Rent Board Chief on Shifting Onus from Landlords
The Observer ran an interesting interview yesterday with the head of the Rent Guidelines Board, Marvin Markus, that lays out some of the common-sense problems with rent control and stabilization. If we as a society deem it worthwhile to subsidize certain people (and clearly there are lots of reasons to do so), then the cost…
The Observer ran an interesting interview yesterday with the head of the Rent Guidelines Board, Marvin Markus, that lays out some of the common-sense problems with rent control and stabilization. If we as a society deem it worthwhile to subsidize certain people (and clearly there are lots of reasons to do so), then the cost should be borne by society as a whole not individual landlords, argues Markus. “There are poor tenants, they should be protected, but the individual owner is not the one that should protect them. The population at large clearly should be the ones footing the bill,” he says. And how would be do that? “One suggestion is a rent tax/surcharge of some limited amount, on all rents in the city … and all co-op and condo charges in the city. … It’s very important for the city of New York that there be a mixed income base—from an economic standpoint; from a social standpoint—and we want to make sure, I want to make sure, that that continues.” While landlords make easy political targets, it’s hard to make any rational arguments in favor of the current system: Lifetime entitlements makes no sense at all; nor does a system that dis-incentivizes landlords from maintaining the housing stock.
Rent Board Chief Markus Pleads for ‘Rationality’ [NY Observer]
Photo from the Tenement Museum
Bxgrl;
Instead of hypothetical “results” from the likes of Andrew Stein (whom SuburbanDude accurately characterized), how about we speak of what ACTUALLY happened when a city chose to abolish rent control? That city would be Boston about 15 years ago, and the results are there for all to see. I suspect that rent control advocates don’t like to point to this situation, because it doesn’t support their argument.
benson- so she’s a perfect example of someone who abuses the system and she should be penalized. Agreed. But its ridiculous to think everyone on rc/rs is like that. I certainly wasn’t. And everyone I knew who was in a rs (don’t know any rc tenants) apartment were not making big bucks or going to the Hamptons to their vacation house. That’s the problem with generalizations, benson.
And let me also point out- the government gave them th e right to pass on their benefit. I don’t think its right- but the onus for a bad decision rests wtih the politicians on that one.
Bxgrl,
Why are folks who moved to NYC twenty years ago so special? Why do they deserve special low rent reals while everybody else has to make up the difference by paying higher rents?
It sounds as if you’re trying to defend the deals some of your friends have on their stabilized apartments. Why else would you possibly defend rent laws with NO LOW INCOME REQUIREMENT?
It’s totally absurd. . .
bxgrl – and Andrew Stein was just another political whore who knew that for each landlord there was 50 tenants. What kind of results would you expect from a political whore?
Bxgrl – In 1947 developers of new rental buildings were told that there buildings would be market rentals. In the 1960’s and 1970’s they were told they would no longer be market rentals. In 1968, would you have built a rental building knowing that the City Counsel was clamoring for rent stabilization? Would you have opened a pizza parlor if the City Counsel was clamoring for pizza price controls?
Just the discussion of and threat of rent stabilization brought all rental housing construction to a halt. Certainly it could not have been the rapidly rising rents and the 1.5% vacancy rate (you did learn about supply and demand, didn’t you?)
when i moved to the city, i had one of the highest-paying jobs someone right out of grad school can get. i also “lucked” into a rent stabilized apartment. not just luck, actually, because management cos of these rent stabilized buildings specifically target and, in fact, often only rent to people like me (young professionals, just starting out, likely to get married/move up/land in luxury destabilization territory). it’s their business plan, and a rational one for an irrational system. i wasn’t paying $300 for a classic-6 on the UWS, no, but it was at least $600 cheaper than the next comparable place i saw. how is that fair, or sensible? (and to act like $600, or even $200/mo. less isn’t significant is silly. that’s thousands of dollars a year you’re saving, just because you got lucky.)
the system absolutely is broken. it keeps market rents artificially high, and THAT is what’s killing the middle class, if anything. this has been proven time and again by reputable scholars on both sides of the ideological line.
if a single-payer healthcare system isn’t fantasy, then reforming NYC’s rent control/rent stabilization scheme so that the most vulnerable are protected but that the undeserving (on both the landlord and tenant side) don’t get a windfall should be possible. it won’t be perfect, no, but it’s so far from perfect now that it is unexcusable not to try to fix it.
suburbandude- I know what the conditions were- but you don’t torch a building. You can walk away or sell it out- but I repeat- you do not torch it. Fire spreads. How many entire blocks went up because one building was torched.It wasn’t just one landlords property- it was others as well. All it did was make the problem incredibly and exponentially worse. And lets look at why rent control came about in the first place.
http://www.tenant.net/Oversight/50yrRentReg/history.html
As early as 1942, people were getting squeezed out of housing- the wartime economy was blazing along, inflation was up. This chapter says a great deal
“By 1969, economic conditions changed as the result of national as well as local economic factors. Nationally, the Vietnam War
caused a steep rise in the rate of inflation and locally, housing
production slumped. The overall vacancy rate which stood at 3.2%
in 1965 fell drastically to 1.23% in 1968. Rents escalated
rapidly in the non-regulated sector. The tightening of the rental
housing market led the City to enact the Rent Stabilization Law
of 1969.”
And this: “In response to these spiraling rent levels, Governor Nelson
Rockefeller directed the Temporary State Commission on Living
Costs and the Economy of the State of New York to conduct
hearings and make recommendations on vacancy decontrol. The
Commission, under then Chairman Andrew Stein, recommended
abrogation of vacancy decontrol. Its findings indicated that
vacancy decontrol resulted in average rent increases of 52% in
decontrolled apartments and 19% in previously stabilized units in
New York City, while operating costs increased by 7.9%. Vacancy
decontrol resulted in average rent increases of 47% in Nassau
County and 45% in Westchester County. According to the
Commission, in New York City, the excess rent was not reinvested
in capital improvements, but in fact resulted in an actual
decrease of 30% in renovations.”
Bxgrl and all;
If you want to know why people demonize RC/RS tenants, please see this article:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/10/13/2008-10-13_eviction_threat_after_50_years_in_park_s.html
I don’t know where to begin in expressing my contempt – yes contempt – for this woman. Is there any gratefulness in her wailing over the fact that for 50 years she paid below-market rents in a prime NYC area, thanks to the force of government? She – and many other RC/RS tenants – speak of this benefit as almost an ownership right, indeed, one that they believe they should have the ability to transfer to their heirs.
Finally, the word on the street in PS is that she owns a house in the country in upstate NY. Doesn’t prevent her and her sense of entitlement from crying a river to the press about her “plight”.
Pathetic.
bxglr – tourching a building is not excusable – and is a crime; but walking away??? – Sorry but I do not support laws that would force someone to continue to lose money in an investment – and frankly I cant see how the system would benefit from that. Simply stated if the return on an investment isnt there (or not worth the effort/risk) then any SANE person will sell (and if they cant sell) walk away – its the way it is SUPPOSSED to work.