$75 LOFT TOO GOOD TO BE LEGAL

The New York Post ^ | 5/18/02 | DAREH GREGORIAN

[Conservative til I die]

May 18, 2002 -- Time may be running out on the best deal in town - Blossom Esainko's $75-a-month SoHo apartment. An appeals court has ruled that the state Department of Housing and Community Renewal should set "an appropriate present-day rent [about $2,000 or more] for this full-floor loft" at 322 Spring St. because of "issues and fairness and equity" with what had been the steal of the 21st century.

[PoisedWoman]

Didnt know you were a Marxist, though.

LOL! You're equating bargain-hunter with marxist? You always pay top dollar for everything? You don't shop the sale rack in stores? You wouldn't pay $75/month rent when you could get the same thing for $2000?

[NickRails]

Rent stabilization is a form of rent control, but is far less stringent. Most apts in NYC are rent stabilized, but the really cheap apts that you hear about (like the one in the article) are rent controlled.

Anything in paticular you want to know?

[ladyjane]

Across the river in the People's Republic of Cambridge, people were paying $350 for a rent-controlled 3-bedroom within a few blocks of Harvard Square.

Sweetie, we had a Supreme Court Judge Ruth Abrams paying less than $200 a month for a beautiful apartment overlooking the Charles River two blocks from Harvard Square.

I once worked with someone who was complaining when rent control ended that she couldn't afford to stay in Cambridge. She had been paying less than $250 a month for a two bedroom apartment. She also had a beautful weekend home on the ocean in Rhode Island. I remember one day she was whining with tears in her eyes and I looked at her shoes and her purse and realized that combined they cost $800. I guess her clothing budget sort of suffered when she had to pay market rent.

[Conservative til I die]

PoisedWoman is apparently a big government conservative. Their motto, "It's allright, as long as we're the ones (like her friend) that are benefitting."

[ladyjane]

LOL Big government conservative. I like it!

[Conservative til I die]

There is a HYOOGE difference between shopping for something like a DVD or a box of cereal that the retailer or the manufacturer has decided to discount in order to increase sales and profits (or cut their losses and clear shelves of poorly selling products in some cases), and government mandated anti-capitalism where landlords are prevented via force from recognizing the optimal value on thei r own property? Would you feel the same if you owned a two family house and wanted to rent the second apartment, which would probably be worth $1000 a month, but the local government has passed a law that will only allow you to charge $85 a month?

THe fact that you come to a conservative forum and come out in favor of anti-free market anti-capitalism, and shamelessly so, astounds me.

[Conservative til I die]

As an aside, the real problem with rent control (other than its core ideals) is that you hear these anecdotal stories about the extremely rich owning one or several rent controlled apartments for $100. I think Ed Koch used to own like five such apartments. The thing is, in a free market, Koch would still be able to PURCHASE a luxury apartment for $500,000, be happy, and thus free up five less expensive apartments that a middle-classs family could move into.

[glockmeister40]

If the renters get rent control, do the landlords get "property tax control"?

[timm22]

LOL! You're equating bargain-hunter with marxist? You always pay top dollar for everything? You don't shop the sale rack in stores? You wouldn't pay $75/month rent when you could get the same thing for $2000?

The decision to take the $75 a month apartment may be rational, but the morality is questionable. Your friend is using government force to prevent the landlord from charging a price that the landlord wants to charge.

To illustrate my point with an absurd and extreme example, suppose the Dallas Police Department told me that I could take whatever I wanted from the local Walmart, and they would let me get away with it. Now, I could get quite a few bargains- a free tv, free groceries for a month, free guns, free anything. Even though it's sanctioned by the state, it's still wrong.

[weegee]

Between $200,000 taxi "medallions" for cab drivers to operate (with a requirement that they replace the car every 5 years) and rent control that helps people to remain living (at the cost of living) in the 60s; New York, New York it's a Hell of a town...

[weegee]

Didn't Jackie O. Kennedy have a 2 story "apartment" for something like $1,000 a month?

[TheLurkerX]

Funk-y tow-ellll, Towel's got the funk!

[NickRails]

There's a difference between shopping the bargain bin for cheaper clothes, and illegally and unethically putting your name on a lease for an apartment you never lived in to get below market rent for a weekend get away. There is no clothing shortage in NY, but chances are your rich friend's machinations kept some poor working slob and his kids in an illegal and dangerous basement apartment. But who cares? Pass the brie!!!

[NickRails]

Koch had a rent controlled apt in Greenwich Village, which he kept, even while living on taxpayer dollars in Gracie Mansion, thereby keeping an apartment off the market. After leaving office, he bought an apartment on Fifth Avenue. A more egregious example was Mia Farrow. I believe she, too, "inherited" an apartment from her mother, located on Central Park West. She was paying less than $2000 for an apartment that would have rented for $10,000.

[NickRails]

No, she owned her apt. Her kids inherited it when she died.

[eastsider]

I was wondering if you felt that the same arguments that general_re makes against rent control ("when you artificially cap prices, you artificially restrict supply"; "there's no incentive to build new property and increase supply") can be made against rent stabilization?

I ask for the reason that 10 years ago I "lucked" into a one-bedroom, rent-stabilized apartment on the Upper East Side (I knew the guy who was moving out and spoke to the building manager before it went on the market). My rent isn't exactly cheap, but it's still about $1,000/mo. cheaper than comparable apartments in my neighborhood, (the rents in my neighborhood have skyrocketed since I started renting mine). Should I be feeling guilty, or just plain lucky?

[Conservative til I die]

They oughta ease the restrictions on the taxis too, although I guess without competition $2 + 30 cents per 1/45 of a mile isn't a bad rate. However, whenever I've visisted friends up in Dutchess Coounty and taken the train, most of the gypsy cabs will take you about 5 miles for about $2. Granted the cab is some guy's station wagon and you never know if he's just a serial killer looking for his next victim, but it's a good deal. The gypsy cabs in my hometown Yonkers, (The Cyanide Capital of the World) are about the same price, and we actually border NYC.

Belive me though, that $200 grand is a good investment. I hear the cab drivers can make it all back pretty quickly, and judging from the number of NYC yellow cabs parked in the driveways of the nice 3 family houses in my neighborhood, they're making back their investments and then some.

[GaConfed]

NYC is full of all sorts of social engineering laws that have all kinds of unforseen effects.

One of these effects is rampant corruption. Sometimes I think these politicians and bureaucrats dream up these crazy laws and regulations just to be able to take bribe money from people to get around them. Purty slick huh?

[supercat]

although I guess without competition $2 + 30 cents per 1/45 of a mile isn't a bad rate.

Huh? I don't think you meant to post what you did: $13.50/mile?

BTW, when I was in New York about a decade ago, I remember the cab fares being roughly in line with other cities; one thing I thought was interesting (and actually not unreasonable) was that any time the cab spent travelling less than 15mph would be billed as though the cab were travelling 15mph. While this probably triples the cost of certain rush-hour cab fares, it's not unreasoanble that a cabdriver should charge more per mile in such circumstances. Perhaps fares in general should be discounted because of the peak-rate pricing, but given that NYC prices are in general more expensive than prices elsewhere the cabs didn't seem too out of line.

[Twodees]

Rent controlled apartments aren't a very glorious thing for the poor schmuck of a building owner who has to make up the difference in the amount a freeloader's $125 a month covers and the sizable outlay per unit required to stay abreast of maintenance, taxes and utilities/heating fuel. An owner who is stuck with more than a few such rent controlled units in a building can go broke and see his building burned down by some crook who gets hold of it once he's disposessed.

Your pal is freeloading on some building owner. You probably haven't thought much past how neat his deal on rent sounds or you wouldn't be cheering him. His landlord doesn't share your opinion of rent control, I'm pretty sure.