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I am a rent controlled tenant who is unemployed caring for an elderly relative.That God for rent regulated apartments!Most of us can not afford to pay even $1400.We are not all Stock Brokers and Bankers.A Social Worker,Teacher,Nurse or anyone in the helping professions would have a lot of difficulty paying market rent.
Exactly. Your market-rate ranters and many landlords, however, think that because you are being "priced out," you should leave immediately. It does not matter that you have lived here your entire life, not at all.
Most of the market-rate ranters are new New Yorkers who have not been able to find an apartment without roommates and they are angry about this.
One of the tactics the anti-regulation individuals took: Exaggerate the number of people who are wealthy and hoard regulated units. Thus, it is important to attend meetings and speak out about your situation - I did.
Spoken like a lifetime tenant. If you can't afford to pay $1,400, there are areas of the city that are cheaper, and 90% of the rest of the country is more affordable. So why should you be protected and allowed to live at whatever rent you can afford, when everyone else pays whatever it is they have to, or move to someone more affordable?
There is a reason why rent regulated apts are few and far between..it was a horrible program and not even the tenants benefitted as they ended up living in substandard housing because LLs would not put a dime in..and I don't blame them. Rent stabilization is slightly better, except that they are regulating how much income a LL can receive, but NOT regulating their costs..and therein lies hte problem.
If you want to regulate income..great..but you must also regulate expenses otherwise...well we know what happens. Politicians are busy keeping themselves in office instead of doing what's right for the city.
Never forget the "Landlord Alternate Hardship Increase"
Any landlord in NY who isn't making more than 5% (5.26% to be precise...costs/.95) over his costs can get an increase in his regulated rents so that he IS making that return.
Since very few apply for the increase, we can safely presume that nearly all landords are making well above this profit margin.
They all whine, but they keep their books sealed tighter than Al Capone's vault.
Thus expenses are very much considered in the rental equation.
And it's a Hell of a lot higher than I can get with any bank account.
If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul's support!
Rent control (not too many of those left, I think) and now stabilization creates a sense of entitlement. I am currently living in an older building that is mixed stabilization and market rate. No doubt we free market tenants (who are no wealthier than the rent stabilized people, at least in this building in this neighborhood) are the ones who really pay for the maintenance of the building.
Rent stabilized tenants come to think of themselves as owners, not renters, and that they have a God-given right to live the rest of their lives paying cheap rent. Oh, not just them! They can pass the apartment down to an immediate relative, as long as that relative has been living in the apartment for at least two years before the tenant dies. So no wonder they feel like they are an owner, not a renter!
It is a real eye-opener if you travel to another city that doesn't have the system we have here. You can actually get a decent apartment for not a lot of money.
That's why, when my lease expires, I am seriously thinking of moving out of NYC (I was born here). But why would a rent stabilized tenant even consider such a thing?
Never forget the "Landlord Alternate Hardship Increase"
Any landlord in NY who isn't making more than 5% (5.26% to be precise...costs/.95) over his costs can get an increase in his regulated rents so that he IS making that return.
Since very few apply for the increase, we can safely presume that nearly all landords are making well above this profit margin.
They all whine, but they keep their books sealed tighter than Al Capone's vault.
Thus expenses are very much considered in the rental equation.
And it's a Hell of a lot higher than I can get with any bank account.
i dont know to much about the hardship applications other than there is a big difference in getting it put through depending if the apartments are rent controlled or rent stabilized.
rent controlled i heard is very easy to submit . they only require 1 years records.
rent stabilization requires so much documentation and copies of things going back into time that its almost unrealistic for most landlords to comply with what they require.they want every receipt and every cancelled check for years.
ral estate is not always passive investing and even when it is the grief and aggrevation makes it totaly different than buying a stock or your bank account.
heck if i cant earn a living wage from it and i have to work it i wouldnt do it anymore than i would work at my job for less than a fair wage.
rent stabilization requires so much documentation and copies of things going back into time that its almost unrealistic for most landlords to comply with what they require.they want every receipt and every cancelled check for years.
mathjac,
The form that I linked to was for a hardship increase under the ret stabilization act and it require 1 year of accounting.
Quote:
and now stabilization creates a sense of entitlement.
Just like a landlord feels a sense of entitlement
Quote:
They can pass the apartment down to an immediate relative
Just like a landlord.
The social contract in New York has decided to give some entitlement rights to both landlord and tenant...any landlord is free to move elsewhere if he doesn't agree with the social contract as is any tenant.
any landlord is free to move elsewhere if he doesn't agree with the social contract as is any tenant.
You make a good case. The problem I have is that the social contract has been corrupted by "social justice" (whatever that means) advocates (and people who understandably want to cling to their cheap aparments) that have unrealistic visions of how to structure society. Again, it has been a real eye-opener to travel to other areas that don't have NYC's arcane system.
mathjac,
The form that I linked to was for a hardship increase under the ret stabilization act and it require 1 year of accounting.
Just like a landlord feels a sense of entitlement
Just like a landlord.
The social contract in New York has decided to give some entitlement rights to both landlord and tenant...any landlord is free to move elsewhere if he doesn't agree with the social contract as is any tenant.
im still not versed at all on this so im learning as i go. but it looks like its not anywhere as simple as you think .there are 2 ways to claim hardship. neither would help most landlords as i see it .
since many many stabilized apartments are in converted co-ops it looks like option 2 isnt available to them or myself and option 1 is un-documentable in most cases.. option 1 looks like you would need to have tax records from 40 years ago as well as bills and receipts substaniating those numbers. good luck getting those from a former owner if they are even alive an good luck rounding up yours from 40 years ago... in both cases they want cancelled checks and receipts backing up whats on tax returns,which is what i had origionally heard about the paper work being un-reasonable..
There are two types of hardship relief: comparative hardship and alternative hardship. Comparative hardship increases are governed by section 26-511(c)(6) of the Rent Law and section 2522.4(b) of the Rent Code. This type of increase is available if the building owner's average net annual income for the past three years has been less than the building's average net annual income for the three year period spanning 1968 to 1970.1 The increase is capped, however, such that the sum of (a) the increase, and (b) the building's net operating income in the current year does not exceed 8.5 percent of the equity in the property. Moreover, a landlord may collect only a six percent hardship increase annually.
¶7
Under section 26-511(c)(6-a) of the Rent Law and section 2522.4(c) of the Rent Code, an alternative hardship rent increase is available if the building's annual operating expenses exceed 95 percent of the annual gross rental income. The owner must have held title to the property for at least three years prior to an application for this type of increase. Moreover, it is not available to owners of buildings converted to cooperatives and condominiums, and three years must have passed since any prior hardship increase. As with the comparative hardship increase, this adjustment may not exceed six percent annually.
Are people not sick of paying $3,000 / month for an apartment that their next door neighbor is paying $900 for the same-sized place?
No other city has rent control/stabilization in the country any more, as they all realized it is a total waste, does not help anyone except a privileged few who luck their way into an apartment - and destroy the market to the point where far less housing is built/turned over since there is no economic incentive to do so. And I won't even get into how it hurts small landlords.
Why should everything else be a market system - except housing? And why are SOME people "entitled" to live in a place they could not afford without it being subsidized by the city taxpayers and their neighbors in the building? This is an awful system, and desperately needs to be eliminated.
The hatred I have for animals like sheldon silver pandering to the lucky rent-controlled constituents in their district - all while collecting lots of compensation, mind you, while working at law firms with clients appealing for business from the state, but that's a different matter...
My friend's mother has lived in the same rent controlled apt.since the 1950s. She came as a bride of 18, she is now a widow in her late 70s and the apt. is now a nice area --but the landlord never does any of the things he technically should ( it hasn't had a fresh coat of paint since the late 1980s). The super "tends to" all the high priced apts first. Some floors have gone co-op, and they really get good treatment. When the lady dies, the apt. will likely go co-op and sell for a bundle. As people move out, the apts on one floor are added to the co-op plan -- it is an 8 floor building.
When she moved in, the building was not fancy, not even a reasonably a good neighborhood -- it just happened to become one. Everything gets fixed and fancied when people move out and a new tenant moves, or buys on the 2 floors which are now co-op. (they get the roof as a terrace) Why should she pay more than her lease stipulates in % raises per year if she has stayed in the same apt for 50+ years ? She didn't ask the neighborhood to gentrify; she moved to what she could afford as a bride. She has a lease. it states what % rent can raise.
Yes, rents are high all around her, but who are you to decide what contracts (leases) should be nullified just because you are paying more? You pay what the market will bear. You sound like either 1) a landlord with people who have rent controlled apts. and you get no money for it or 2) someone who lives next door to someone who has a rent control. Sour grapes.
Buffalo the key to the above statement was the last paragraph, second sentence: YOU PAY WHAT THE MARKET WILL BEAR. Do you even read what you write? She is NOT paying what the market will bear, she is paying whatever it is someone else dictates, NOT the market, and everyone else is subsidizing her. And therein lies the problem.
This whole system has been politicized, and as a result, it has nothing to do with the market, just what politicians decide so they can get elected. And let's put it this way:
If you started a job 30 years ago, and you received 2% increases per year, and today you are earning $80K, but people coming into your field, with less experience, education, etc, are earning $135K, would you say "well that's what it says in my contract, so that's it" OR would you demand a raise for what "the market will bear for your education/experience"?????
According to you, you would say "well that's in my contract, and who am I to decide what contracts should be nullified because I want more money." You are just being sour grapes for asking for more money, right?
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