Free Republic

With a 1.4% vacancy rate, the city is in desperate need of housing, and fast. A special panel known as the Charter Revision Commission, established by Mayor Eric Adams, believes they have some solutions to the problem. What You Need To Know Housing-related proposals will appear as questions two through five on the November ballot. Voters will see them when they flip over their ballots Question two would create two new shortened processes for affordable housing: one for publicly financed projects and another for a newly created list of the 12 community districts with the least development Question three would...

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — The New York State Assembly Housing Committee held a public hearing in Albany on Tuesday to examine how municipalities outside of New York City can opt into laws that regulate rent, services, leases, and evictions to keep housing attainable. The hearing centered on the Rent Emergency Stabilization for Tenants Act (S4659A/A4877A), a proposed bill that could make it easier and less expensive to enact better tenant protections. Proponents of the REST Act—including tenants, local elected officials, and legal experts—testified that current state law is flawed and easy for landlords to manipulate. Opponents argued that the existing...

Rents for single-family residential homes rose just 1.4% in August compared with the year before, according to analytics and data firm Cotality, down from a 2.3% annual gain in July. That’s also much less than the 3% average gain seen last year and is the smallest increase in 15 years. Rent growth weakened across all price points, continuing a trend that has persisted in the second half of this year. Rents had been strengthening in the first half of this year. There were, however, strong variations regionally. Chicago saw the highest annual rent growth at 4.7% in August, followed by...

A once-crumbling factory in Seneca Falls just won one of New York’s top preservation honors — after being saved from the wrecking ball and transformed into a home for dozens of families and veterans. Huntington Apartments has received a 2025 Excellence in Historic Preservation Award from the Preservation League of New York State, the organization announced Monday. The building at 201 Fall Street was originally home to the National Yeast Company in the late 1800s. By the 2010s, it was deteriorating fast. A gas station proposal nearly sealed its fate — until local advocates stepped in. The Seneca Falls Historical...

Dear Chuck, My parents are retired and have a very low interest rate on a small amount of remaining mortgage. They told me they want to sell their home and rent, thinking they will save money. I am gathering information to help them. Would you suggest they rent or keep owning their home? Retired: Rent or Buy?Dear Retired: Rent or Buy?It depends. I don’t have the full financial picture of your parents, so I don’t want to give advice based on false assumptions. Let me disclose a few assumptions from your question:They are feeling financially insecure.Their home value is...

Canandaigua, N.Y. — A woman is charged with first-degree identity theft for a months-long scheme, according to the Ontario County Sheriff's Office. Nichelle Beale, 48, of Canandaigua, used another person's identity to rent a unit from Candlewood Apartments on County Road 28 from May 1 through Aug. 13, 2025, the sheriff's office said. She also failed to pay rent and utilities, stealing more than $6,000 worth of service from the complex. The sheriff's office said Beale was arrested Monday and taken to Ontario County Jail, where she remains in custody as she awaits arraignment in CAP court.

The media has suddenly focused on inflation after ignoring skyrocketing inflation under Biden. Now they are pimping a so-called "Housing Crisis" for renters. The fact is in most parts of the country there is actually a "Responsible Tenant Crisis." The media cites statistics that there are 15 renters for each apartment. The fact is that out of those 15 renters, possibly one of them is a qualified candidate. Ever since the Scamdemic, when the government told renters that they won't get evicted if they don't pay their rent, many renters lived large off of expanded unemployment checks and simply opted...

"The biggest threat to the Republican Party in 2028 is if we do not deliver on our promises of [home]ownership for the next generation," Kirk told Fox News Digital in an interview at the Turning Point Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida… "If we don't fix the homeownership problem in this country, the cost-of-living crisis, and if we don't give the next generation [a chance] at being owners and not renters, we are going to see what I call ‘Mamdani-ism’ spread across the country," he predicted. The influential conservative media personality said there was no doubt that younger voters were...

A woman living in a 1,200-square-foot underground bunker says it’s “worth it” to save $1.5k a month on sky-high rent. Caitlin Johnson, 44, snapped up the chance to live in a friend’s underground bunker in their yard in Bakersfield, California, after moving from New York in April 2024. She pays just $500-a-month in rent for the bunker – which has a master bedroom with en-suite, a full kitchen, living room, 18 bunk beds, a separate bathroom, two more toilets and another shower. Caitlin’s friend, moved into the property in 2022 and discovered it had an underground bunker originally built by...

Philon Green was forced to move out of Woodlawn because of skyrocketing rent prices. He wanted to stay at Jackson Park Terrace — down the street from the under-construction Obama Presidential Center — but his landlord raised the rent from about $800 to $1,300. Green said the property wasn’t in the best condition, but he enjoyed the area. Being priced out of the neighborhood was a concern shared at a protest Tuesday morning by other Woodlawn and South Shore residents, who now fear rental prices will rise if a proposed luxury hotel gets city approval. “When you got people’s rent...

Los Angeles and California never cease to amaze. I can say that with absolute certainty.Just when you think things are simmering down, those folks out there come up some off-the-wall freakin' crap that just so mind glowingly unreal, you have to check twice to make sure you read it right.And then it's still unbelievable.That daffy, worthless, Communista LA mayor is still doing her posing and not much else regarding the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity that hasn't paused while LA's coddled illegals go through the motions, acting out during their tantrums in the streets.STOP THIS LAW STUFF RIGHT NOW“Mayors...

A squatter allegedly shot and killed his roommate after he was asked to pay just $250 in rent — shouting “I’m going to kill them all,” as he marched towards the house, according to law enforcement officials. Angel Gomez Montanez, 21, paid no rent at a home outside of Houston, Texas, for over three months when his roommate Christopher Rodriguez Lara, 18, asked the delinquent to pony-up the paltry sum, KTRK reported. The two got into an argument and then Montanez left the shared home with his belongings — only to return on June 12, saying he had the $250...

New York lawmakers are racing to expand rent stabilization across upstate towns before the legislative session ends, according to Spectrum News. The proposed REST Act would let municipalities bypass expensive vacancy studies and use public data to declare a housing emergency. The bill’s sponsors, including Assemblywoman Sarahana Shrestha and Senator Brian Kavanagh, argue current laws are outdated and ill-suited for smaller communities. Only Kingston has successfully opted into rent stabilization since 2019, but it’s now embroiled in legal challenges. Landlords strongly oppose the plan, warning it could worsen housing quality and discourage investment. As rent prices and homelessness rise, both...

Washington Governor Bob Ferguson signed a bill Wednesday that set limits on rent increases—one of the first in the country. Rent stabilization bill, HB 1217, caps rent increases at 7% plus inflation, or 10%—whichever is lower. Washington now joins Oregon and California in drafting legislation that curbs climbing rent prices. “There is no single policy that will fix our housing crisis, but we need this comprehensive approach,” Sen. Emily Alvarado said at the bill signing.

As Tax Day nears, fiscally conservative leaders in several states are pushing to abolish property taxes, with one Pennsylvania lawmaker arguing that homeowners shouldn’t have to "pay rent" to the government. That lawmaker, state Rep. Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon, spoke to Fox News Digital on Thursday ahead of his latest effort to end the collection of such taxes in the Keystone State. Diamond will put forward a resolution — titled HB 900 — which Fox News Digital learned exclusively will be filed imminently. The document is a draft constitutional amendment he hopes will go to the voters on Election Day, and...

The plan seeks to give more families the opportunity to become homeowners by removing an incentive to private equity firms and other large investors from purchasing one- and two-family homes. The proposed legislation would impose a 75-day waiting period before institutional investors, defined as those owning 10 or more single- and two-family properties with at least $50 million in assets, can make offers on such homes.

The legislation would expand the criteria for town and cities to show they’re experiencing a housing emergency. Under current rules, localities can only opt into rent regulation if they conduct a survey to prove their housing vacancy rate is below 5 percent. A pair of state lawmakers introduced a bill Tuesday that would make it easier for localities outside New York City to adopt rent stabilization, expanding the criteria for town and cities to show they’re experiencing a housing emergency. Under current rules, local governments can only opt into rent regulation if they conduct a survey to prove their housing...

Tenants in L.A. County reeling financially from the January wildfires could be protected from eviction for the next six months. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors considered a proposal Tuesday to temporarily bar landlords from evicting renters who have taken a significant financial hit from the fires. The motion, put forward by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, is meant to encompass not just renters who lost homes in the fires but anyone whose livelihood was affected, including landscapers, housekeepers and caregivers. It would apply to all of L.A. County, including the areas devastated by the Eaton and Palisades fires. “These workers live...

HARRISBURG — In his annual budget address, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro urged the divided Pennsylvania legislature to pass a measure that would seal eviction records for potentially hundreds of thousands of people. In 2024 alone, more than 115,000 tenants in Pennsylvania faced eviction filings. And while most filings end with rulings in favor of landlords, housing advocates told Spotlight PA that about a quarter do not, and some are never even adjudicated. Regardless of the outcome, that original eviction filing stays in a tenant’s public records indefinitely and can negatively impact their ability to find a place to live. Often,...

On Jan. 21, 2025, one X user wrote (archived): "75% of immigrant farm workers didn't show up yesterday in Bakersfield because of fears of ICE raids under the new presidency. America's rural and agricultural regions will be the hardest hit from Trump's immigration policies. Food prices are going to skyrocket." Though the raids took place during the Biden administration in the week starting Jan. 6, according to Californian news media outlets, posts like the one above continued to circulate after Jan. 20, when President Donald Trump was inaugurated, and incorrectly attributed the raids and the resulting alleged worker absences to...