In a decision that has sparked controversy, the nine-member board, composed of mayoral appointees, approved a 2.75% rent increase for new one-year leases and up to a 5.25% increase for two-year leases, by a 5-4 count. These changes will take effect for leases signed on or after Oct. 1, per Gothamist.
The board was reportedly considering 2% to 4.5% hikes for one-year leases and 4% to 6.5% for two-year leases. This was the third straight year for rent increases.
Neither side was pleased with the outcome.
And...Indeed, the Board has once again proven itself to be a rubber stamp for hikes, continuing to line the pockets of landlords while deepening the suffering New Yorkers are experiencing amid a historic housing crisis.
— The Legal Aid Society (@LegalAidNYC) June 18, 2024
"Rent is income that buildings need to meet escalating costs, and we are hoping for an upward adjustment that recognizes the need to maintain buildings that are at and approaching 100 years old," Michael Tobman of the Rent Stabilization Association told The City.
The decision marks the lowest one-year increase approved under Adams, who frequently sympathizes with small landlords. Adams is up for reelection next year, and voters’ concerns over housing costs loom as a political liability.The increases under Adams, who assumed the mayoralty in 2022, stand in contrast to those approved under his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, who celebrated three years of rent freezes and never oversaw spikes above 1.5 percent in a given year.
30 comments:
This sucks. I am a long term resident of the EV in a rent stabilized studio apt. I will now have to cancel my gym membership in addition to forgoing other things to afford this increase. Almost 70% of my income is already allocated for rent. I assign blame to our clown of a mayor and his appointees. So, the landlords aren't happy? Boo hoo! We as tenants aren't happy. We are furious and depleted. There was an increase last year. Will the board do this annually now? WTF?! Very soon, most of us will be priced out of NYC. How do I get off this hamster wheel of capitalism??
I’m sorry, but 70 % of your income goes to your rent and you have a gym membership? First, may I suggest you look into the gym memberships at the Hamilton Fish pool or Asher Levy pool. But, I’d say you’ve already been priced out of New York.
My observation as a recent member of my coop board is that we’re having to raise maintenance every year as much or more than this to cover rising taxes, insurance and maintenance of our old tenement building. I don’t think the point of rent stabilization was to ensure affordability to tenants but to keep landlords from profiteering from housing shortages. These increases seem in line with cost increases our coop has seen, or lower. Btw the city is now raising water rates by over 8%, in part by reinstating a “rent” paid by the water system to the city.
Approaching a century old? How about more than 150 years old with faulty wiring, cracked walls, mold, vermin and all of the nastiness that comes with old building and not a seconds hesitation on raising the rents yet again. I'm calling BS on all the maintenance that LLs claim to put into their buildings. I asked for my super to fix a leak last April. I'm still waiting. They don't even clean the public areas anymore. Nice "management". This building is crumbling to the ground, yet it's on sale for 13.5M. Ah capitalism, you're killing us.
The SHADOW has interviewed several small property owners and management companies on the LES over the years. Believe it or not, most of them actually LIKE their tenants and don't want them to leave or be forced out.
The common complaint we are hearing is that while rents are frozen by law, owners are experiencing higher overhead every year. They wonder where the extra money to pay is supposed to come from if they are not allowed to raise rents? For them, the choice is to either lose more money each year or to sell out to a vulture and walk away with a lot of money in this hyper-inflated market.
As property taxes are based on false market values, a building with rent-stabilized rentals is taxed at the same level as an identical building next door with market rate un-regulated rental income. That really makes no sense.
If the city really gave a shit (and it does NOT, as the underlying plan is to change demographics), buildings with frozen rents would have frozen overhead: low property taxes, reduced utilities costs (the city can regulate charges for common gas, water, electric) and reduced insurance premiums (the city can also regulate what insurance companies may charge).
Any shortfall in tax revenue can be made up from charging owners of buildings (more and more being built each year) with market rate rents a higher property tax based on those rent rolls and by removing generous tax abatements provided by the city to developers of market rate housing that really forces low-income tenants out of our city.
By forcing small owners to seek higher rents in order to cover increased costs that the city could reduce at the top, the city is pitting owners vs tenants, when those two groups should be working together.
All by design.....
Cost for water jumped 8%
Local law requiring lighting upgrades
Local law requiring environmental upgrades
Inflation - buildings need maintenance just like a car
Extreme regulatory requirements related to permits and the involvement of professionals.
What are landlords supposed to do?
The vast majority of rent-stabilized apartments exist in buildings with six or more units built before 1974. What percentage of those are owned by small-business or independent landlords? I've never seen a rent-stabilized building in the city that wasn't the domain of a large property management company. I don't think the Kushners and Cromans and SW Managements of the world are hurting for capital to make building improvements.
I don't buy the hurting landlord storyline vis-a-vis Rest Stabilization and I'm sorry but if tenants can get forced out of NY due to economics, there shouldn't be immunity for landowners, either.
Are landlords really losing money, or is it just that profits are down?
Anecdotal maybe, but I know of no poor, struggling landlords.
My guess is that a good number may be in the red due to high carry costs. Many overpaid for stabilized buildings, hoping to “reposition”, in RE parlance, and had those hopes quashed in 2019.
Well said
I remember you from the hardcore scene waaaay back!
@4:45 Bingo. They're not losing money, they're simply making less profit. And their profit was jacked up during the Bloomberg era when the RSB raised increases astronomically, consistent with Bloomberg's opposition to rent stabilization entirely.
Would love to see stats on how many small independent owner buildings vs corporate buildings
The hollowing out of Manhattan and the exodus of lifelong New Yorkers (and their businesses) continues. The commenter was right who said it is all by design, all about inviting a wealthier demographic with money to burn. By pricing out the people, including artists, writers and musicians, who have made up the culture of New York for generations, the people who run this city continue to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Not purchase the building at a ridiculous price. If you can’t afford the repairs on the building with the rent being paid at time of purchase, then you made a fools decision to purchase.
It’s not just artists and musicians. Forty years ago, there were lots of teachers, waiters, cab drivers and mail carriers living in Manhattan. Regular folks, lifetime New Yorkers. They’ve all been driven out, impossible to survive on working class wages.
My landlord is usually inaccessible when it pertains to issues or repairs. But if the rent is one day late, he is on me like white on rice. Go figure. My experience with most building owners is not great. This increase evokes stress. Many on here suggest landlords are struggling. I call BS. My landlord lives in a palatial water front home in Stony Brook, LI and drives a Mercedes. Good for him, but most of us don't have that. I live in a rent stabilized studio in a five floor walkup and can barely purchase a bag of groceries from Trader Joes after all my bills are paid. I have two degrees and am unable to find secure and well paying employment. I will have to work yet another job just to subsist now. Is this the American dream? To work 70 hours a week to afford rent while living prices soar, as we barely survive, and die broke and alone? Prove me wrong.
@2:39 PM
I live in a rent stabilized building owned by an elderly widow. She's a good landlady. Most? of the apartments in building moved out of stabilization years ago so she can afford upkeep.
That said big real estate vampirism is, and always has, been a huge negative for the city. One disagreement, sort of, with Chris Flash: They don't have to conspire, they just think alike.
"There was an increase last year. Will the board do this annually now? WTF?!"
- Are you sure you're really a long term resident of the East Village? You didn't know there's suppose to be an annual increase of a couple percent?
For many/most people the increase means $15-50 extra monthly. If you can't afford that, and you have the absolute privilege of living in a rent controlled apartment, you really need to think of moving somewhere else.
And by astronomically you mean 3% a year?
All mayoral appointees (aka cronies) - this mayor is NOT on the side of EV or its residents. Money is all for him - keep his name choice OFF your next voting ballot entirely!!
Why can't people be nicer to each other in this comment thread? Telling someone to leave if they don't like it or if they can't afford NYC? Questioning whether someone is a New Yorker or not? Come on, people. Do better. Enough with mean spirited comments.
We need to listen more and support each other w/o too much conflict. Focus on positivity and less negativity. These are very trying times for most. Many, including myself, are struggling to survive in NYC. This increase isn't surprising, but nonetheless frustrating. The previous rates for rental guideline increases didn't seem so terrible or unsustainable then. It feels that no matter how hard one works or how much income one makes, it is never enough, especially in 2024.
"For many/most people the increase means $15-50 extra monthly. If you can't afford that, and you have the absolute privilege of living in a rent controlled apartment, you really need to think of moving somewhere else.
Ah the "move to" comment, was waiting for its appearance from a REBNY troll. And also, it's not "rent controlled", you are showing your ignorance of the law.
Everyone please listen to RGB Board Tenant Member Adán Soltren who lays it all out why this RGB process is sham for tenants. 6:21 in the YouTube:
"June 17, 2024 RGB Meeting: Final Vote-NYC Rent Guidelines Board"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5dnQ0--FHY
"You didn't know there's suppose to be an annual increase of a couple percent?"
One more thing. Nothing in the RGB charter says that there HAS to be an increase. No increase or even roil-backs are allowed. In fact recenlty under BdB, there was no increase at all.
Yes, sling as much muck as you wish at BdB, but he held rents down.
And no buildings were torched as Big RE insisted was inevitable.
I live in a small building in the EV. I moved in as a renter many years ago. When the landlord decided to sell, ALL the tenants banded together, bought the building, and made it legally a co-op.
We are self-managed, so our monthly charges are based on the exact cost of actually running the building - there is no "profit" involved.
After several decades of dealing with the costs of building ownership, I can tell you this: we are a building filled with middle-class people who work at "regular" jobs, and we have to raise the monthly cost (the rent, essentially) every single year, b/c real estate taxes go up, water bill goes up, the cost of insuring the building goes up, etc.
Plus there are those major items that need repair or replacement (b/c it's nice to have heat in the winter, and a non-leaking roof, etc.).
For example, when we had to replace the basement boiler a couple years ago, we found out that in recent years NYC had enacted a ton of laws & requirements that are now automatically triggered when you install a new boiler. To comply with all of that, the total cost ended up at over TWICE the actual cost of the boiler itself. And every apartment had to write a check for its share of the total cost, which was a huge hit to everyone's finances.
I have no idea what profits the Cromans and Kushners of the world make by owning buildings (and I'm sure they do very well), but I can tell you that our little building, owned by ordinary people, is getting hammered with increases in every direction. The city doesn't care if you're a billionaire or just Joe Schmoe, the costs just keep going up.
Mayor DeBlasio was the best at keeping these rent increases minimal. He was true to working for the people who voted for him, unlike past and current trash like Giuliani, Bloomberg, and now Adams. It has become so rare to have a politician who actually gives a damn the people he represents.
My current rent for my rent stabilized EV studio apt is $2200. If I renew at 5.75% for a two year, then I am paying an additional $126.50 a month for my lease. It will now be $2350. That is why I am canceling my gym and Netflix. It adds up. Why are people saying to leave NYC if I can't hack it or to use a cheaper gym? I am an educated, middle aged male professional. I am not a helpless idiot. Stop being a bully and become an ally instead.
Not hating on landlords - of which, as I have learned from a comment below, you are one - but what "rents are frozen by law"? Even rent stabilized apartments see an increased rent in most years
A whole lot of people with subsidized rent complaining about about a tiny increase. The landlords aren't the only narcissists in this city - many of them also live in stabilized apartments.
"My guess is that a good number may be in the red due to high carry costs. Many overpaid for stabilized buildings, hoping to “reposition”, in RE parlance, and had those hopes quashed in 2019."
This is it, by the way. Lenders lent to prospective landlords at rates that were mathematically impossible to pay if stabilized tenants stayed in place. They *financed with the intention of driving people out of their homes*. Look up the NYAG case with Madison Realty and Toledano:
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2020/attorney-general-wins-more-1-million-rent-credits-harassed-tenants-secures
Now with the changes in law both lenders and landlords have been caught flapping in the breeze. Toooooo bad, soooooooo sad.
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