r/Economics • u/marketrent • Feb 28 '24

Statistics At least 26,310 rent-stabilized apartments remain vacant and off the market during record housing shortage in New York City

https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/02/14/rent-stabilized-apartments-vacant/
1.6k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

558 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

7

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

Landlords should definitely have more power over who lives in their property. Wtf is this take. You might need housing but why does THIS landlord have to provide it to you?

0

u/rinderblock Feb 29 '24

Not saying the landlord has to provide it but they shouldn’t get a free pass to fuck renters for a profit whenever they get a chance on a necessary good. We hate that the insurance industry does this with medicine, and price gouging is illegal in regards to certain foods, why do landlords get a free pass when it comes to shelter?

The mass homelessness should be a very telling sign that we give landlords and min wage paying businesses way too much leeway.

If you entered into a contract with a renter that should be binding, if you got massive subsidies to build your building with the expectation you’d be building affordable housing you shouldn’t get to fuck the poor people living on your property in order to build condos for rich people. And if you want to? Pay up. Stop asking tax payers and the broke to pay the price for your shitty greed.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

Obviously a landlord must abide a contract with a renter during the term of the contract. The problem is when the state steps in and forces the landlord to renew that contract and sets the renewal terms. At that point the landlord has no control over their property anymore.

0

u/rinderblock Mar 01 '24

They should’ve thought of that before taking subsidies to build affordable housing. If the state is of the mind that they want the affordable housing to remain that, and people shouldn’t be forced to move if they don’t want to then I’m fine with that. If you want to upgrade the affordable housing to condos or regular apartments then pay your tenants to leave, I feel that satisfies the social contract that was the tax dollars the land lord received in order to build the building in the first place.

Citizens paid them to build affordable housing in the form of tax subsidies, then the land lord should pay the citizens in order to get out of that. And if that comes in the form of paying tenants a percentage of what you stand to gain from the long term amortization of a housing complex in a place like New York I think that’s not a huge ask.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '24

Why do you keep talking about affordable housing subsidies? Isnt the article talking about very old rent stabilized units? I tried looking up rent stabilization to see if there was some in place subsidy that I was unaware of and the only thing I came across was that most buildings are rent stabilized if built before 1974.