It's also really arbitrary. I live in the upper west side district mentioned. My rent is $2600, i.e my unit is skirting just above the rent control line. I bet my unit was 'de-controlled' in the last 8 years.
But the classification doesn't matter to me personally at all. If the apartment went from $2400 to $2600, while it was decontrolled, the affordability hasn't changed that much. Meanwhile a unit that was $1900 several years ago could be $2400 now because they reset the rent every time the tenant switches. It is much less affordable, but it is still rent controlled. This data is not going to help you figure out if things have gotten significantly less affordable.
Which really means this is just a map of where median rents are close to the line between rent controlled and not rent controlled. Notice that the areas that are much more expensive don't show change, since everything was over the line to begin with. The places that are really cheap also don't show a huge amount of change because even after increases the units are still rent controlled. So overall it's good data but it's not telling you that much.
Your post assumes that the point of rent control is to provide some housing inventory that is below market value for new tenants. In actuality, the point is to ensure that long-time residents will not be swiftly priced out of their communities.
i.e. it doesn't matter that I'll pay market rent for a rent-controlled unit I move into today. What matters is that the yearly increase in my rent will probably not outstrip my income over the long term.
They want to preserve the culture of people who have less money. Yes, the market would be more efficient with no price controls but at the cost of replacing low income tenants with higher income tenants. I think a better solution is reasonably priced public housing distributed throughout the city.
Lloyd Blankfein, who grew up in a public housing project and later wrote a letter to NYCHA about how he loved growing up there, might disagree with you.
If they are so great, I'm sure you wouldn't mind moving from your W 55th street rent controlled apartment up a few blocks to the Amsterdam Houses, right?
Price controls are generally considered to be inefficient purely from an economic perspective.
However, the free market has generally been a terrible provider of low-income housing solutions. There's a long, long history to this from shanty towns to tenements. That's why basically all developed countries have some type of social housing component from demand-side subsidies to public housing or regulated stock.
When we lose permanently affordable units, it is invariably extraordinarily expensive to replace them given land costs and the size of subsidies that are needed. Contemporary homelessness emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s in both San Francisco and New York as both cities started to lose single-room occupancy hotels or SROs.
Regarding efficiency.. I'm noticing more homeless wandering the east village pandering for money these days. With the rents approaching 4k/mo for a 1bdrm, people will probably not tolerate being harassed for money (was called an asshole the other day for ignoring a request for donation by a dude, who I can only assume is homeless). That said, I kinda miss the edginess of the East Village from years gone by...
I'm all for rent-stabilization going away, if two things happen:
1) We remove building restrictions around the city that keep new taller apartment buildings from going up. Yes, almost all of NYC is developed land, but many parts of Brooklyn, for example, are full of one and two story buildings that aren't using the space effectively.
2) We upgrade the mass transit systems to handle the increased population. The subway system is already strained to the breaking point, and the buses can't help enough without getting personal cars off the road to free up traffic.
The author seems very keen on rent control, but I think one should look more cool headedly at some alternatives that can achieve the same result by different means.
Bombing the city in particular should be considered. Bombs could be supplied cheaply by the US army, where they are plentiful, and they could achieve the same level of devastation that rent control has produced in parts of NYC like the Bronx. Of course, they are also other ways to achieve the effects of rent control, like arson, bringing back Mongolian hordes from the dead, etc.
What matters is that we can have an open, transparent debate about the best way to ruin the real estate stock of the city.
When was the last time you went to the Bronx? 1977?
The Bronx is no Williamsburg, but it's changing. Your snark is well-taken, but at least pick a city that's actually doing shitty... like Camden, NJ, or a decaying Rust Belt city.
Hey, I said "produced", not "producing"! It's definitely rebounded since then and I'm particularly excited about the upcoming developments on the southern part, by the water.
Claiming that rent control alone "produced" the "Bronx is burning" is a bit like saying that "pouring water on the ground will cause a plant to grow" -- you've ignored the steps needed to get there. Just like farming, there are many steps: tilling the earth, burying the seed, giving it water and fertilizer. Redlining, white flight, drug epidemics and shoddy building codes and enforcement all contributed to urban decay in the Bronx in the 1970s.
This has nothing to do with what anyone deserves or doesn't deserve. If you want the poor to live in desirable places, the best way to do that is to give them the money to do so.
Trying to control prices directly has a track record of backfiring horribly, for reasons which are well understood by economists and uncontroversial.
The Bronx did go up in flames when landlords set their own buildings on fire as they were taking a loss on their rent controlled buildings, where the rent didn't even cover the mandatory maintenance.
> The Bronx did go up in flames when landlords set their own buildings on fire as they were taking a loss on their rent controlled buildings, where the rent didn't even cover the mandatory maintenance.
This is demonstrably wrong.
Arson was involved in 7% of the fires and almost all in already abandoned buildings.
Fire burned the bronx because city budget cuts closed fire departments, reduced fire inspections and caused hydrants to not work. FDNY administration rigged the closures to not affect the neighborhoods they lived in.
Assuming that you want to allow poor people to live in an area that they couldn't otherwise afford, why are price controls used instead of directly subsidizing housing costs for those with lower income.
It seems like the direct subsidy would have a less distorting effect on the market.
There are a very large number of places that are desirable and affordable.
In fact, increasing the efficiency of the housing market is one of the best ways to increase the number of such places. The downside is such places will probably not be highly desirable parts of New York City.
Where are these all-knowing economists and why aren't they running NYC already? We'd have all our problems solved if only we removed the market controls!
EDIT: I've replied to a post that is undergoing on-going editing.
Property is a social construct. If humans decide these are the rules of property, then they are the rules of property. If your username is indicates your position, your beliefs are outside of the mainstream and your definition of property is outside of the mainstream. If you really want to have a conversation, describe where you stand. Otherwise, the answer is that theft is not necessarily involved in the transfer of wealth from A to B and you have not established that theft is involved in this context.
>Property is a social construct. If humans decide these are the rules of property, then they are the rules of property. If your username is indicates your position, your beliefs are outside of the mainstream and your definition of property is outside of the mainstream.
While I'm not aware of any polls on the subject I would guess that your concept of property is what is "outside of the mainstream."
>theft is not necessarily involved in the transfer of wealth from A to B and you have not established that theft is involved in this context
Your wording here seems to indicate that you have a contradiction in your own view of property. If the wealth was not A's to start with, then how could it be transferred away from A and to B? If A did not own the wealth in question, why is it in his possession? Where did A get the wealth from? What does it mean that it was "transferred" to B? Does B now own the wealth?
>If you really want to have a conversation, describe where you stand.
Rent control is theft. The marginal difference between the market rate and the rent control rate is being stolen from the property owner.
My personal views on property are most certainly fringe. However, I couldn't get by very well without understanding its logic as it is implemented, as other people understand it, and enforce it.
If you are talking about theft legally, then clearly there is no contradiction that a transfer of wealth from A to B can occur without it being theft and without it being whatever notion of consensual exchange you hold (which I'll take for granted is compatible with the incumbent system). Taxes are legal. Judgments calling for transfer of wealth from one to another are legal. I think surely you are not saying I am contradicting myself applying the legal system as it is, are you?
In the current system, rent control isn't theft because the marginal difference, by definition does not belong to the property owner. The system that enforces their property claim is the same system that defines what their claim is. Without that system, their claim is neither justified nor well defined.
So let's move away from legality and law. Your original question must have been one of morality, not law. My response is that I, personally, don't think property is moral or immoral because I do not take it as a priori. It is a human system. It has consequences. Its consequences are what can be judged on morality. On this count, I am heterodox. However, I understand how others think. Others, basically the entire history of property, actually, takes taxes levied and property rights regulated by the authority that justifies them as legitimate.
>Your original question must have been one of morality, not law.
You are correct in your assumption. Perhaps I should be more explicit in that premise, as this seems to get lost on a lot of people. My fault.
>My response is that I, personally, don't think property is moral or immoral because I do not take it as a priori. It is a human system.
Surely, property in and of itself is not moral or immoral because we are talking about inanimate things. But the ownership of property, if you agree that property can be owned, does lead to questions of morality.
I am not sure I follow when you say property is a "human system... it has consequences". Surely all discussion of morality involve humans, correct? We certainly don't condemn lions as immoral for killing and eating antelope; or the mallard for reproducing forcibly with a less than willing female.
>What notion of property do you have?
I am of the belief that property is an essential element of liberty. If someone has the right to say what they want, or worship how they will, or have relationships with others how they see fit, or whatever they want that is not initiating violence against others, that right is valid as long as they have property to perform those rights on. They cannot go on someone else's property and be entitled to act however they want, without the owner's permission.
Now, just to be clear, I am not talking in the context of our current system, even though there are similarities. I am talking theoretically. This is important because I believe property rights pre-exist the state; that the right to own property is a natural, inalienable right. (In case there's any confusion when I say "right to own property" I do not mean that everyone is entitled to have property, but rather the rights which someone has as a property owner). So I would disagree with your statement that "property rights regulated by the authority that justifies them as legitimate," assuming the "authority" you refer to is the state.
With the view of a natural right to property, it is clear that theft is a "crime" even absent codified law. Furthermore, any codified law which sanctions theft in any form is a violation of natural rights, is immoral and is invalid.
>My personal views on property are most certainly fringe.
You are in good company. While many believe in the notion of natural rights, few hold an intellectually consistent view in applying what it would mean to respect natural rights today.
Edit: up vote for you for fostering an intelligent conversation and not resorting to ad hominem attacks.
That's all very fair. I think we've pinned down adequately where our differences lie.
I spoke about property intending to mean the notion of property, not the physical things that we call property, to clarify. In fact, I see entirely in the word property the notion of ownership, and likewise I only see the word property meaningful in the context of the notion of ownership. Without this, things are just things doing their thing.
So, I take it to be true that property is, not being an intrinsic attribute of things, to be a human system: A system of relationships between human beings. I believe it is possible to consider human relationships without morality coming into account, morality being a complex interaction between the nature of the world and the way humans act in it. I am being very wishy-washy, so I'll drop the point. I think it would be hard for me to clarify what I mean.
So, that leaves us with the notion of natural rights. I have to acknowledge that it is a useful notion. Liberalism has been a powerful force in the world for centuries and it rests on the idea of natural rights. That cannot be denied.
However, that is merely the idea of natural rights. I cannot take that as basic. What I take as truly fundamental is an almost tautological statement: What is fundamental is the way things go. When you go against the fundamentals, you get problems, resistance. Sometimes you can brute your way through it, but you always leave, by definition, problems in your wake. If there weren't problems, then it wouldn't have been contravening the fundamental. Sometimes, you can't even get a compromise.
To move from the abstract to the concrete, as an example the second law of thermodynamics is fundamental: That's the way things go, and you can't contravene it. Mallard ducks have violent mating rituals, human power is wasted trying to change that. It is beyond human power. It is duck fundamental. To take things as they are is fundamental.
When I observe humans and their societies, I can easily note that natural rights are violated. They are not fundamental. Natural rights have power in two ways: When humans exercise, respect, and enforce natural rights, they have power. When humans need to justify themselves to each other, they can use natural rights; this is another aspect of their power, the moral aspect.
When you take this way of thinking in a logical framework to its conclusion, you get critical theory. Critical theory is a fun tool. It digests all morality and rationality, breaking it down into power; power is premoral, prerational. Human power applied not to labor, or industry, but to social relations.
So, I have not much to say about ideologies (coherent systems of ideas) except as they are rendered material and thus embodied in the fundamental way of things. When I look at our society, I see conflict as intrinsic to its nature. I think these conflicts can be avoided, but to do so requires coming to grips with the reality of social relations and letting ideas be our subordinates instead of our masters.
You're willing to discard a lot of ideas to find a world that you think is good, which is a good thing. I am willing to discard all ideas and always work with a blank slate.
I kind of started rambling there, and I don't have a punchline or anything. I'll just leave it at that. It was a nice conversation.
Ah, the favorite of all favorites: the "taxes (or, any government regulations involving income) are theft" argument!
Following this line of thinking... is it "stealing" when schools are built, police stations are funded, or sanitation workers are paid to pick up trash? Starting from your point of view will likely not get far in a discussion that begins with "rent controls".
It's not even remotely germane to this discussion, but the entire point of living in a (democratic?) society is that it's a consensual affair. It's not theft if it's consensual. Judging by your username and posting history, you'd prefer to argue from nuts back to soup, rather than attempt to address valid concerns ("to rent stabilize, or not rent stabilize") within existing fungible frameworks (the rat's nest that is NYC politics).
Of course, if you'd prefer to avoid this "theft" altogether and are in the NYC area, I know some nice places in Van Cortlandt Park where you can set up a log cabin and forget about taxes.
>the entire point of living in a (democratic?) society is that it's a consensual affair
Allow me to test this theory (that merely living in a society gives consent to what would otherwise be theft) with an analogy: You have two routes to work, route A and route B. On route A it takes you 10 minutes to get to work but you are guaranteed to be mugged. On route B, it takes you 45 minutes to get to work and you won't get mugged.
If for whatever reason, perhaps you are running late and if you don't get to work on time you will be fired, you choose to take route A, are you consenting to be mugged? I certainly think not.
Really, your theory is not so much about consent as much as it is about the origins of rights. It sounds like you are a believer that rights originate from society (government), which is something I would disagree with.
> Judging by your username and posting history, you'd prefer to argue from nuts back to soup, rather than attempt to address valid concerns ("to rent stabilize, or not rent stabilize") within existing fungible frameworks (the rat's nest that is NYC politics).
Au contraire! Most people tend to handle these kind of political topics in a very utilitarian way; "which choice is most efficient?", or if you have a horse in the race, "which will net me the most benefit?".
While I agree that rent control is terrible economic policy, I want more people to approach this issue, and other political issues, in a principled manner. Rent control is theft, and it should be recognized as such.
Welcome to toll roads. We've been doing this for 2,500 years. Take route A and get your employer to reimburse you. Or, find a new job that isn't going to fire you for taking route B. Or, pay someone else (the government) to get the "mugger" off of route A. Your analogies belie reality. These are choices made every day by millions of Americans. Very few people consider this theft. They'll bitch and moan and play NIMBY games, but I don't see people revolting over these "thefts".
I don't know where rights derive from, nor am I really interested in figuring that out in a discussion regarding rent control. I am a utilitarian, but I am also a firm believer that a completely free market can create inequality that is untenable in the long-term. Rent control in its current NYC might not be the answer, but, in general, housing programs ensure that all people in a relatively rich society (USA) have one of their basic needs met. People that don't have their basic needs met, whether those needs are met through their own action or through cooperation with others, tend to get violent.
To be equally extreme as you: please don't call the non-existent police when "the poors" storm your mansion due to their sub-par housing conditions, fifty years after the "theft" of rent control ends in your utopia.
Perhaps you have a very different idea of what mugging involves. Generally mugging means you are physically assaulted and then your property is forcibly taken from you.
>Take route A and get your employer to reimburse you. Or, find a new job that isn't going to fire you for taking route B. Or, pay someone else (the government) to get the "mugger" off of route A.
You didn't answer the question. In the scenario if the person takes route A they are guaranteed to be mugged. If they take route A, for whatever reason, are they consenting to be mugged?
>Your analogies belie reality
You've never taken a philosophy class or participated in any thought exercises involving moral dilemmas? The purpose of the analogy is not make a perfect model of the world. It is to test your theory on consent.
>They'll bitch and moan and play NIMBY games, but I don't see people revolting over these "thefts".
I don't know what a "NIMBY" game is and I'm not sure why you introduced the idea of revolting. Why bring up red herrings?
>I am also a firm believer that a completely free market can create inequality that is untenable in the long-term
It is unfortunate that you have a negative bias against free markets, but it is not surprising. Most people have false beliefs about what a "free market" is.
>please don't call the non-existent police when "the poors" storm your mansion due to their sub-par housing conditions, fifty years after the "theft" of rent control ends in your utopia.
It's clear that you don't know what my "utopia" is? Why would police be "non-existent"? I don't have a mansion, but I guess if it's a utopia I might as well have one. And as long as it is a utopia why would there be poor?
Why are you so occupied with the idea of violent revolt? Is this a non sequitur attempting to lead people to believe that a free market inevitably results in violence?
Rent stabilization != rent control - this is confusing for people in other parts of the country where there is only one category of housing price regulation.
60% of all NYC housing units are under some form of rent regulation - either rent control, rent stabilization, or some other form of rent protection. Only about 40% of the housing stock is market-rate.
A very vulgar response. I've heard it put in less stupid terms by other rightists. Although I've never heard a native New Yorker complain about rent control, regardless if they're rich or poor
Not everyone is happy paying several times the rent of their neighbors, just because they were there first.
We're also not really happy that a lot of the housing is slum-quality, since landlords generally want their tenants to move out and the law obliges them to make sure the guy paying $3000 and the guy paying $500 are equally miserable.
The building that I currently live in in Manhattan was taken out of rent regulation (stabilization) with my lease. It's a well managed elevator building from the 70s. I'm perfectly fine paying several times more than some of the building's remaining old timers whose rents only go up 2-3% per year. My rent actually only goes up 4-5% per year. The only difference between the regulated units and mine is what would happen if the building changed owners. If a new landlord came in and was less interested in long-term quality tenants, they could dramatically raise or double my rent every year, finding newer, richer, dumber tenants -- as long as the market would tolerate it (and with the national and international interest in new york, it would). The regulated units meanwhile would continue to only raise at 2-3% per year.
I'm a rent-controlled tenant in a beautiful apartment building on West 55th Street. My rent is low, but not obscenely so.
I lived here through the hard times when the neighborhood was shitty and filled with derelicts, winos and prostitutes.
We all kept the building clean and nice. We lived in the building when _nobody wanted to live here_. We chased out the crooks who used to try to mug people in our elevator and kick open doors. The landlord made improvements to the building because the way the rent control law is designed, _they have to_ to get rent increases.
And we're still here and a great tenant and great neighbors.
Oh and of course the landlord has been trying all sorts of illegal means to get us (and the single-digit handful of other controlled tenants, 100+ unit building) out - and regularly gets verbally slapped around by a judge in housing court. It's a good thing we held on to hold on to _all of our records related to being in this apartment all the way back to 1970_...because we had to.
You might have a good job, but it's probably not good enough for a decent life in New York. Either that, or you just don't know how to find quality housing in your price range. It's not easy for out of towners the first few years. Lots of mistakes :) This is one of the most desirable cities in the world. It's not the rent-stabilization that makes the city less than affordable for you.
> It's not the rent-stabilization that makes the city less than affordable for you.
First, this is a fallacy: in economics, things usually have multiple factors. In regards to whether rent policy is a significant factor on housing affordability for newcomers, people who study this for a living are in almost universal agreement that you're wrong.
Yes, the <1.8% of us with _actually low_ rents (most stabilized apartments aren't nearly that low) are the reason you can't get an affordable apartment.
Keep dreaming.
Also, it's not just a matter of "I got mine." Living where I am afforded me class mobility that I likely would not have had in my life otherwise. I've been _dirt poor_ for most of my life, even in this apartment. What is your alternative to that?
Why are you so focussed on what other people have?
Swedish economist (and socialist) Assar Lindbeck asserted, “In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing.”
Amazing! What a strong argument. I've never heard of this (socialist) guy. Personally, I am a life-long new yorker (and capitalist) living in a luxury, deregulated building paying slightly more than market rate for my housing. My landlord does not raise my rent too aggressively, but could if he so chose. I sort of wish there were laws in place preventing him from doing so, but alas my unit is deregulated. In any case, he probably prefers long-term tenants, so doesn't need the government guidance on what a reasonable annual adjustment to my rent should be to keep me there.
Why is rent stabilization bad? All it does is stop the rent from going up too much while you are living there. I wouldn't want to be a tenant without it - who wants to be forced to move because the rent went up by too much? As soon as you leave, the landlord can sign a new lease at whatever rent they like. That is distinct from "rent control" in NYC, which caps rents and is a much stronger measure, but only applies to tenants living in the same place since July 1st 1971, or March 31 1953 if it's an apartment in a 1 or 2 family home.
Oh, I don't live in NYC, but we have rent stabilization here and the landlord is allowed to increase the rent by a percentage of the current rent plus a percentage of the amount spent on repairs and renovations. If NYC doesn't compensate landlords for repairs, which in turn means they don't want to do them, I agree that is horrible.
> I know liberals like to try to make unicorns exist but economics cuts through most of the lies and bullshit of politics.
The irony of advocating for a liberal housing market, then turning around and claiming that this is not only apolitical, but also politically opposed by liberals, is delicious.
> After hearing through a FOIL request that it would cost the city $50,000 to deliver the building-by-building data (which implies that the city itself does have the data readily available), John, and some peers at BetaNYC, went about scraping the tax bills for NYC buildings to get the rent stabilization information out of PDFs.
> In this new era of open data, you should not need to know how to write a PDF scraper to find a reasonably priced place to live, or discover where you are about to lose one.
I'm having a hard time imagining how it would cost $50,000 to export data.
NYC employees cost ~$107,000/year [1]. They probably calculated that it take about 6 people months of labor to manually transcribe the data into an Excel spreadsheet (e.g. six people for a month, or whatever).
Rent-stabilization is a flawed, lottery-based system that helps out a select few while sometimes having the unintended effect of helping out the wealthy:
A more equitable system would involve direct tax credits to all in need instead of relying on an antiquated system that helps out a few lucky enough to win the rent lottery.
No matter what system you pick, there will always be edge cases that slip through. Some wealthy people will be able to "take advantage" of any system that can be devised, even a tax credit based system. ("How is income defined? How are savings handled? How long do you get the credits for?")
The way you throw that link out there in conjunction with "helps a select few," would let an uninformed reader think that rent-stabilization is an even split between people "milking the system" and "worthy recipients". I find that hard to believe. New rent-stabilized units have strict income limits during the application process [1] , and individual existing units have income limits. When that income level reached by the occupants, that unit falls out of the rent-stabilized category. Furthermore, looking at that link suggests that the "luxury exclusions" are working as intended: all of the requests for deregulation due to income were approved and the rents returned to market rate.
By no means is the current system perfect, but the sentiment here seems to be "kill it with fire."
Sincere question: bad from whose perspective? How do you balance these perspectives?
Real estate regulation in its current form, especially in NYC, derives from the legacy of over-crowded tenements and massive blocks of slums. Sure, the overall quality of life has improved in NYC due to building codes and public sanitation, but totally removing rent "controls" (the general term, not the NYC term) seems like a slide towards poorer living conditions for the lower and middle classes.
Can we just hurry up and turn all of Manhattan into luxury hotels for tourists already? It can be like Venice: 90% hotels and a few condo buildings near the park for billionaires.
It's very well served by public transit, so anyone who works there can commute from elsewhere.
I love posts like this that never fail to remind me that the Hacker News intelligentsia has more respect for efficient markets than it does for poor people.
You say that as if efficient markets is at odds with poor people. When you look at an economic problem such as this, you almost always find that the culprit is some market intervention. In this case, the problem of high rents in relation to income usually results from building restrictions.
No, high rents do not result from a group of greedy, fat rich guys, who wear monocles and enjoy preying upon the poor.
I'm just trying to point out that the majority of the comments in the thread are focussed on price inefficiency instead of actually being concerned with problems of poverty.
But you raise a great point because _zoning_ is absolutely the biggest market intervention problem...and that certainly is a problem of greed.
There's nothing wrong with greed. Greed is why you choose job A over job B, partner Y over partner Z, and many other choices in your life.
Compulsion is the problem. That's why being a mugger is frowned upon and being a mechanic, generally, is not. Both are greedy, or look out for their self interest. It is compulsion which makes building restrictions abhorrent. Similarly, it is compulsion which makes rent control abhorrent.
It has been shown time and time again that price floors or ceilings very rarely help a market be efficient. Quite the opposite usually.