Quote:
Originally Posted by Bayrat
New York has decreased revenues due to people fleeing the state. You can't continue to punish the producers whether it be middle class or Hollywood elite and expect them to continue to take the beating.
Tom helped engineer the democrat takeover and for the life of me I thought he was smarter than that. What did he expect, a leopard to change its spots??
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Oh, I agree. The middle class there is getting squeezed worse than just about any other state, and folks have been voting with their feet for some time.
Several years ago the Democrat Chronicle ran an article regarding how landlords (to include owners of large apartment complexes) were bitching about the lack of tenants, also hinting there was a lack of
good tenants in various parts of town. The landlords and apartment complex managers blamed the low interest rates, which encouraged folks to go out and buy homes, rather than renting. Which is pretty smart for most folks. I bought my first house in '01, in the city, on ~$35K a year income. Refinanced a year later, put $30K into the place, and sold it in '03 when we got married. I got sick of renting and some of the weirdo landlords I'd come across, two of whom practically begged me to buy their rental properties, and a third out in Fairport who begged me to continue renting from her. If that doesn't indicate desperation in such a metro area as Rochester, then I don't know what to tell ya. The house I'd rented in the 10th Ward sold for $95K in '90, and was assessed as such in '00. The house sold to a couple we know for $63K in '01, and the place was almost turn-key. Same property today is probably worth $50K.
As usual, the media only tell one side of a story, or don't dig deep enough. What they left out was the fact there has been no net population gain in Monroe County, in fact, the population has gone down since 2000. So, folks move to surrounding counties, and move out of state, to escape the crushing taxes and some of the persistent problems parts of the county have. Folks struck while the interest rates were low, and, voila, landlords there were begging for decent tenants. The city proper is almost down to 200K residents, which indicates many are either migrating to surrounding towns/counties, older ones are dying off with no takers for their properties (which is a shame), or are leaving the state.
Landlords all over Rochester started dumping rental properties, or they resigned themselves to having to accept Sec. 8 and straight up welfare folks. Witness the thousands of vacant properties all over the city, and the HUD homes sprinkled throughout Monroe County. This is the net result of a lack of decent tenants, or even in some cases decent landlords. Large complexes which once were quiet and counted working class folks, middle class folks, and graduate students as tenants, were suddenly inundated with a seedy underclass, which they had to accept. Not only is this documented fact, a few folks my wife and I know, up there, saw it happen before their eyes. Needless to say these folks no longer rent.
I check RNews once a week to see what's going on in Rochester, and today there was a story about a neighborhood in Henrietta where folks are simply moving out and renting to students. No doubt well to do students from out of state, mostly. So, on one suburban street in Henrietta, in the middle of the biggest economic downturn since the Depression, there are 6+ houses for sale, 'cause the neighbors are fed up with the noise, trash, and now run down nuisance properties. Imagine that-you plunk down $150K+ for a house in the tawny 'burbs of Rochester, and pay $5,500K+/yr. in taxes, only to have snot nosed kids ruin your neighborhood. No doubt these folks are taking a big hit.
All of this ties in with the many and varied reasons why local and state government in NY have only themselves to blame. The landlords of Rochester, NY, blamed low interest rates for their "problems", despite the fact every statistic regarding demographics and population shifts points directly to the fact there's no net in-migration of folks, into what's known as Upstate, NY. Folks who are desperate to move out but whose house won't sell in the downturn instead rent out, and beat feet out of NY. It's happened here, too, but it's a bit isolated. Here, they were real estate speculators who bought several properties in one area, then couldn't unload them in the last two years. Difference is, down here there's a fairly strict background and credit check policy amongst most landlords, and few would want to cheese off the neighbors with trash types and rowdy students. No way any real estate speculator worth their salt is gonna cheese off the neighbors and/or take a bath on a property, after it's been run down by tenants. That only happens in places where people don't care, i.e., they move out of Henrietta, NY, or they were speculators in Stockton, CA. Out of pure desperation and wanderlust Henrietta family moves to, say, Texas, but they have to rent out the house they can't sell. Down here, $1800-$4K/mo. rent is the norm in nicer parts of town, and there are many takers due to the attractive area and growing population, and most come from out of state/outside the U.S. It's conceivable a couple who bought/built a nice house in the '90's for $120K and either have payments under $600/mo. or even have their houses paid off already, live next door to professional people who rent for $3K/mo.
How Rochester, of all places, could have a crumbling inner city and stagnant economy, when the rest of the country perks along during good times, is beyond me, yet it's NY state government and cronyism/corruption which rule the day, there. The solid housing stock there would make most Americans, and every other rational human being abroad, green with envy.
A $60K-$100K house in the city would go for $350K-$450K, here, easy.
Successful rich folks like Golisano ain't stupid. My dad knows him, and they chat from time to time (dad should've taken Golisano's job offer in the early 80's
). Yet, I wonder if it's folks like Golisano who are part of the problem in NY. Many a business has been corrupted by Empire Zone designations, -IDA monies, cronyism, etc., (although Golisano seems to have risen above all that garbage, for the most part) and it's gotten to the point where if you run a business in NY, ya better be in bed with the powers that be, 'cause they're picking winners and losers. Sad, considering Rochester was still that "beacon on the hill" in Upstate, a generation ago.
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