New York City Is Rising Again and So Are Rent Prices, Driving Some Tenants Out

Breitbart ^ | 04/11/2022 | Penny Starr

[Alberta's Child]

I can tell you that the head of one of the major transit agencies in the NYC metro area has been quoted as saying he NEVER expects his agency to reach its pre-COVID ridership levels again.

The city will "recover" (whatever that means), but it will probably never be the same. The people I know who live outside NYC and work in NYC fit into three groups:

1. Those who are glad to be back full-time (about 10%)

2. Those who are back a few days a week and are OK with that (about 20%)

3. Those who are back a few days a week and wish it was ZERO days a week (about 40%)

4. Those who have never gone back to work there and have no interest in ever going back (about 30%)

[Clemenza]

Meh. They are being replaced.

FYI - most people who left Manhattan went to suburbia, not Florida. Many of those without kids have moved back. Suburbanites who sold their houses to the Manhattanites often moved to other states.

[Sooth2222]

Rome (Italy) wasn't depopulated in a year -- it took more than 200 years.

Compared to Rome (Italy), New York City is well ahead of schedule!

NJ Transit predicts ridership will have bounced back to 90% of pre-pandemic levels by fiscal year 2025

(NYC commuters earn roughly 150% of the average NYC resident, pay a lot of taxes, and can't vote there. It was a great deal -- for NYC!)

So why are NYC rents UP? My guess is that there hasn't been a lot of new construction during the pandemic, but some people are returning and there are a lot of much worse places in the world - Ukraine and Russia come to immediate mind - so it will still attract people. Legally and illegally.)

[nascarnation]

I thought the “laptop generation” could work anywhere....

[AbolishCSEU]

Don’t forget the 2 yr long eviction moratorium. A lot of small landlords sold and got out of the business thus lowering the vacancy rate.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I don’t get it. I’ve always heard NYC had rent control. How could the rent double? Are they allowed to raise rent if someone moves out and there is a vacancy?

[nascarnation]

Like anything govt regulates, “it’s complicated”

https://bungalow.com/articles/rent-control-in-nyc-everything-you-need-to-know#rent-stabilization

[dead]

I honestly did not believe that the NYC housing market would rebound so quickly, or really ever.

[Jane Long]

[T.B. Yoits]

There are thousands of apartments no longer on the market. Realtors "warehoused" them to keep the price from dropping in their other properties. It started prior to COVID-19⁸⁴ with more than 20,000 apartments taken off the market because of the 2019 rent law that limited rent increases which meant landlords had no money to fix them up. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act nixed the 20 percent rent bump allowed when tenants vacate a rent-stabilized apartment, and curtailed rent increases to pay for renovations.

Landlords who have been getting screwed since 2019 aren't letting it continue: https://therealdeal.com/2022/04/06/landlords-offer-to-re-open-200k-warehoused-apartments/

"...under the 2019 law, only $15,000 in improvements to an apartment can be recovered via rent increases every 15 years, which works out to $89 per month on top of rent that is often around $1,000. Rather than make an investment guaranteed to lose money, landlords mothball the unit and wait for Albany to change the law."

"Two years ago, Assembly member Linda Rosenthal introduced a bill that would penalize landlords who kept units vacant for more than three months. Owners could ask for fees to be waived for uninhabitable apartments." They wouldn't be introducing such bills if there weren't vacant apartments unavailable for rent.

From April 2021: https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/fearing-plunging-rents-nyc-landlords-keep-apartments-market

From Jan 2022: "...new signed leases, a measure of demand, were down almost 39 percent from the same time last year."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/realestate/new-york-city-rental-market.html

[rb22982]

Adjusted for taxes and cost of living its easier to make good money outside of NYC (eg: going from $300k in income in Florida to $500k in NYC will up your effect tax rate city - federal massively, meaning your take home delta isn’t that big - plus the cost of living is anywhere from 30% to 100% higher - more for a reasonable size home. NYC isn’t about the money, its about the atmosphere. If you wanted good money and lower cost of living you could live in the burbs in Tampa, Atlanta, Charlotte or Phoenix as a few examples.

[minnesota_bound]

Rents are up to recover the lost money when people did not have to pay rent.