New York City Rent Control Debate

I think rent control is a very, very good thing - especially given what we've been discussing on other threads about people's subletting spiraling out of control cost-wise

There are apartments that are rent controlled. But not many. The list is dwindling down.

I know of an editor who lives in a rent controlled apartment in Chelsea, she often says she plans to bequeath it to her niece. Is that even possible the transfer of a rent controled tenancy to a relative? Would think the lease would terminate if she happened to kick the bucket...

@uptowngirl from NYC Rent Guidelines FAQ:

My mother passed away - can I continue to live in her controlled apartment?

Under the rent control rules, you could take over or "succeed" to the apartment only if you had lived with your mother for the two year period immediately preceding her passing or departure from the apartment, or, if you are a senior citizen or are disabled, you only had to have lived with your mother for one year. For more information, see the fact sheet on succession on this web site.

Succession rights are also discussed in the Succession Rights FAQ's.

And here are the Succession Rights FAQs: http://www.housingnyc.com/html/resources/faq/succession.html

The list of rent controlled apartments is going to continue dwindling down - I say, if it's driving up rents for the rest of us, they should be banished.

I spent a good while reading the article and the comments below. What I still don't really compute is how the existence of a few rent controlled apartments can possibly drive prices higher for everyone else. . Doesn't cause and effect work the other way around? i.e. prices are so high for rent that rent control is instituted to at least try to offer an affordable alternative? Of the several interesting comments, this one seemed to boil it down to the central issue, in my opinion:

"There is a bit of a social policy problem involved: if you buy a house and it appreciates over the course of your lifetime, you get rich and retire happily; if you rent and your building appreciates over the course of your lifetime, you become poor and have to move out. It might be nice to find a system that compromises between these extremes."

@uptowngirl Tell her niece to move in two years before she feels her own bucket-kicking coming on.

@Uraniumfish: How can a tenant become poor and have to move out, even when the property appreciates? If the tenant has the money to pay the rent, he can stay there as long as he wants, unless of course the landlord chooses to end the lease for some reason.

@Never Sleeps thanks for the information. Bet the said editor already knows the rules and since she is only in her mid-50's has quite a while to plan her niece's stay with her though the apartment in question is a tiny studio filled with books and other stuff. can't imagine two people living there but then maybe she will install a Murphy bed or find some other ingenious way to accommodate her niece.

If the niece is there once a week and has all of her mail sent to the aunt's apartment, then who's to say that she doesn't technically live there. I feel that's an easy one to fool on. Lucky niece.

My thoughts exactly, JenMac.

@JenMac and @Uraniumfish really?? its that simple? I think currently the niece is at school in California perhaps she will need to relocate to NYC.

@hhusted No, the idea is this: as a renter, the more your building appreciates in value over time, the higher your rent will be. So over time you become "poor" because you might not be able to afford your rent any more. We all know of a lot of places that have been priced out of the neighborhoods they helped make famous. For example, CBGB's. This happens all the time: people move into a lousy neighborhood and invest their time and work and money in it, only to see the neighborhood turn around and be subsequently priced out of it. Look at what the Lower East Side is now. Do you think any of the low-income families who lived there when it was at its worst could ever afford today's rents?

I'm for some form of rent stabilization in principle, though I think New York's system is complicated and often ineffective. My guess is a lot of the hostility toward rent stabilization is similar to the hostility toward welfare and social programs. It's perceived as a few undeserving people getting something for nothing. But there should be a system that reward people for investing years of their lives in a neighborhood, and for helping shape it. Although the current system is bad, I do think something should be in place that helps preserve the integrity of neighborhoods.

New York City should be a place where middle class people want to live, not a free-for-all for real estate speculators.

So do rent controlled apartments really drive prices upward? Why does that seem so hard to believe?

@JenMac @Uraniumfish @uptowngirl I concur on just having her mail sent to her aunt's apartment - I was going to suggest it myself, but you beat me to it.

On second thought, I am having a tough time coming to terms with the fact that rent controlled apartments drive other prices upward... We need an economist up in here.

That's a really, really good point, @Dblack, about wanting to reward renters for investing in a community. I never thought about it that way! It's a convincing argument

It is unfortunate that NYC seems to be in favor of rich developers and landlords than for tenants. This seems obvious by the way the rents keep going up. DBlack, you mentioned about middle-class people. This city is developing in such a way that there is no middle-class. It is either going to be upper-class or poverty. No in between. So basically, those living on a certain wage are screwed.

Since I am a full time writer, and I have connections with the city, I asked the city comptroller, John Liu about the city and the level of income here. His assistant contacted me and stated that the city of NY, if it doesn't change its policies regarding housing, the only people that will be left here are the very rich and the very poor.

That is sad fact indeed. In fact, according to the numbers, 20,000 people leave the city every year, while only about 2,000 to 5,000 people move in. That number does vary, but you get the idea. Basically, NYC is being built and marketed as for the rich and very rich and for no one else.

Something's in the process of changing now, with the market being so deflated, and no one can really predict what the changes will bring about in the next few years.

Yes, DBlack. Changes have to be made if this city is going to survive.

I've heard the newly-built properties that are now unsold will also soon be on the rental market, so I'm curious how that's going to pan out in relation to the apartments that are already on the market.

@Uraniumfish As am I. Though it seems to be the trend - at least among my social circle - to want an apartment that is charmingly "New York," rather than one of those all-glass-and-marble luxury condom numbers. And I think I personally like the brownstone walk-up aesthetic over those new glass buildings that are popping up everywhere.

I'm not keen on the personality-free glass numbers either. Perhaps one of the few places I would actually consider living in of that type is One Hampton Place. But only for the thrill of the heights and the prestige of the building itself. The apartments proper are rather standard, in my opinion, but the building is lovely in its own way.

@Never Sleeps and Uraniumfish I so agree with you.. I find those glass towers so lacking in character.. my ultimate dream though is to own a brownstone equipped with an elevator.. that shall spur me on the play the lottery every week and dream away...

So what would be the perfect apartment? Obviously it's not one of those luxury condos that they keep building even if no one is buying....

@NeverSleeps Good question. For me? One of the lofts in Tribecca, SoHo, or even as far up as Great Jones Street would do me just fine.

I can't stand (although they're rather affordable) the Yorkville super-modern condos. They've got great amenities - sleek lobbies, huge windows, gyms, but very little soul...

@ajadedidealist affordable? ?sale properties in buildings like the Georgica in Yorkville which is one of those new condos are well over a million dollars while rents are $5000 upwards...do you know the relatively new building of the area the sleek, modern edifice called 170 East End which overlooks Carl Shurz park .. its even more expensive and apparently mainly occupied by the most successful realtors in the city!!!

I'm not sure I would like to move into an all window building. This would mean putting up curtains to keep people from looking in, unless I happen to find an apartment on a floor that is past the 60th. And then, I would be hesitant to move into any apartment that is above even 10 floors. What if a fire broke out, or a hurricane hit, or there was an earthquake. Being that high up, I'd be a goner. Ever since I saw the movie "The Towering Inferno," I have been very sheepish about living in a high rise.

Although I'm not crazy about the cold design of those floor-to-ceiling windowed apartments, something about them appeals to the exhibitionist in me.

Man, these responses are really painful to read. It is an economic fact that rent control creates two housing markets, the market for rent-controlled apartments, and the market for all the other apartments. The rent-controlled apartments are obviously going to fill up before the other apartments because they're cheaper. Of course, the people who aren't lucky enough to get the rent-controlled apartments have to leave that market and go to the other; demand is greater than supply: this is what economists call a "market shortage". The problem with market shortages is that it's nearly impossible to control how the good (in this case rent-controlled apartments) are rationed. In other words, there is no way to assure that the middle-class school teacher gets the apartment over the dude who works on Wall Street and makes a million dollars, especially when these apartments can be bequeathed to relatives. Furthermore, all the apartments in the rent controlled market are subtracted from the regular market. Again, simple economics 101, when the supply of apartments decreases, prices go up and, in the case of New York City apartments, they've gone up A LOT all because of the disease that is rent control.

Find me one economist who thinks rent control is a good idea; I dare you to try.