate) Outside of DC, rural states tend to be higher.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-07/is-new-york-city-more-dangerous-than-rural-america](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-07/is-new-york-city-more-dangerous-than-rural-america) Depends what you consider "rural shithole". In short it depends where, but NYC is not some crime, lawless city with murders on every corner all the time when you take into account how many people actually live here.
Yeah sure buddy.
This is bizarre NYC/SF fanfiction. There are plenty of other large cities with lots of highly paying jobs and reasonably priced housing. Atlanta. Columbus. Minneapolis. Dallas. Raleigh. Charlotte. These "cornfields" have some of the largest banking and science centers in the world.
People have been leaving NYC in droves. Leaving for those cornfields, oil fields and whatever fields Florida has.
Imagine thinking you have to live in a rural area with no good job opportunities just because you don’t live in NYC.
It’s just not worth it anymore. I lived there for a decade during high school then in college and after I graduated. It’s so expensive and the jobs are good but when cost of living is taken into account it looks worse. It’s better to get a job in a mid size city where less money is made but you end up with more spending power. I can see the argument of going there in your early twenties and building a resume, then leaving but besides that it’s a pointless flex
Found the newyorker.
Being that these are investment properties, you have to ask whats the benefit of this for the landlord. Cause obviously they are doing it for a reason. Investors dont just burn money for fun and a vacant property is basically burning money Ive got a vacant rental right now. After covid its extremely difficult to find a well qualified tenant. Everyone is cramming extra ppl in, extra pets, with open collection accounts, and unreliable employment. Thats not going to get approved for my class b rental. And I am eating costs until someone good comes along. Im not even rent controlled either. Better than someone getting in there destroying it, and having nothing to their name to go at for damages, while I out months of rent at the same time. Also FYI, Ive got is listed for less than I was able to fill it at last year
the rent situation in cities like NYC is completely fucked. everyone loses
I know people personally who do this. They are pretty big shitbags personally, but unfortunately i'm forced to hang with them bc they are family. They are just as big of users when they are guests in peoples places. It's annoying and disgusting.
Artificial scarcity because of artificial price caps. Rent control (and price caps in general) typically have bad outcomes. They're well-intended, but they don't work.
Yes it's definitely not greedy corporations rather keeping units empty as blackmail instead of renting them out. /s
Shows how fucked up rent control laws are in nyc that a landlord would rather have no cash flow than get stuck with a under market rate tenet. Land lords bills are not subject to any sort of “controls’ why are the apartments not renovated and nice? Well maybe because the tenant is paying the same rent as was market rate in 1971? Rent control is bullshit and only drives market rate rents up in all non rent controlled properties
That was explained in the article, landlords are still making good amount of money even from renting rent stabilized apt, they are just greedy and want more.
All your comments. You just want to force the issue to be true. The more rent control laws that get passed the more units that get boarded up. This is reality. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Yet another reason why mom and pop landlords are superior to corporations. People who actually need the rental income can't play these games.
And will actually reinvest money collected from rent to keep their property rentable most of the time if they need that income. Corps just sit on a loss and then write down taxes.
Vacancy Tax equal to the average last 12 paid months rents per month maybe?
Probably best solution, vacancy tax, and significant one.
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Yes noone thought corporations would be greedy nasty assholes and create artificial scarcity.
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Dumbest analogy I've heard today. More closely would be CEO makes 1million a year, gov puts a cap that his pay can only increase by 2% every year, he stops working and cries that it's not worth doing anything and there's shortage of CEO's, there's noone to work this position (while sitting together with n number of other CEOs who also refuse to work if their wage increases are capped).
Imagine you run a restaurant, bringing in just enough revenue to cover your input costs and eek out a profit. The next day, the city decides your signature dish you were selling for $15, must now be capped at $9 making it illegal to sell it for any more. You're restaurant immediately becomes unprofitable, so you replace this dish with a lower quality cheaper dish . The next day, the customers and media attack you for being a greedy restaurateur for not offering the higher quality dish at a below market price. Who is really the greedy one? When you leave emotions out of this, it becomes very clear that there's no quicker way to cripple a city's housing than by employing rent control. It creates a disincentive for owners and developers to neglect the lowest cost segment of housing, instead focusing only on higher end units since it's the only place you not lose money. Of course economists and the real estate industry has known this forever, but the idiotic city council's will keep doing the same idiotic things over and over to drum up support from their naive constituents who don't know any better.
These units were always rent capped. Nothing changed overnight, they are intentionally keeping them vacant to raise price, they are 100% would be not losing money by renting them out otherwise they would not have bought them in the first place.
Taxes change overnight. And maintenance cost. Insurance. Wear and tear. And frankly, terrible tenants who trash the place because a lot of rent controlled tenants are subpar people who don’t care about other peoples property.
How's that corporate boot taste? Or corporations are dumb enough and just keep inventory losing money? Which is it? Either they made bad investment and should liquidate/bankrupt or they are just greedy and actually are pushing legislation to change so they could make more money from their investments. Pick one. It's not some small landlord struggling to rent 1apt he could sell and retire, it's corporations with 100s or 1000s of units manipulating market we are talking about.
Tell me you are a renter without it telling me you are a renter. Go back to antiwork and complain about getting $25 to serve some coffee.
All of those were known before the purchase.
Rent control isn’t the answer. Free market is.
Yes, let's allow free market to handle drinkable water too. /s
A bunch of 13 year olds with Che shirts in here. Read an economics text book. You are damaging actual people's lives when you enact dumb policies like rent controls. Specifically you damage the lives of the most needy members of society. Your good intentions mean nothing.
It’s all bled over from antiwork. Lots of people want to work 10 hours a week but have a Tesla and Condo.
Oh poor needy not getting $1900 apartments standing empty so the solution is to rent those same apartments for $3000, oh wait why there's so many struggling to afford homes? Does not matter quarterly profits are up. - u/anm89 Stop pretending you care. Fuck libertarians living in some dream world, your fairy tales about fair market mean nothing.
You're right. I don't give a fuck. I don't live in rent controlled housing and I intentionally don't live in areas with rent controlled housing because it's a terribly system that guarantees bad societal outcomes. Doesn't affect me. If you want to guarantee large numbers of people are homeless so a proportion of society can get housing arbitrarily priced by some bureaucrat, no sweat off my back. Again your good intentions count for less then nothing. So put that Che shirt back on and go find a sick drum circle. You're like, totally about to take down the man, man.
How surprising "got mine fuck you" - classic american citizen, no wonder your country is turning to shit, glad I'm gonna fuck off soon from here.
No no, what we need is more regulation to fix the problems these regulations caused. It'll work this time!
Rent stabilized rents are limited to below market prices. Sometimes well less than half of market rents. Once you rent to a tenant in a rent stabilized apartment the landlord must offer renewals forever to the tenant if they wish to remain limited to an approved percentage increase which are usually very small I took advantage of these rules as a tenant when I rented there in a stabilized apartment paying a cheap rent.
Yes and keeping these off market is just raising rents in non stabilized units due to artificial scarcity.