Posted on 10/16/2011 3:36:47 AM PDT by Cardhu
you smell that? that's hope and change. I love the smell of hope and change in the morning.
-and middle class guys like me who had the 1/4 inch of foresight to buy a small condo here.
Manhattan rents have always done this, and apartments always have been “snapped up”. The SOP used to be grab a Village Voice at 11 pm on Tuesday night when that week’s issue first hit the news stands, comb the ads, and get moving fast- and that was 30 years ago. Getting to know some building superintendents, “tipping” them to tip you off as to available apartments is SOP also.
The money this guy has spent on rent could be going to a mortgage, but that is hardly news or some kind of recent strategy. If he wants to pee away his money, so be it.
Nobody >>>OWES<<< this guy a place to live.
End the damn rent control!!
Believe it or not, I read that NYC was once famous for a highly competitive and economical rental environment before rent control was imposed during WWII.
I need to call my Aunt ,, she’s been holding onto a Brooklyn Duplex for 4 years now ... higher rents will make her sale price very competitive ,,, $500,000 at 30 years and 4.25% is “only” $2460 ,, way under this guys budget.
seems like a matter of supply and demand with resulting inflation.
Hmmmm, does NYC have under-the-table services similar to what I was reading about Moscow in the nineties?
Certain gangsters specialized in offering their service for a price. You paid them and they found a nice rent-controlled apartment in the right sort of neighborhood and then they bumped off the elderly couple living there and arranged for you to snap it up...
The trouble is that rent control takes a huge percentage of the housing stock out of the normal supply and demand equation. With inflated prices for the remainder.
Which is also how Manhattan hosts the bizarre phenomena of whole apartment buildings becoming geriatric wards as nobody can afford to move so they all end up spending their entire lives in one place.
People actually want to pay this kind of money to live in NYC? Someone please explain to this Tennessee hillbilly why? After the rent then you look forward to confiscatory taxes, exorbitant prices for everyday goods and putting up with Bloomberg. Sorry. I just don’t get it.
I did not know that. I have only ever been to NYC once and I got the impression that housing was more expensive in NYC because EVERYTHING was more expensive in NYC. the only square deal I found was on a pile of gold from MTB (back when it was $950/oz).
But that's not what happened here. This guy was paying ~$2800/month for the apartment two years ago, and the landlords now want $5000 for the same apartment. Short term swings like that are more related to fluctuations in supply/demand than they are to longer term issues like rent control (although it is true that even the $2800 is likely higher than it would have been without rent control).
Good grief. My daughter lives in a two bed, two bath apartment with it’s own laundry room and a wood burning fireplace. The complex has a gym, a pool, a community room and a playground. She’s 20 minutes from downtown Cincinnati.
Her rent is $745 a month. In Kentucky.
Move South young man, move south.
I wish I had more cash—I would buy a couple of little older mid-century houses in the central Phx area. Giving them away. I don't have the nerve, anyway....Just have a feeling the world economy is in much worse trouble than being portrayed. But...I guess if that is the case...nothing is safe—so I should go ahead and go for what I see as a fantastic opportunity.
Interesting times we live in.
I’ve myself never understood the concept of paying rent, if can afford the mortgage.
Maybe, economically speaking, he can make more money by walking the 15 minutes (or whatever) to his job, then riding 45 minutes each on the subway.
That’s the only I could justify paying rent over a mortgage.
The attraction is that you get to be mugged in Times Square in broad daylight.
I know how you both feel about the high cost. Frankly, you would have to pay me to live in New York now. I know, I used to live and work there.
If you work on Wall Street, in advertising, in publishing, fashion, the theater, or in one of the many other entities headquartered in NYC, it might be a job requirement to live there. Compensation in many of these industries is way higher than the national average. However, if you just have a regular job that you could do almost anywhere in the country, you are probably better off doing it in a city where rents are much lower and the tax man isn’t hiding around every nook and cranny.
Here in fly over country where I live, $40,000 per year would be "not too bad" for a family income and in New York they want $60,000 and more per year for an apartment. I understand that salaries are higher there but I never have "gotten it" either.
I've lived in cities, none as big as New York but you couldn't give me an apartment to live in, in a large city. I have a 4 bedroom house on a double lot in a population 1,600 small town in the mid west and am looking for a more rural location. My property taxes are under $1,000 per year and I bitch about that. My property taxes have gone up almost 20% over a 20 year period and this is in a "blue state".
I have to do without live theater, the metropolitan opera, the philharmonic and other big city amenities but I'll survive somehow. To each his own.
The RRE analysts I know in the NYC suburbs are all calling for another 5% drop in RRE prices in 1Q 2012(except the very top end of the market), There is no way to escape the housing situation for those working in Manhattan.
http://www.housingwire.com/2011/10/14/home-prices-could-dip-another-7-barclays
The Manhattan RRE market recovered in 1Q of this year(except very small condos which seemed to have recovered now) to 2007 peak pricing, it’s just like the NYTimes to just get it’s fancy little head around the news now.
Real estate offices in Manhattan are flying in investors from China, Germany, Turkey, Israel, Italy, etc and these people bought up a large percentage of the “conspicuous bargains” clearing the market very quickly. Same story in London and Vancouver, and Melbourne AU never had a dip in RRE pricing.
Seriously. We bought our house here in Coastal NC and our mortgage is $1300, and that includes taxes and insurance. We are 20 minutes from the beach, 2 hours from Raleigh, if I want some city life. We have 2500 square feet, a 2 car garage, 3 bedrooms and 2 full baths. We are on a beautiful acre of land where I can grow much of my own food. Meanwhile, my sister-in-law is back home in Boston trying to fit her, her husband and three kids in a 2 bedroom with one bathroom and 1/4 of our land for almost 3x the mortgage. I will never, ever go back.
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