Does rent control still exist in NYC?

I think so. I remember meeting a woman who keeps an apartment her family had. The rent was incredibly low. I forget the exact figure but people where all joking about how envious they were.

some are but many are dying...of old age.

There was an article about this old lady who lived in a very good area but had no hot water and the apt was in terrible shape, she didn't allow landlord to fix anything because she doesn't want the cheap rent to go up.

Yes OP, rent control is still in existence here in NYC. I think at one time, you as the rent controlled tenant could add a successor on your lease, thus allowing generations to inherit the rent controlled apartment. I think now, you need to either be a relative or lived in the apartment for a certain number of years in order to be eligible to take over the rent controlled lease.

I do think there is a need for rent control - for seniors, disabled, etc. - but it really needs to be policed better, not allow abuses.

In my last rental apartment, on 76th Street, my neighbor had been in the apartment since 1948. It was his first apartment after immigrating after the War. Very nice size one bedroom for a single man. He was only something like $273 and change a month. The owners of the building wanted him out as they wanted to go co-op, and I used to feel bad for the guy figuring this was all he had, all he could afford. More fool me! Turned out poor neighbor had a nice house out in Shelter Island and owned a walk up rental building in Queens. He didn’t need rent control, but he fought tooth and nail to keep that apartment until he died.

R2 I think this is the story you referenced in the link.

It does, but beware if your building goes co-op!

(Luckily for me, my boyfriend bought my apartment, then sold it to me after I broke up with him a few weeks later. I had no money, so I forced my friend Charlotte to lend me about 50 grand so I wouldn't have to move!)

They cant force a rent controlled tenant out to go co-op. My co-op still has a few original rent controlled tenants living here. They can force them out to convert it to single family owner occupied. Buy outs are ver common though. I've heard of 7 figure buy outs to get rid of them, but more commonly 5 or 6 figure deals.

[quote]They cant force a rent controlled tenant out

ROFLMFAO

Friend on E9th has 1 bedroom with kitchen and bathroom for $600/month. Been there 35 years. Basement apartment, a floor through is $35k/month

It still exists in San Francisco, too. I know some older adults with amazing deals in desirable areas like Mission Dolores.

Not a dime!

[quote] to go co-op

r6, before you get hysterical, finish reading the sentence. Kushner never bought, built, converted or developed a co-op.

I live in one. For 30 years. If not, I wouldn’t still be in NYC. I think it’s a good thing in that it allows for a mix of incomes - but it will die off with my generation as the landlords can do renovations and charge more than $2,500 to a new tenant making it non controlled or stabilized.

While I’m grateful for it, it has also prevented me from buying in NYC - which would have provided me with a huge windfall from the increased value that I could use to retire on. Of course, I would have to leave NYC. At least now I can live here until I die.

I have friends who are in one and are being threatened to get out as the building owner wants to sell. They are afraid to leave the apartment together because things have gotten so bad, one of them is always in the apartment.

You have rent control and rent stabilized. Unlike CA, in NYC once the rent goes over $2,000 it is out of rent control.

You're allowed to raise rent so much per year. According to NYC website, by 2030 no rent control apts will be left in the city, but they will have rent stabilized.

Thanks, Comrade R10.

My Mom's goddaughter has lived in the same apartment on 83rd Street for 44 years.

Jared Kushner's family firm accused of forcing out tenants for high-paying condo buyers

Tenants say it started early in the morning and went on until nightfall, so loud that it drowned out normal conversation, so violent it rattled pictures off the walls. So much dust wafted through ducts and under doorways that it coated beds and clothes in closets. Rats crawled through holes in the walls. Workers with passkeys barged in unannounced. Residents who begged for relief got a standard reply, “We have permits.”

More than a dozen current and former residents of the building told The Associated Press that they believe the Kushner Cos.’ relentless construction, along with rent hikes of US$500 a month or more, was part of a campaign to push tenants out of rent-stabilized apartments and bring high-paying condo buyers in.

My friend who lives on 73th and Columbus in NYC has a 103 year old woman upstairs from him who's lived there since 1946! She does not pay very much. At all.

How much do you pay R11? What part of town?

R16, I think there's a simpler explanation for the behavior of Kushner's firm -- it just plain didn't CARE whether the other residents were miserable or not due to construction. If the holdouts moved, great. If they didn't, fuck 'em, their happiness didn't matter anyway.

The fact is, remodeling is messy, noisy, and generally unpleasant to be around... and a hundred times worse if the person behind the remodeling doesn't give a shit about being a good neighbor and minimizing their impact. It's hard enough to get contractors to cooperate with your scheduling and minimize their impact to others if you really, truly WANT to. In a booming economy (especially in a market where trade unions are powerful), the contractors pretty much dictate "take it or leave it" terms. Combine belligerent tradesmen with indifferent property owners and expensive lawyers, and you're guaranteed to have lots and lots of collateral damage that's not 'malicious' as much as 'recklessly indifferent'.

I don’t understand how having a rent controlled apt in NYC prevented you from buying your own place R11.

Are you saying you were spoiled by your low rent and you didn’t want to buy and increase your monthlies? Or are you saying you could only afford rent control, so buying wasn’t an option?

R20 - I was spoiled by my rent so never had need to move and buy - didn’t make sense to increase my monthly dramatically for the same space. I once saw rent control described as “an enabler of mediocrity”. There may be an element of truth to that in I never was motivated to stretch to buy a place - which would have left me a much richer man at 55. But still grateful for it - well run building with no harassment from landlord. And I am encouraged to live out my days in NYC - which, while not what it once was, is still a relatively fabulous and stimulating place to live compared to moving to Florida and staying in my air conditioned villa all day.

Thanks for your reply R21 - I completely understand your reasoning. Good for you in that your building is well run with a non-harassing landlord. When I was renting, I never had a rent controlled unit, but my last place was rent stabilized. Was a great building, a huge pre war 1 bedroom, and my friends couldn’t believe what I was paying ( jealous, bitches? lol) If circumstances hadn’t changed allowing me to buy elsewhere, I would have happily stayed too!

Many in the media has rent controlled apts. I forget the names but I read it a long time ago...

Cindy Lauper lives in one, she pays dirt cheap but went to court to sue her landlord because the rent should have been even cheaper according to her.

I have heard tales of people who make good money and could well afford market rate or even to buy their place that live in rent controlled apartments. Admittedly it’s all anecdotal, but I’m sure there are some - possibly more than one would think.

I’m no expert, but isn’t there some sort of income requirement for rent controlled apartments? I’m sure at one point Cyndi Lauper, Faye Dunaway, etc. were all struggling, making little money so they qualified - but they’ve made fortunes since, so shouldn’t they be put out? Or is it that you just need to qualify for rent control to begin with, then once you’re in you’re good for as long as you keep the apt, regardless of what you make?

A woman at my job had a rent controlled apartment in the east village. Three bedroom and she pays $500 for it. Her daughter and grandchildren live with her and will take over the lease when she retires. A developer offered to buy her out for $300k but she wanted more (as did the others in her building) and the developer lost interest.

Rent stabilized apartments are much easier to find but they’re not always that much cheaper than market rate and often not well maintained. NYC rental market is bleak.

No income requirement in general. Only consider income if landlord makes a ton of repairs - which when divided by 60 and added to current rent increases rent above $2,500 I think.

Can still get one if you are willing to live in the Bronx or cheaper areas where rents are less than $2,000.

Imperfect way to create affordable housing - but at least it helps. Don’t feel sorry for the landlords as they bought it for a price that assumes rent controlled apartments remain. So only winner when rent control ends is an unexpected windfall to landlords.

[quote] Don’t feel sorry for the landlords as they bought it for a price that assumes rent controlled apartments remain. So only winner when rent control ends is an unexpected windfall to landlords.

What's odd is sometimes there are individual apartments for sale that have a rent controlled tenant, so you can buy a $1.2M apartment for only $200K, because you can't live in it and you'll only collect a small rent from the tenant that won't even cover your maintenance costs. But on the other hand, you'll reap $1M if the tenant DIES! It's almost like putting a contract out on the tenant's life.

When I last stayed in New York at The Jane, they put me on a floor that seemed to gave tenants in tiny rooms. One had a family in a tiny room. It was disturbing.

I think the Jane has holdovers from before it became a boutique hotel. Rupaul lived there in her early pier days.

There's no income limit but the unit has to be your primary residence or you can be evicted. So you can't live in Connecticut and keep a rent controlled/stabilized unit as an occasional weekend pied-à-terre. Or live in LA and come to New York for a couple months a year. That was the brouhaha with Dunaway. The landlord claimed that her primary residence was in LA and she wasn't eligible for rent control. In the end she gave up and moved out before her case was decided but she would have lost. Publlic records showed she spent most of her time in California.

I’m amazed how many rent stabilized apartments exist in NYC. There are a lot. It’s easy to forget that even in today’s super rich NYC, there are a lot of places where people are paying less than $2,000 for an apartment.

R28, those aren't "tenants".

"The rent control program generally applies to residential buildings constructed before February 1947 in municipalities that have not declared an end to the postwar rental housing emergency. A total of 51 municipalities have rent control, including New York City, Albany, Buffalo and various cities, towns, and villages in Albany, Erie, Nassau, Rensselaer, Schenectady and Westchester counties.

For an apartment to be under rent control, the tenant (or their lawful successor such as a family member, spouse, or adult lifetime partner) must have been living in that apartment continuously since before July 1, 1971. When a rent controlled apartment becomes vacant, it either becomes rent stabilized, or, if it is in a building with fewer than six units, it is generally removed from regulation. For more information on succession and the definition of a family member, check out HCR Fact Sheet #30: Succession".

There aren't many rent control apartments left, but there are rent stabilized ones. Those are the ones subject to 1 or 2- year leases which you usually see on tv news yearly having hearings with screaming from tenants; though a couple of times since De Blasio become mayor, there actually weren't increases one or two years when there almost always had been.

Enabler of mediocrity is the right description. I'll never forget the court case of a woman who was fighting it; she described herself as an artist. In reality she was beyond pathetic.

The writer for one of the papers said if the woman only HAD to pay rent and actually work or do something, she would have become better person.

By the way, the law did change years ago knocking out those with a certain income. Alastair Cooke was impacted, but none more so than Ronan's Mom, Mia Farrow, who had to give up that spectacular apartment seen in Hannah And Her Sisters.

R27, there was a mystery.novel some years back (either by or featuring Marisa Piesman?) about seniors in a rent-controlled building on the UWS who were meeting unusual ends...

There are abuses on both sides with NYC real estate. Owners don't have an incentive to keep commercial rents reasonable, because they can get a tax break on unoccupied store fronts. Some people in govt-subsidized co-ops can sell them for big profits, I believe, which doesn't seem right. I don't think it's fair that a very wealthy person can be eligible for rent control.

^^^"Unorthodox Practices "--Marissa Piesman

Can someone who makes $50K a year live in Manhattan?

R31 yes but for the most part those apartments are old and not well taken care of. I lived in one and it took months for the super to fix my shower which wasn’t draining at all no matter how much draino I put in. It was like taking an unwanted bath every time. But that was nothing compared to another tenant who had bedbugs and couldn’t get the management company to bring in an exterminator until she sued. But the rent was cheapish for the neighborhood.

DC has a lot of rent stabilized apartments but for whatever reason they’re well cared for.

R37 there are families living on $50k year in the Bronx. Crowded and not luxurious but it can be done. And if you are young, you can share a place with 3 people in a semi trendy neighborhood in Brooklyn for under $1,000 month. There is a reason the average and median incomes and housing costs can be surprisingly low in NYC - because there are a lot of people living in Bronx and Queens on much less than the Chelsea queens and Milion Dollar Listing types make it seem.

R37 said "Manhattan", not Brooklyn or the Bronx.

East Harlem, Inwood, Washington Heights - you can still find affordable rents.

I would never move back to NYC specifically because of bedbugs. I don't know how every single apartment isn't infested with them.

[quote] Basement apartment, a floor through is $35k/month

Bullshit! Talk about a gross exaggeration.

When I lived in NYC, I had a rent stabilized apt. There's some sort of registry where you can look up to make sure that rents haven't been increased more than the legal amount between tenants. That was 35 years ago, and I was paying $390 for the world's tiniest studio on the corner of 9th Ave and 14th Street. After I investigated and reported the illegal increase, my rent was dropped down to about $290/month. It was about $340 when I gave it up several years later. My apartment was about 7 feet wide and about 15 feet long. It did have a full-sized bathroom off to the side. It was kitty corner from J's bar, and my evening's entertainment was to watch the endless parade of people headed there, to the after hour's clubs in the meat district, and to see the transvestites in their bustieres headed to the truck parking areas to turn tricks under the elevated train trestle which is now the Highline park. I had a loft bed built over the door so that I could have a separate "living" space.

yes, there is a number you can call to check if your building is rent controlled.

The Jane is definitely haunted - boutique hotel is pushing it.

My favorite NY apartment was toilet in kitchen, by oven

If you told people in SF they had to pay $2500 a month - they would say thank you

So R44, you payed dirt cheap rent (which you complained about and got even cheaper) yet you can easily afford to have " a loft bed built over the door"?

I really don't understand why it costs so fucking much to live in SF. I sort of get why NYC is expensive. Can someone explain the rule where every new apartment building has to have a certain percentage of "low income" apartments available in NYC? How does that work?

They don't have to, R48, but they get tax breaks if they do.

I think SF is so much smaller - it’s creating a market that can sustain crazy rent and crazy house prices. But our issue is all homeless and drug addicts in that small space. CA has a ballot initiative to make rent control statewide and it will be a major test - I know next Governor opposes. Urban may just become for wealthy and lucky survivors.

r16... "CO-OP" -- can you read? Do you understand the word? Your article has nothing to do with CO-OPs....

R49--that's another developers' con. They end up getting a lot more than they provide.

Get out of New York. You'll be happier.

(R47) I think you're visualizing something very deluxe. My loft bed cost about $250. The student carpenter I found from the Village Voice who built it salvaged an old library ladder stair to climb up. It was literally 4 4X8 posts and a sheet of plywood (3.5 feet by 7 feet) plus some sort of minimal frame resting on the posts to hold the plywood. Since the door was about 6' 6' feet tall and the height of the ceilings was about 10 feet, is was a very tight fit up there. I had to do my "entertaining" on a rolled up futon on the main level. I was probably earning less than $14,000/year and taking home less than 12,000 when I moved there, so yes, $400/month seemed like a big expense to me. I did hear stories back in those years of people watching the obituaries and looking the dead people up to see if they lived in rent -stabilized buildings, then racing over there to try to bribe the doorman or super to get in to see the apartment and apply for it. My friends were all poor dancers, musicians, and theater people, so everyone was after the cheapest rent that could possibly be found. I'm sure it's the same now, but far fewer cheap apartments to be found. Probably most of the above live in the Bronx now.

R53. - If I have affordable rent stabilized rent, why would I happier leaving NYC?

I assumed you were talking about those loft beds we used to have in our dorm room.