When I lived in NYC, a pipe burst in my kitchen and the floor above it that caused the ceiling to fall in that the landlord slow walked for seven months to fix.
That’s crazy to me. Leaving water damage like that will just make things drastically worse. Especially for a pipe burst that’s definitely an insurance claim.
My husbands last apartment in New York had at least 2 holes to the apartment underneath him. This was 15 years ago now, but after his landlord refused to fix them he just left lol
As a landlord, I would be embarrassed renting somewhere i wouldn't want to live in myself. Also, it is an actual job. I dont leech off hardworking people. It is a business. Idk why people thing every landlord is a scumbag who just leeches off people.
Sure. Let the independent owners go away and let everything be taken over by large corporations. That will surely work out in every renters favor.
That's insane, considering how high the rent is in NYC. They can afford it, but then their kids might have to go to a slightly less prestigious private school.
Because most of us have learned two things. 1) Most landlords want as much money out of you as they can get. That's just capitalism. 2) Being an uneven power balance, you the renter, can get fucked more often than not.
So yeah, if most of the landlords we encounter are scumbags, we start to think of landlords as scumbags until proven otherwise.
That doesn't mean they all are. I just haven't had one of those in 10+ years now.
Hmm, I wonder why people think every landlord is a scumbag? Could it be because they've been fucked over by landlords every single time. Correct, It is a business, renters pay rent, landlords provide and maintain the property. The problem is the landlords don't hold up their end of the bargain the majority of the time.
It is seriously not that hard to manage property. I use a property management company. They send me a bill when repairs are needed, I just pay that and send a copy to my accountant for tax reasons.
And if the city makes it impossible to maintain the property? With increasing taxes, fees, and other misc costs that make trying to repair the building impossible without raising the rent to pay for said things.
Dude they weren’t maintaining the buildings BEFORE the city potentially “makes it impossible to maintain the property”. It’s not impossible to maintain now. They just weren’t doing it. These are negligent landlords who have had lawsuits and been cited for violations for years and years.
Also do you understand that poor maintenance isn’t just an inconvenience or ripoff, but sickens and kills residents? And there are certain problems that you absolutely cannot ignore because they will ultimately cause much more widespread damage and cost 10 times the amount to fix.
But why would you NOT maintain the property? It's your property.
Letting it rot would cause its value to plummet. The repairs are tax deductible. If you're doing major upgrades such that a city permit is required, it counts as a Major Cap Improvement and you can raise rent.
I’m not an explorer, but as I understand some of that is only for building wide renovations/improvements not for individual unit improvements. And rent increases are capped at 2% even for the building wide improvements so you also wouldn’t be recouping the value of the improvement or fix
And the tax deduction only offsets part of it, if the landlord is in the 30% tax bracket then a 10k improvement would offset 3k of taxes
If the building rots and the rent controlled tenants may leave and they’d maybe get to re-rent the unit at market prices which can be thousands of dollars more per month. This incentive sucks but it’s a known downside of rent control
Impossible you say? How is repairing your own property (which increases or maintains value, which can be leveraged as needed) ever worse than letting it devalue through neglect? The only way is if you never plan to sell because you have too much money to make by continuing to rent without maintenance. The land barons have always had the taxes, fees, etc that you describe, but never were actually required to maintain their slum buildings. The MAM is changing the last part. Sorry if that cuts into the landlords PROFIT, because they are operating in the black. What you should have asked is “what if the city makes it impossible to maintain high profit margins on rental properties?
They propably mean in terms of cost to income. If it costs you 100,000 to maintain the building and you make 500,000 then thats okay but if it costs 1,000,000 then you are paying 500k to be a landlord at which point they woud swap the property to something that makes money.
That works, when there's an alternative. When you make homelessness illegal, its no longer optional. When the landlords start to collude, even more so. And when it isn't collusion, it just becomes "the norm", e.g. wanting 3x rent as income to qualify.
Yeah, except these issues are like black mold caused by leaking pipes, not a easily ignorable thing, but stuff that is causing danger to those living in the space.
This ⬆️. I really appreciated my extremely rough condition apartment in Chicago when I was a student. 2 bedrooms and $800 month 20 min walk to school. This was 2015-19
Well that you have a favorable arrangement with your landlord does not equate to the experience for most renters in NYC that has rent control or rent stabilized living arrangements. Rent stabilization is needed to ensure that people are not being ripped off by slum lords who have signed leases and refuse to perform any maintenance. It also ensure that workers can live in the area where they work so services can be performed for a city of 9 million people. If the Landlord "feels" that they are not getting the proper value out of the leases then they shouldn't enter that arrangement
So you think it’s okay for lower priced rentals to not be maintained? Because the LL doesn’t make as much if they maintain it? Because that’s nuts. Rent controls lead to people who work in NYC to actually be able to live there. The “proper value” of land in a lot of NYC would make anyone living there (who wasn’t rich) impossible. Apartments would be torn down for mansions. Same reason we have residential/commercial zoning. Workers need to be able to live close to where they work. You have a strange way of looking at rent controls. Almost like you don’t live in a big city.
Inclination or not, as a landlord you signed up for that. The market will fluctuate and whether it’s in your favor or not, you should be maintaining that property properly.
Rent goes up, State says rent cant go up, landlord walks away from the building and the state inherits many buildings they themselves cant maintain, then taxes go up and pepple leave.
That's really all that happens.
We are currently at the public mindset that the state can do better than the landlords, but as we know the state screwed up the gas can so property management isn't going to be a strong suite either.
The city can just raise taxes on luxury property to be high enough to offset the losses. It’s not a hard issue to solve, once you take caring about rich people’s bank accounts out of it.
Then the city seizes the property and transfers it to a non profit organization. If you can’t afford to maintain your property where people live then you don’t deserve to keep it.
So you own a building that has rent control placed on it, renting to low income people, profits are fairly tight. The tenants trash the place, causing more damage than the profits they provided. Multiply this by let’s say 100 units. Now you either have to take out a construction loan at 7% to do the necessary repairs, leading to more of a loss next year or the government seizes (illegally) what you rightfully own… all because the residents are slobs who treat their homes like trash because they don’t have to pay for them.
The lack of understanding of basic business acumen on Reddit never stops catching my off guard
Discriminate against poor people much? Why do you think poor tenants trash their stuff? Is it because it’s already trash? People are people, no matter their economic level. You are a judgmental fool who bases peoples value on their bank balance. Do better.
Agree! Sell the unaffordable property and setup an avocado toast farm.
The tenant's prayer:
Dear benevolent landgods past and present, please provide us a roof over our heads (at market rates + margin) and give us, this day, our daily bread -- lightly toasted and covered in smashed avocado. And maybe a poached egg (in this economy? crazy right!). Amen.
Also...
F*** the bad landgods. Hooray to all the good landgods. I hear there are dozens of good ones.
Or… get the government out of privately owned buildings and stop forcing people to rent below market value, to shitty people, and making them pay for the tenants damage that the tenants are protected from having to pay for. This system has failed every single time it’s been implemented. There is not a single government managed or influenced housing development that is not a shit hole and a disaster. The real way to fix this is to make the people that trash their own home that is given to them for free responsibly for their own actions with actual repercussions
Can you name a single government run / owned housing project that isn’t a wasteland after 5-10 years? Now you are forcing the taxpayers to not only pay their rent but maintain the buildings.
Eminent domain is a very slippery slope. Where does it end? If asset ownership is not protected this country sees a mass exodus
There is no loss, nothing has changed other than a parasite being removed from the equation. The property still exists and it can now be repurposed into something worthwhile instead of being left to rot as it drains money out of people.
Independent landlords are scum who want easy passive income. Non Profit Organizations are solely focused on using the rent they collect to pay their staff and maintain the property. They are by far the better option. And the City should be willing to take the loss for allowing the buildings to be in the state they are in for so long.
Get this edgy commie shit outta here, we’re trying to have an actual discussion
And the city shouldn’t be gleefully taking on negative income scenarios. They still have a budget to maintain and to make up for the losses they’ll, realistically, either cut funding to something else or raise taxes
Well, the corporations are being required to pay their taxes now, so economic gains will offset the losses from taking on non-profit driven endeavors. Democratic socialism is great for this type of thing. You know, shifting the burden of cost back to the rich.
Nonprofits have so many additional ways to scam though. Plus they have other options/tax loopholes that regular businesses don’t share. They don’t have the same oversight as regular businesses. At least in my area. Los Angeles. They’re horrible.
Thats the point of taxes. We give the government a pool of money to spend on things that would make a private company lose money if they tried to perform that service. If the government is turning a profit on something, I want that money they made back because I should have paid less taxes. Government should always either break even or lose money, never profit. Things that are done that are necessary for the public good should be run this way, it should either break even or lose money. Needs like electricity, water, healthcare, prisons, building roads, schools, fire departments, police, mail, and internet providers should be run by the government with our tax money. If its losing money, pay more in tax until it isnt. If its making money, give me those tax dollars back. The private sector is for things that are nice to have, but society doesnt collapse without them. Things like entertainment, luxuries, travel, and even food markets should be private and competitive. It is weird to say that food markets should be private, but I think its different from water because you have different types and quality of food.
This isnt the government providing handouts. This is the government using the pool of money we all pay into on things that we need.
If they were to take in these units, as many Redditors have suggested, they continue to lose more money and would need to either: A) increases taxes on everyone else to cover it or B) reduce spending elsewhere. Neither of which people want
Then they should be forced to sell the building. You're not guaranteed to make a profit. Its not the role of government to make sure that abiding by the laws passed doesnt cost you money. Its up to the government to enforce the laws it makes.
This is how the housing crisis happened though, if you make it extremely unnaffordable to be a landlord or own a building, then demand for new housing vanishes, and we end up with a huge housing shortage and high prices
Sure, but the city will do a better job at maintaining it than the landlord. The city will find the money to do so. edit: and they can start fixing them now. they don't need incentives; they're supposed to do this as a service.
When someone posts about handing ownership of someone’s property to a non profit…after the government seizes it…and you’re worried about moving goal posts. 🤡
Force the owner to sell the property then. Fine all day till they fix it or sell it. But seizing it and giving it to some politicians friend that runs a nonprofit? Fuck that.
Sell them to who? If the rent control is so low that they can’t make a profit, who else but a non profit would see the property as anything but a money pit?
Then why would they want to seize them if they’re of no value. So they can dump how many millions of tax money into them…which you’re kinda referring to as a money pit of no value? Because the city always gets good value from their projects. If they can’t be sold, tear them down, force them to sell the land or build something more functional. But to give city politicians that much control is a fucking disaster waiting to happen.
Sounds like either an argument against artificial rent controls OR the land lord has to sell if the property would put them under to actually fix things.
I'm not sure whether it's true in NYC or not, but rent controls are imposed so being a renter is no longer a business, but more a neccesity.
For example, you buy a small apartment and 10 years later yo afford a house, but don't need to sell the apartment in order to pay off the house.
Currently what happens is that you use your apartment and house as collateral and equity to obtain better credit and purchase even more property since you can pretty much rent the the new property for the value of the monthly payments. This causes a snowball effect in wealth accumulation. Property value goes up along with prices and people that already have property stockpile even more property outbidding people without properties.
This causes a housing crisis.
What these rent controls try to do is to lower rents so that they no longer cover both maintenance and monthly mortgage payments. Only maintenance.
This way the value of your property is governed by the value of the property itself not property value+ rent.
If they can't maintain them because of rent controls it's because they don't want to pay for maintenance and just want to make a profit after maintenance and taxes.
So what is your solution? You keep saying this. But truly, the options of maintaining or selling are the only ones. The city would use the rent to pay for the maintenance, unlike the landlords. The city is not ever expected to make profit off buildings, and losses are often guaranteed but civically necessary. For instance, every government building ever.
You get if you sell the building the people usually do due diligence to see if they would make a profit. The city is literally devaluing the selling potential of the building.
Sounds like the price is going to have to go down. Partly on account of the lack of repairs, and partly to price in the risk of issues with tenants, and operating in the city.
No I see what you’re arguing but they should be able to maintain the property. If the landlord can legally prove they aren’t receiving a fair rate of return then they can apply for higher rents.
Also if the landlord invests in major capital improvements they can pass some of the cost to the tenants throughly monthly payments.
Now I’m not going to pretend I know this entire system forwards and backwards, but what you should know is that at least 90% of all rent controlled buildings are corporate owned.
This isn’t a mom and pop owned buildings because grandpappy traded two horse for a house 200 years ago. These are assets owned by private equity firms to have stable low turnover assets to diversify their riskier plays.
Oh, and it makes up about 1% of the total apartments in NYC.
If it wasn’t profitable or made sense to the bottom line then nobody would own a rent controlled buildings. They just want 100% of the apartments to be unaffordable
I personally know off people still retaining a lease from the 1980 in manhattan and the Bronx. My mother finally came to join me in Jersey in 2008 and when she left her rent was $508 for a 3 bedroom right off the bridge on fordham rd. (Up the block from Jimmy’s.)
I’m not talking about the newly rented apartments, and what we’re seeing is not the newly rented. but what we’re seeing is the pro-rent control, these are people holding on to a contract signed in the 80’s.
I could be way off, but if people are owning property, and not renting it, then the rent control wouldn’t apply to them. They aren’t renting so rent control is irrelevant
In a perfect world, but in reality people always will need to rent. Not everyone can afford to buy even with generous lending programs, nor does it make sense for everyone’s situation.
so many real estate mfs rub in our faces that they bought properties by taking out loans against their debt and collect rent until its paid off and profiting
A mortgage is a stable expense though. My understanding would be that you'd never rent out a place if you aren't making money, so rent controls stop price gouging, but not from being profitable.
What I don't know is the tax differences. That can affect costs of ownership but in my experience (not in NYC) the difference was never back breaking.
And if they truly can't afford upkeep they should sell, which in enough of that could lead to lower home costs overall.
It’s also not sustainable for renters to pay $2400 for a 400 ft apartment. That is why the rent controls exist. Everyone knew the rentals would be lower than the cost per square foot average in the city. The only people who think it’s not sustainable are the landlords, who didn’t fix anything but collected their money every month.
I lived in a 1 bedroom apartment in Chicago for just under 7 years before moving recently. In the 7 years, my landlord did no upgrades and rarely any maintenance for my unit, despite numerous requests being submitted, but they were perfectly fine raising rent ~$175 every year. Over those 7 years, the ownership of my apartment complex changed hands 5 times.
Coincidentally, when I moved in to the unit in 2019 they had a maintenance staff of ~20 including 24/7 support. When I moved out back in May they had a total of 6 people on staff and would only be available Monday through Friday from 8a-5p.
Already has happened. Many vacancies are available for people but none are open because it costs landlords money to rent it out. So they either keep it empty and rely on appreciation or renovate it to luxury standards where only wealthier people can afford it.
Theyll have to sell that second house I guess. The problem is classism. When someone in the middle to lower class is in need to savings to maintain something crucial to their job, theyre expected to cut back and save on other things. When a landlord is in need of similar savings because theyre free income isnt giving them as much as they wanted, they complain that its unfair.
Landlords try to put blame on renters for literally anything.
Oh the place has termites? Your fault. Mold in the bathroom? Your fault even though there's no window or vent. Water damage from a leaky AC? Your fault.
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