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psychothumbs OP t1_j61s5n4 wrote

Reply to comment by KaiDaiz in Mayor Adams unveils proposal to convert Midtown offices into apartments by psychothumbs

It's not going to be converted to affordable housing, just regular expensive market rate housing. The hope is that building more market rate housing will alleviate the housing shortage and put downward pressure on rents.

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joyousRock t1_j625jac wrote

Yep, Can’t have more affordable housing without more housing

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damnatio_memoriae t1_j62mu7i wrote

that's always the hope but have we ever seen that actually happen? i haven't seen it in my lifetime. these days giant real estate corporations control the supply. they can keep it low and prices high simply by sitting on units and not putting them on the market, and then use those vacancies to claim losses. it's a win-win for them to keep rents high even while building more units.

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Fortisimo07 t1_j63gpri wrote

It very obviously happened during covid (although instead of cranking up supply, demand dropped). Landlords weren't able to "control the supply" in that case and prices dropped significantly

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damnatio_memoriae t1_j64mrs7 wrote

sure but that's different. that happened because people left the city en masse, not because they built too many units -- and it didn't last. it happened post-9/11 too. demand for housing here is driven by the desirability of the city itself more than anything. when the city is desirable, which is like 98% of the time, then they can charge whatever they want and keep units vacant or off the market. when the city isn't desirable, they offer a couple months free and then rent goes right back up.

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Fortisimo07 t1_j64puh7 wrote

Yeah but if they could truly control the supply like you're claiming, changes in demand wouldn't matter because as the demand went down they could just artificially limit the supply. They cannot do that (at least not to the extent that your claiming)

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TheAJx t1_j645gr0 wrote

LMAO. It's not giant real estate corporations controlling the supply. Its local homeowners. There was one neighborhood activist group that fought to preserve a parking lot.

>they can keep it low and prices high simply by sitting on units and not putting them on the market, and then use those vacancies to claim losses. it's a win-win for them to keep rents high even while building more units.

This is also bullshit. Look up vacancy rates in New York.

Also, why do people think that landlords are playing this convoluted long con of keeping units off the market for long periods of time, earning zero rental income, in the hopes of earning more rental income sometime int he distant future? How does that work?

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psychothumbs OP t1_j64enr1 wrote

The problem is it's not like there's just one landlord or just one developer. They are competing against each other in a market. The way they have controlled supply for many decades now is with legal restrictions on new supply.

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09-24-11 t1_j63i41y wrote

If the city is able to convert these offices (and there are a lot of them) into expensive market rate apartments that is a step in the right direction. THEN the city and people can have the option to BUILD new affordable housing. So now there is housing stock for high, medium and low earners.

Will that happen? I fully doubt it. Every conversion and new project will be marketed to luxury renters and the “affordable” housing will be smaller/independent landlords.

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Evening_Presence_927 t1_j62ghjc wrote

Isn’t the issue the same as the current market rate housing stock? Foreign millionaires and billionaires buying up one or two units for investments and never using them? How exactly is that going to create downward pressure on rents?

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m1a2c2kali t1_j62jnza wrote

Well the foreign billionaires would be buying this unit instead of another unit?

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psychothumbs OP t1_j63bygo wrote

Unused units like that are a pretty small proportion of the housing stock, and it's not like billionaires will buy more apartments in the city based on more being built.

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Onion-Fart t1_j62oeq4 wrote

It would be nice if there was a law saying that you need to occupy a property for a certain amount of time per year to own it and not rent it

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Head_Acanthisitta256 t1_j61y84e wrote

That hope is absolutely that, hope. If anything it’s a pipe dream with the moronic supply side housing theory.

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psychothumbs OP t1_j622cxr wrote

The theory that increasing supply lowers prices?

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Head_Acanthisitta256 t1_j6237f8 wrote

The theory that increasing HOUSING supply will lower market rate prices for a neighborhood. The market will artificially inflate market rate pricing to make a profit(by not even creating affordable housing). L.I.C. and Downtown Brooklyn for example.

The only way to create affordable housing is to ACTUALLY build affordable housing. Not exclusively build luxury or market rate units that only raises market rates in a neighborhood.

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psychothumbs OP t1_j63c4sa wrote

Housing is not some magic exception to how supply and demand works. The way they are artificially inflating the market rate is by limiting supply, and that's what we need to change.

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Head_Acanthisitta256 t1_j63cdil wrote

Limiting AFFORDABLE housing!!!!

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psychothumbs OP t1_j63cksp wrote

Well supply of subsidized 'affordable' housing but also the supply of market rate housing, which results in the market rate not being affordable for many.

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