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Yes I know..it is a big scam and ridiculous. The whole scene is a joke...nevermind the fact that the people screaming the loudest are the ones that don't even pay their own rent and on a variety of welfare programs!!! The nerve.
Good point Sobro....I bet they're on section 8 and public assistance and still complian about high rents. The nerve of these people.
I think I'm a very reasonable person. I pay my market rent every month and have no complaints about doing so. I've lived in this building for over 10 years and moved from a lower priced apartment to a market rate one on a lower floor a couple of years ago and have no regrets about leaving behind my cheaper rent.
I change my own washers in the sink when needed and unless there is some emergency (thankfully there has not been one) I have no contact with the owner of the building except when he stops by and I happen to see him in the lobby. We exchange pleasantries and that's that.
I think landlords are certainly entitled to make money on their investment properties. I also think they should be able to evict stabilized tenants a lot easier if they have cause.
That being said, it's distressing to read posts by landlords here who think every rent stabilized tenant is some low life, welfare recipient or a six figure income earner who thinks they are entitled to a three bedroom for $200 a month in the center of Manhattan. That is just not the case.
There are a lot of RS tenants who are paying market rent. I lean towards there being some limit on the amount rents can be raised if the tenant is paying market rent. I don't think that is unfair.
What scares me about the elimination of RS is the idea that at any moment in time my rent can be raised several hundred dollars a month for no other reason than there are no limits.
I've put a lot into my apartment. Wall to wall carpeting and the like and I work relatively close to home. I don't plan on moving at this stage in my life and the idea that my life can be thrown into upheaval if an outrageous increase is presented is very scary.
I just wish the LLs here would at least acknowledge that there are good tenants out there who pay market rent without complaint and would have no problem with reasonable increases every year so the building's upkeep can be maintained. We do exist but it seems you'd never know that here.
I am a small LL of RS apartments and I agree with just about everything you said. Most of my tenants, although RS, pay market rent and I have had no problems at all with them. But of the three that are long-time very low-rent, two of them drive me crazy.
One is a chronic non-payer of rent. She is always a few months behind. When it gets to four or five months I hire a lawyer and go to court. She comes up with the money and then immediately stops paying again. Sometimes she comes to court with a list of three or four repairs, a couple of which she caused herself or which are not my responsibility. This has been going on for many years. It has cost me a lot in time and legal fees.
Another does not even live there for most of the year and I know for a fact he has sublet and profiteered on the low rent. It took me a while to realize what was going on. This guy is wealthy and spends most of the year vacationing. His father is a successful MD and wanted to buy the building from me to give to his son. And he's been living there for 10 years at about half the market rent.
Both of these tenants know the RS law inside and out. They know what they can get away with (which is a lot) and what they can't get away with. The law ties my hands as far as eviction goes, unless the tenant makes a big mistake - which is unlikely.
geek, if you are paying market rent then your concern about an outrageous increase if there were no RS is unfounded. The definition of market rent is the rent that the market would pay. It would make no business sense for a LL to force you out by asking for a much higher rent when he couldn't get that rent from someone else. Being a good tenant and having a good relationship makes it even more unlikely. In fact, if RS would magically disappear or be phased out, market rents would eventually decrease because hundreds of thousands of apartments that are now hoarded by long-time low-rent tenants would gradually come on to the market. That would increase the supply. When supply of a product increases and demand stays about the same, the price of that product goes down. Most market rent tenants don't realize this.
Market rent tenants, RS or not, would benefit greatly by a phase-out of the RS system.
Last edited by lamontnow; 12-25-2008 at 08:37 AM..
I'm a RS landlord in the Bronx. If I have a market rate tenant who is a quiet, responsible individual who doesn't bother anyone, WHY in the world would I ever do anything as stupid as raise his rent to scare his business away???? Does that sound like a smart business move by doing that?
I think I'm a very reasonable person. I pay my market rent every month and have no complaints about doing so. I've lived in this building for over 10 years and moved from a lower priced apartment to a market rate one on a lower floor a couple of years ago and have no regrets about leaving behind my cheaper rent.
I change my own washers in the sink when needed and unless there is some emergency (thankfully there has not been one) I have no contact with the owner of the building except when he stops by and I happen to see him in the lobby. We exchange pleasantries and that's that.
I think landlords are certainly entitled to make money on their investment properties. I also think they should be able to evict stabilized tenants a lot easier if they have cause.
That being said, it's distressing to read posts by landlords here who think every rent stabilized tenant is some low life, welfare recipient or a six figure income earner who thinks they are entitled to a three bedroom for $200 a month in the center of Manhattan. That is just not the case.
There are a lot of RS tenants who are paying market rent. I lean towards there being some limit on the amount rents can be raised if the tenant is paying market rent. I don't think that is unfair.
What scares me about the elimination of RS is the idea that at any moment in time my rent can be raised several hundred dollars a month for no other reason than there are no limits.
I've put a lot into my apartment. Wall to wall carpeting and the like and I work relatively close to home. I don't plan on moving at this stage in my life and the idea that my life can be thrown into upheaval if an outrageous increase is presented is very scary.
I just wish the LLs here would at least acknowledge that there are good tenants out there who pay market rent without complaint and would have no problem with reasonable increases every year so the building's upkeep can be maintained. We do exist but it seems you'd never know that here.
We all agree that there is a shortage in affordable hosuing in the entire NYC. And there will always be a shortage as long as these RENT STABILIZATION LAWS exist. Because under the current RS law, if a developer builds a 6 unit or more apartment building, it is AUTOMATICALLY under the RS laws and regulated by the City so why would any developer invest millions of dollars on something that the city dictates and tells you what to charge for rent and the terms? So developers decide NOT to build at all, hence a housing shortage.
What scares me about the elimination of RS is the idea that at any moment in time my rent can be raised several hundred dollars a month for no other reason than there are no limits.
I don't think you're really thinking through all the possibilities of why the rents could be raised. It seems to me that the most likely reason a rent would be raised by a few hundred dollars is because that's what the market will bear.
This has happened to many people in neighborhoods that were previously transitional or bad and ended up becoming hip, like the Lower East Side and Williamsburg.
I am not a landlord, but I have to admit that if I had purchased a building as an investment with market rate tenants in 1998 and my rent roll was, say $1500 for 10 one bedroom apartments ($15,000 a month or $280,000 a year), and in 2005 the other one bedrooms in the neighborhood were now going for $2500 a month...then I, as a landlord and a businessperson, would want to get market rate for my apartments.
Instead of charging $1500 a month, if I could charge $2500 and increase my rentroll by $120,000 a year, I imagine that that's what I would want to do.
Why should I subsidize someone's rent by $1000 a month, which is essentially what I would be doing if the apartment is really worth $2500 and I am only getting $1500?
Sure, I understand the concept of the value of a good tenant, and perhaps if I could only get $100 extra a month, I would weigh the value of a good tenant and decide that I could "subsidize" this tenant by $1,200 a year in order to keep a valuable tenant.
The problem with the "I'm a good tenant" argument is that it doesn't really take into account that for some landlords (maybe most?) owning and renting out properties is a business and the idea of a business is to make money.
If rent stabilization laws really do make it so unprofitable to be a landlord in NYC, why keep doing it? It's been policy for so long now that nobody who rents property today can claim ignorance. It's supported by the vast majority of New Yorkers, and won't be radically changed. You knew that when you decided to become a landlord.
So to the complainers on here, why not move to some unregulated city where you can charge your tenants whatever rent you wish? If the increases really were too low you wouldn't still be doing it. The fact that so many people want to be landlords in the city speaks to the fact that the increases are high enough that it's still profitable.
And please, spare us all the libertarian crackpot econ 101 lessons about price ceilings and deadweight loss.
alot of landlords would like to stop doing it , problem is since the resale price is based on total return and expenses have risen way faster then rents alot buildings at this point cant sell for whats even owed so a landlord has to just suck it up and get little return for their investment or default and walk away which many have ,,........
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