Free Republic

As one of the most expensive cities in the world, it should come as no surprise that a third of New Yorkers are forking over half their income for rent. The devastating data comes from the latest report from the nonprofit the Community Service Society of New York, which found that 55% of households, or nearly 1.2 million households, in the Big Apple were “rent-burdened” in 2021, meaning tenants spent at least 30% of their income on rent. A staggering 34% of the city’s tenants were classified as “severely rent-burdened,” spending at least half their income on monthly rent as...

Rents are up nationwide, and that’s a real problem for lots of folks living paycheck-to-paycheck. It’s interesting, as a new article points out, that rents are down in the Austin area while being up in San Jose, when you consider the laws of supply and demand, and the population flows to/from those areas. Now, we see Illinois passing a new law prohibiting landlords from screening their prospective tenants’ immigration status, and you’re liable to see more rent defaults in that state—something that we’ll want to watch for in rental property trends in 2024.But there is more to it than just...

The US housing crisis has been decades in the making, but combined with an inflation squeeze and a systemic shortage of affordable housing, more renters have nowhere to go. erardo Vidal, who has lived in the same apartment in Queens, New York, with his family for 9 years, recently received a $900-a-month rent increase this year. “It means having to uproot my entire family, given the fact we’re still having a difficult time earning money due to the pandemic and loss of jobs,” said Vidal. “It’s unfair that we are being basically forced out of places we lived in for...

Roy Fox hasn’t paid rent for his New York City apartment in more than 30 years. But he’s not sweating an eviction. In a city of 8.4 million people, Fox, 81, is one of just 23 lucky New Yorkers who reside in one of the city’s publicly owned historic sites spread across the five boroughs.

On a recent weeknight, writing instructor Ellen Tara James-Penny sits with a student in a parking lot near San José State University for more than an hour, explaining the perils of “hasty generalizations” and other pitfalls in college-level writing. Then, James-Penny and her husband get into their aging Volvo sedan and drive a few blocks to a local church, where she sleeps in their car with one dog and he sleeps in a tent a few feet away with the other.Despite the four college courses she teaches, and the master’s degree she earned a few years ago, James-Penny is homeless....

Living with roommates is practically a rite of passage in New York City. It often begins with far too many people sharing too little space and ends with a move into an apartment of one’s own, or with that special someone. But with rents reaching new highs, single 20-somethings are not the only ones looking for someone with whom to share the rent. Couples are living with roommates even after they’ve tied the knot.

The too-damn-high rent is now the least of Jimmy McMillan’s problems. The flamboyant gubernatorial candidate has been slapped with an eviction notice ordering him out of his $872-a-month rent stabilized East Village apartment. McMillan, founder of the fringe political party called The Rent Is Too Damn High, has filed suit in Brooklyn Federal Court seeking to stave off the eviction, which is scheduled to be carried out by a city marshal Feb. 5. Acting as his own lawyer, he is also demanding $1.3 million in monetary damages. The 68-year-old Vietnam War veteran has been embroiled in a legal battle with...

These are good times for U.S. landlords. For many tenants, not so much. With demand for apartments surging, rents are projected to rise for a fifth straight year. Even a pickup in apartment construction is unlikely to provide much relief anytime soon. That bodes well for building owners and their investors. Yet the landlord-friendly trends will likely further strain the finances of many renters. That’s especially true for the 50 percent of them who already spend more than one-third of their pay on rent. A 6 percent rise in apartment rents between 2000 and 2012 has been exacerbated by a...

A piece of New York City history is bidding arrivederci. Rising rents and changing demographics have driven Little Italy to the verge of extinction. Once a teeming neighborhood stretching 50 square blocks, it now barely covers three blocks of Mulberry Street—and even that strip is under threat. “You can’t rebuild Little Italy,” said Robert Ianniello Jr., owner of the famed Umbertos Clam House. “If we go away, it will never be here again. You can’t build an Olive Garden and say it’s Little Italy.” …