
Rent-Stabilized Housing Is Disappearing Fast in NYC - zeeshanm
http://iquantny.tumblr.com/post/125485105679/rent-stabilized-housing-is-disappearing-fast
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dmitrygr
Why do people panic so much about this?

It has been shown time and time again that price floors or ceilings very
rarely help a market be efficient. Quite the opposite usually.

~~~
krschultz
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.

~~~
danhak
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.

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ChrisLTD
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.

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murbard2
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.

~~~
danharaj
All I hear is: The poor do not deserve to live anywhere desirable.

~~~
ancap
Is it okay to steal from person A to give to person B if person A has > person
B?

~~~
danharaj
Loaded question much?

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.

~~~
ancap
>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.

~~~
danharaj
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.

What notion of property do you have?

~~~
ancap
>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.

~~~
danharaj
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.

------
hanley
> 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.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
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).

[1] Or did, on average, a few years ago. Regardless, this is close enough for
our purposes.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/nyregion/09salaries.html?_...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/nyregion/09salaries.html?_r=0)

------
forrestthewoods
Good!

~~~
rmxt
Care to share why you think this is good?

~~~
edutechnion
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:

    
    
      http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20140430/new-york-city/rent-stabilized-apartments-are-being-occupied-by-millionaires-records-show
    

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.

~~~
rmxt
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."

[1]
[https://a806-housingconnect.nyc.gov/nyclottery/lottery.html#...](https://a806-housingconnect.nyc.gov/nyclottery/lottery.html#home)

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ForHackernews
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.

------
rekt
Darn, less opportunity for AirBnb arbitrage.

~~~
misiti3780
the lease agreements for these apartments state that you cannot use AirBNB and
analogous services - otherwise they can evicted you - and they do ...

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busterarm
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.

~~~
ancap
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.

~~~
busterarm
I'm not saying that, actually.

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.

~~~
ancap
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.

