Stuy Town updates

@Uraniumfish wow a fascinating read also read recently that the rents have been rolled back for 6 months starting Jan 1st 2010.
http://gothamist.com/2009/12/15/stuyvesant_town_peter_cooper_villag.php

Amazing! And the numbers on those rent hikes they were planning!

Thanks for the post, Uraniumfish. The website helps us keep track of what is going on in the area of Stuyvesant Town.

It so rarely happens that the behemoth moneybags don't get their way, and the little guy does...Sadly, the end of the article mentions that a big chunk of the Stuy Town apartments are slated to be de-regulated anyway in the next ten years, so luxury development is still on the horizon. The current tenants are safe only for a few years more...

That is sad that tenants have to be affected by the greed of developers. But there is strenth in numbers, so it seems the tenants should be able to band together and see if they can stop any development from happening. This way they can stay in their apartments until they either die or move out on their own.

Agreed, @hhusted - in NYC with these things, a big stink/media attention/solidarity really is the way to go. You can screw one tenant, but it's hard to screw a hundred...

They did band together, as per uptowngirl's article, and did manage to get their rents rolled back. So a group effort does work sometimes...

I have found in my days in NYC, that I have heard a few instances where a group of people banded together to fight an injustice and won. They put so much pressure on that eventually, the instigators had no choice but give up.

Here's some more reading material for your pleasure/disgust: http://stuytownreport.blogspot.com/

This sentence in particular from the post about pets was precious:

"Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living."

Ha. I can't really blame the blogger for not being a fan of lazy pet owners - of all the neighborhoods I've lived in in this city, the East Village was the worst when it came to dog mess all over the sidewalks. Those rich old people just didn''t clean up after their animals - and they all seem to have one. Maybe Stuy Town has similar residents.

@BroadwayBK dog poop I think doesn't have any boundaries in this city its all over the place!

@Uraniumfish can you imagine the hulabaloo it would create if the idea actually took hold? but stop dont they eat dog meat in Korea? actually wikipedia throws up some interesting information about the consumption of dog meat in various countries-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat

@uptowngirl This is true; I still maintain that it piles up in neighborhoods full of old ladies. :)

@uptowngirl Ha ha I'm imagining the outraged dog lovers you'ved just incensed with that article...

ahhh @uptowngirl! As a puppy and dog-lover, I want to cuddle every puppy I see after reading that link...

I see dog poop in many places around in my neighborhood. I guess whoever is walking the dog is either too lazy to pick it up, or just doesn't care. Maybe if a cop was around and gave them tickets that situation would change.

Here's another update about the foreclosure situation at Stuyvesant Town
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/nyregion/16stuytown.html

@ajadediealist I love dogs myself and don't think I could every bring myself to willingly eat a pooch but several people around the world have different ideas/tastes.

Yes, uptowngirl. In Japan, if I am not mistaken, they eat cats. How can someone eat such a cute furry little thing like a cat.

How did the conversation take such a turn?!

@BroadwayBk it was that blog post you posted that mentioned the book-Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living. :)

@uptowngirl I did it to myself! Ha, I'd completely forgotten about that.

It seems incredible that Stuy Town is on the verge of foreclosure - how did it come to this?

@NeverSleeps Greed, greed, and greed. How else?

I think the current residents will be more or less okay, though.

@Uraniumfish greed and the great NYC hype.. hype this, hype that and just pray that the hype will ring true not so in this case the owners couldn't easily convert the rent control apartments into market rent dwellings as they had planned to.

I get that, @uptowngirl - but it doesn't mean I don't have a visceral reaction. Then again, rats are supposed to have the emotional sensitivity of dogs, and I don't cuddle them...ditto intelligent pigs...

Those buildings are so ugly and depressing. I have trouble associating them in my mind with the word luxury. Anyone else agree? No matter what amenities they offer inside, they're still big, ugly, big and more ugly!

Yeah, if I was in luxury apt buying mode, I don't think I would begin my search at Stuy Town.

@NeverSleeps: Foreclosures result when homeowners do not have the money to pay the mortgage and they get behind several payments. Soon the bank takes over the property. If there are tenants involved, they suffer.

Are we talking about the same topic, hhusted? I mean, we were talking about Stuy Town, right? The reasons for the big default? It's in the article up at top.

@DBlack actually when I first moved here I thought the Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village were part of the 'projects'.

@Uraniumfish: The default occurred because the tenants did not pay rent. There were many illegal tenants in the building. What happens when many tenants do not pay rent. That is revenue lost by the owner. If he can't make his mortgage payment based on lost revenue from rents, he can get into financial trouble.

That is all I am saying about the situation with Stuy Town, at least that is what I understand from reading the article. If I misread it or missed something, someone please tell me.

@ hhusted Are you kidding? Did you even read the article? The reason for the Stuy Town fiasco is because greedy investors bought up the properties at a far higher price than they were worth, thinking that they could quickly kick out the poor tenants and convert the apartments into luxury condos that would fetch much higher rents. But they weren't able to do that quickly enough and defaulted on the purchase loans. Good grief, read the article. It's in plain English!

@hhusted and Uraniumfish I read the article. It has nothing to do with tenants not paying rent. The tenants were in no way part of the decisions made at the top by huge investors and investing firms. That much is pretty clear.

Yeah, what is happening to Stuy Town is nothing but shameful. One of my friend's aunts has been living there for forever, and I can't imagine what the older people who live in those apartments are going to do if they are forced to leave.... How could anyone want to force out the residents that have been there forever out in order to make money? It is really awful...

@uptowngirl I guess Stuy Town is sort of a project... a middle income housing project! Though I guess the politically correct term is "development." There are a few of those in my neighborhood, and they are not that far physically from the lower income ones.

@BroadwayBk have you noticed the huge adverts for Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village in the newspapers recently? the ads from today state that one bedrooms in Stuy Town start from $2420 while 2 beds are from $3170 and three beds are from $3885. These are by no means middle class rents .. I think you could find many one bedrooms on the UES for less nowadays.

@Folks: I have an apology to make. I have been making statements regarding the situation with Stuy Town without getting all the facts. I contacted a friend who knows about it, and he told me there is a lot more involved than what the article stated. It has nothing to do with foreclosure or with non-payment of rents. He said having illegal tenants was involved, but did not cause the main problem.

The only thing I can say is there are many factors involved. We have to feel sorry for the tenants, because they are being affected. And as BroadwayBK stated it is awful.

@uptowngirl That is crazy...who would pay that to live in those hideous buildings? I mean, if you can afford it, why wouldn't you just move to a gorgeous apartment in a lovely neighborhood?

@BroadwayBK: The owner of the building thinks he can get those prices. That's why he advertises. Maybe when no one responds he will think twice about it. I do agree with you. Who would pay those kinds of prices to live in a place like Stuy Town.

Always ask for more than you think you'll get, right....

That's the way it seems to work. At least when I was in marketing class that is what I learned.

@BroadwayBK my thoughts exactly!!!

My guess is those adverts are for the few luxury apartments where they did manage to chase out the old tenants and renovate. I think we're witnessing their dumb fantasy development ideas at work with those ads. They're dreaming big, everybody. They're still hoping we'll buy the fantasy.

I actually looked at an apartment in Stuy Town when I was first moving here. I think the appeal of them is that are giagantic apartments that have been remodled, they allow pets, and there is a kind of park like thing going on in there. I know there are a lot of problems with the place; but, I can see how they rent them out.

I talked to my friend, who knows about the situation with Stuy Town, and he told me there is a lot going on there that no one is supposed to know about beyond what the article mentioned. He would not say, telling me the public does not have the right to know. Why be so secretive?

I personally am baffled as to why someone with means would want to move into Stuy Town, and not just because those places are so ugly. Why would you want to support what is going on with all those greedy realtors?

@JenMac How much was the rent on the place you looked at?

@BroadwayBK I hear you.

It's true, @BroadwayBK - the buildings are unattractive, and the area isn't really that great, all things considered.

@ajadedidealist That would be my main concern if I were shopping for luxury apartments there - that the neighborhood is really not that great. I feel like New Yorkers pay for their neighborhood more than anything else.... so if you are paying an enormous rent, why not do so in a neighborhood where you can really get the most out of life in NYC?

@ajadedidealist @NeverSleeps Agreed. I actually wandered around that neighborhood looking for Nat Sherman cigarettes for about an hour once. Not really sure why I didn't just return to the LES - I guess I was determined. Anyway, I failed in this venture, but had the chance to take in the area, and it wasn't really anything special.

I went to the area myself once, and didn't like it. So I wonder how the owners expect to rent those apartments.

The apartments are huge -- I mean, huge. And it's like 3,000 for a 1 bdrm. They are completely re -done. There's a rec room, a gym, parks within the development. Considering that a lot of people pay anywhere from 2 - 3 grand for a shoe box, walk -up a few blocks away. . . . I know exactly why someone would want to live there.

Did they have any old school New York charm somehow? Or were they freshly remodeled cubes of marble and steel?

@JenMac Meh, I'm not impressed. You can get quite a lot for $3000, even in boom times. Even a couple of bedrooms in some Manhattan neighborhoods.

Yep. As a hypothetical wealthy person, I still couldn't be bought.

Even if I had $3000 a month to spend, I wouldn't put it out to live in an apartment. I would rather live in my own house. I would fork out that money for a house where I have all the space I need and ground to boot. Then I can have all the appliances I want, including washer and dryer, dishwasher, garbage disposal, and many other types of appliances.

They're not charming. They're definitely the cubes. But, they let you put a wall up; so, two people can live in a 1,000 sq foot apartment for 1500 bucks each. That's pretty good. Space -wise: no there isn't a better deal really. Not downtown, anyway.

Haven't seen it myself, but I knew a woman who lived in a $3000/ month place near Wall Street and she said it was large. But anyways, you don't think $3000 would get you some decent square footage in the East Village? I haven't done my homework on this one but I wager so.

@everyone we are thinking of renting out our 1000 square foot 2 Bedroom space when we get shipped out to Asia.. wonder what it will fetch?? We are still iffy about the idea though since our building is a Co-op and we need board permission to rent etc.. though it seems silly to leave it empty...

@Uptowngirl: If you can rent it, what do you think the rental price will be? In other words, what will you be asking for in monthly rent?

@hhusted I need to check out the current market rentals before I decide though someone in the building has already expressed interest if we do decide to rent..

@uptowngirl So how is your board? Are they strangely uptight people like something out of an episode of 30 Rock, or are they surprisingly agreeable?

@BroadwayBK they are pretty agreeable I would say .. my husband is actually pushing me to join the board as he used to be on it couple of years ago .. He gave up the post because of work pressure but thinks it would be a good thing if I participated in the management of the building. Its a bit daunting but luckily you can be an observing member for a while before you actually stand for elections on the board.. so that's what I think will do if at all I decide that I do want to be on the board.

@uptowngirl Are they really picky about who moves into the building?

@BroadwayBK I honestly don't know ..my husband moved in before I moved to the USA so he attended the board interview on his own. I do remember though he wasn't deemed 'good enough' by the board of a building in Sutton Place though..I am so thankful for that. .. I much prefer my area and my smallish building which seems to have a good mix of young and older people. Sutton Place seems to be populated by a much older demographic and as you know some of them can be incredibly nit picky and cantankerous .

@Uptowngirl: Yikes. Who can be around nit picky and cantankerous people. I am glad you live in a building that has a mix of young and old. That keeps things balanced. I think a building that is picky as to who moves into the building will more than likely keep the riff raff out. That to me is a good thing.

@hhusted well I think the co-op boards of Sutton Place have a reputation of being extremely picky but even they couldn't keep someone like Raja Ratnam out. He is one of the wealthiest hedge fund operators who has recently been charged with insider trading in the Galleon Scandal-http://www.businessinsider.com/raj-rajaratnam-founder-of-3-billion-galleon-group-hedge-fund-arrested-2009-10
He resided in one of the tony buildings in Sutton Place.

@uptowngirl Hah! So they thought Mr Ratnam was good enough, hunh?

I still find it odd that you have to ask permission of anybody to own your own place. Isn't there a lot of room for discrimination in such arrangements?

@Uraniumfish Co-ops in this city have always been like this and I don't they are going to change in the near future. Of course they discriminate but I don't think they are ever going to get called out on that..
Here's an interesting post on how they operate and what they require of you in case anybody wants to buy a co-op in the future-
http://www.urbandigs.com/2006/11/what_coop_board.html

@uptowngirl That helped a lot. I hadn't thought about it as buying into a corporation before, but now that they put it that way, co-op board policies make a bit more sense to me.

Thanks for the link, @uptowngirl. Should be helpful if I ever decide to go up before the dread Day of Judgment at the coop board anytime soon. Some buildings can be really, really snobby - it's not just about being able to pay the mortgage and be an unobtrusive neighbor...

@Uptowngirl: Do you live in one of the buildings on 55th St between 1st and York? I have a friend who lives on that street and she is an artist and singer.

@hhusted I live further uptown but within the boundaries of the UES!:):)

Being involved in a co-op seems like so much work ! I get annoyed when a prospective landlord demands to see "pay stubs."

@uptowngirl Do you think being a part of a co-op is something worth doing, as opposed to just owning your own apartment?

@BrodwayBK I think Condo's in NYC are getting just as sticky as co-ops in NYC so the lines do blur a bit, the real advantage that you have in a Condo is that you can rent your unit out easily ..in Co-ops the renter has to be cleared by the board if at all they do allow rentals..my husband's decision to buy where we stay was not really influenced by the co-op/condo issue but by the fact that the building is a small ,boutique building which is located in a nice neighborhood and it does offer water views which we both love ..

@uptowngirl I guess that's a good a reason as any to pick a place to live!

Might as well look at the co-op issue like this: it's probably a healthy thing to be involved with your neighbors to some extent, and to be part of decisions that get made about the building which effect everyone. Unlike a rental building, which can be totally anonymous, co-ops force you to interact. That may not be a bad thing. And as uptowngirl pointed out, she and her husband chose the building because they loved the place, and invested in long-term living there. I would say it creates a completely different atmosphere in the building to be surrounded by those kinds of neighbors.

I think I ultimately just want to own a house in Brooklyn. Now, if I could just get someone to lend me half a million dollars...

@NeverSleeps My plan was to marry a banker, but I guess - after reading that blog that uptowngirl so graciously supplied - that I'd do better with a doctor or lawyer, at least until the recession lets up.

I'm not interested in owning either a co-op or condo. I would rather take my money and buy a house. This way at least I can have some space between myself and my neighbors without them seeing everything I do.

But for those who do decide to own one, more power to you, if that is your interest. Everyone has their own taste in what they want or like. What is good for the goose is not good for the gander. If you know what I mean.

For some reason the word "condo" invariably makes me think of Miami Beach. I think that's where I'll buy my first condo...

@BroadwayBK you better hurry .. prices in Florida are really low but could turn upwards as the economy turns which I believe it will ...you can't really keep the world's largest economy down for too long..

Haha, I misread uptowngirl's comment as "you better hurry...[marry that doctor or lawyer.]" Sounds like a family reunion at my house

@Uptowngirl: Yes, you are right. The economy will get better. And when it does, the price of real estate will begin going up. In fact, I remember reading on CNN not too long ago there are some cities that are beginning to see signs of real estate prices going up, but did not list them.

@hhusted here are the latest market trends and stats for NYC from Trulia.com.. real estate in NYC is inching up again.
http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/New_York-New_York/

Pity, @uptowngirl. And just when I was beginning to think I could afford to live in NYC again...

@Yeah, ajadedidealist, you didn't think it would last forever, did you. :) Eventually, NYC would go back to being what it has always been: A high priced tourist trap for anyone who wants to venture here.

I thought it still was a high priced tourist trap?

And a high-priced locals trap - $2000+ a month for a studio!?! In Vienna, I was able to live in a room in a GORGEOUS flat (3-bedroom but only 2 were occupied, living room, dining room, separate kitchen, bills and wifi, great area) for about 370 euro, and even that, I later learned, was quite steep (I can even get a studio for 300...)

@BroadwayBK: I was just being sarcastic in a joking manner. I guess it didn't work. Oh, well. :)

@BroadwayBK @ajadedidealist It really is ridiculous how much New Yorkers pay for rent, and that it seems like we have no choice but to accept our horrid fate.

@everyone I thought rentals in NYC were way down this year...Uraniumfish who has been religiously tracking the market definitely seems to think so but I guess it all depends on location, location, location. Bet a studio in the highly coveted West Village will rent for $2000 a month.

@NeverSleeps: You don't have to accept high rents. You do have a choice. Everyone has a choice. You just have to evaluate your options and make the choice based on the right options.

@Everybody, uptowngirl That's right, I have been religiously following rent prices. They are certainly dropping, but that by no means amounts to miracles. In areas where a studio might normally fetch $2000, you might start to see some studios pop up for $1700 or so, which is indicative of a downward trend over the long term, but would still be considered steep for most people. In areas like that, you're certainly never going to see studios sink below $1500, you know what I mean? There's a limit to the downward turn.

So, no, you'd never get the equivalent of Vienna (or Berlin) prices on apartments. Too bad, really.

And a high-priced locals trap - $2000+ a month for a studio!?! In Vienna, I was able to live in a room in a GORGEOUS flat (3-bedroom but only 2 were occupied, living room, dining room, separate kitchen, bills and wifi, great area) for about 370 euro, and even that, I later learned, was quite steep (I can even get a studio for 300...)

@hhusted Right, everyone has a choice about whether they pay a ridiculous rent or not. In this case, you can either live in New York or you can move.

Right... even the lowest rents in New York are high compared to what many other Americans pay. That is what I was getting at, hhusted.

@NeverSleeps; Yes, you are right. I agree with you 100%. No argument here.

@BroadwayBK and NeverSleeps so true!!

@NeverSleeps: I wonder if that trend will ever end - lowest rents in NYC being high compared to other areas of the country. Knowing NYC, not a chance.

@ajadeidealist My huge one bedroom in Europe was 300, and in comparison to some of my poor artist friends I was paying big bucks as far as rent...

Where in Europe were you, @uraniumfish? That's pretty incredible! Although I may have hit the jackpot in Tbilisi. Massive two-bedroom with terrace, eat-in kitchen, marble bathroom, with a great view, in the best part of the historic city. $400/250 GBP a month! Makes me cry thinking that won't even get me a closet in NYC.

@ajadeidealist I was in Berlin, and in a pretty great part of the city. Yeah, here that's the price of my closet.

Right now I share an apartment. So I only pay $565 a month. This does not count the utilities. If I were to go out on my own, I'd be paying well over $1200 for my rent, especially if I stayed in NYC, unless I get involved in one of those low income housing apartments.