damnatio_memoriae t1_j62mu7i wrote on January 27, 2023 at 7:12 AM

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

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.

Fortisimo07 t1_j63gpri wrote on January 27, 2023 at 1:18 PM

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

damnatio_memoriae t1_j64mrs7 wrote on January 27, 2023 at 6:01 PM

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.

Fortisimo07 t1_j64puh7 wrote on January 27, 2023 at 6:20 PM

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)

TheAJx t1_j645gr0 wrote on January 27, 2023 at 4:13 PM

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?

psychothumbs OP t1_j64enr1 wrote on January 27, 2023 at 5:11 PM

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.