Rent-Stabilization Hike: Lose-Lose?
At the conclusion of the typically rowdy Rent Guidelines Board meeting last night, the board authorized increases of 4.5 percent on one-year leases and 8.5 percent on two-year leases for the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. The hike was the largest one in almost two decades, but many landlords were unhappy with the decision, saying…
At the conclusion of the typically rowdy Rent Guidelines Board meeting last night, the board authorized increases of 4.5 percent on one-year leases and 8.5 percent on two-year leases for the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. The hike was the largest one in almost two decades, but many landlords were unhappy with the decision, saying operating costs (especially fuel charges) have skyrocketed. “I am not satisfied with what we have at all,” said one landlord quoted in the Sun. According to the Times, the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents thousands of landlords, had been pushing for increases of between 10 and 15 percent. The board gave another concession to landlords in the form of a supplemental monthly rent increase of $45 for one-year leases or $85 for two-year leases for tenants who have lived in stabilized units for more than six years. Tenants, of course, expressed frustration with the board’s decision. The point we’re making is that this is a charade, Michael McKee, the treasurer of Tenants Political Action Committee, is quoted as saying in the Times. This was a done deal from the beginning. Before the meeting last night, Council Speaker Christine Quinn held a rally in support of a bill before the Legislature that would restructure the Rent Guidelines Board (which is solely comprised of members appointed by the mayor) and deny rent increases for one year on any unit with serious violations.
Board Backs Rise in Rent Up to 8.5% [NY Times]
Rent Increases Are Approved For Stabilized Apartments [NY Sun]
Photo by richarddavis.
YOU ALL DO KNOW THAT BXGIRL IS BIFF, RIGHT…???!
Yeah, let’s let Con Ed charge “market value” for its utilities too. All you people getting a free ride on Kevin Burke’s nickel. Shameful. Don’t you realize that Con Ed rates are so high because the Public Services Commission insists on regulating what they can charge? Why, rates would go DOWN if we would only just let them go up.
(Or some crap like that.)
No landlord is “subsidizing” tenants unless he or she personally purchased their building before rent stabilization began, about 70 years ago. Sales prices for investment properties are based on the legal rental income, and landlords are GUARANTEED a fair return based on the price — however excessive — they paid.
The landlords on this thread who want rent control abolished are just looking for a handout — an undeserved, unmerited, lottery win at the expense of everyone else in the city.
“But in this country deregulation has always driven prices up for everything”
Really – not airfare, not telephone, not financial services….
I wouldaddress the rest of your post but since the basic premise is wrong I dont feel the need – except to say – of course RS/RC didnt ’cause’ all the problems in the 1970’s and 80’s but it certainly didnt help and almost certainly caused the problems in housing to spread wider and to last longer than otherwise might have.
I can see it from both sides, and what you say is true. But in this country deregulation has always driven prices up for everything. For everyone.
The 70’s and 80’s were hard times for everyone but in NYC, landlords who walked away meant the city took over those buildings. who paid for it- in reality the taxpayers (landlords and tenants alike). Many of them walked away because they didn’t want to pay the tax arrears on their buildings. And then there were the scum who set fire to their own buildings to collect insurance money. People died in fires, as did firefighters. Neighborhoods were decimated, and huge swaths of the Bronx evaporated. the areas that remained, and eventually would become gentrified were the ones where landlords and tenants stuck it out. People did not necessarily leave the buildings that were abandoned. Where could they go? they stayed- and often in horrible conditions.How many of those areas today are rebuilding and undergoing gentrification? And that spreads out to the devastated areas as well.
So without saying you have no rights to get more money, the historical evidence doesn’t say because the tenants left, all of a sudden the landlords could afford to fix up the buildings. There were a lot of factors in the downturn, which was felt all across the country. It certainly wasn’t due to Rc or RS.
“‘There is always this pitting of owner and tenant,” he said. ”But if you look at it, they are really in the same boat, aren’t they? There are real economic issues here and they are difficult issues. There are no great winners when this thing goes down the tubes.”- Michael Lappin,the president of the Community Preservation Corporation, a nonprofit company created by more than two dozen New York banks to lend money for housing renovation in poor neighborhoods.
No, bitter seldom.
I don’t think he sounded bitter at all … made good points.
As a resident of Boston I can tell you that rent control lead to significant neglect of buildings and greatly contributed to the dereliction of neighborhoods. Landlords had no incentive to maintain property that they could not make an profit on. Entire swaths of the city became so run down, no one wanted to live in them, the tax base evaporated and the city pretty much abandoned streets. There was significant arson for profit in the 70s and 80s since the quality renters, who are almost impossible to evict, and rental rates were so poor, the only profit was to collect insurance money. Since rent control was nixed in the city property upkeep has increased exponentially. What were once almost exclusively abandoned neighborhoods have been completely renovated. Grand apartments, townhouses, mansions, etc. which had fallen into ruin or worse, have reverted back to their original pre-rent control uses.
Why is it wrong to allow a property owner to charge the market value of a property in order to maintain it and make some profit?
Jealousy and misplaced altruism do not jive with the reality of market forces. Economics are rooted in math and logic, emotions aren’t.
“Let rent control and that whole disasterous period be a lesson to us as to how wrong the “best and brightest” (products of Old Money and the Ivy League) can be. And how fathomless their contempt is for their fellow citizens although that contempt is carefully wrapped in self-rightous self-aggrandizing pieties.”
Wow- bitter much?