[laurav]

You know, I've been trying to figure out where these mysterious rent-controlled apartments are. My roommate and I pay as much for our two bedroom one bathroom place on the upper east side as my parents pay for a five bedroom house in Indiana. I don't know anyone who's ever had a rent-controlled apartment. How does one land one of those things anyway?

[Sonny M]

My family is in real estate. We have several building with rent control apartments. To be honest with you, its next to impossible to get one. Even worse, here's the most bizarre irony of all. Rent Control is good for landlords, but not the individual landlord who has it, rent control is bas for tenants in general, but not for the individual tenant who has it. If somone has a rent control apartment, they have taken an apt off the market,they they might not normally want or have, but they have also driven up the rents in other apartments. A family will have to settle for a smaller place, while a single person will keep a bigger place. Its alot more complicated then this, but this is a small basic of it.

[ambrose]

Rent control is typically "grandfathered" in to existing tenants... but once someone moves out, the landlord can raise the rent back to market rates.

[Nick_123]

I knew a women who grew up in NYC. Her parents lived in a rent controlled apartment (West 113th St.) when she was young. Many years later, her parents divorced and her mother got a apartment downtown (Chelsa). Since she stayed with both parents, her name was on both leases. Her mother died a number of years ago and she moved in permanently, paying about 500$/month. Its a 2 bedroom so she rents out the spare room for about 500$/month. A few years later her father got very ill and was moved to a nursing home. Since her name is on the lease there as well, she can stay there if she wants at a cost of about 400$month. She rents it out to a couple of Columbia students for about 500$/month.

I think it was Thomas Sowell in his book "Basic Economics" who made the claim that due to rent control in NYC, there are more abandoned apartment units than homeless people.