It’s established that to live anywhere in NYC (Manhattan), you need to be rich. You and your wife need be lawyers, or you and your bachelor roomate must be killer stockbrokers.
When did this happen? Why? I was reading an interview with David Bryne, talking about how he and the band used to rent a loft in SOHO in the late '70’s when they literally didn’t have jobs.
Supply and demand.
Supply and demand, yes. Also, my WAG is that property has changed hands so many times there, with a bit (or a lot) of markup each time, that it’s just grown to ridiculous proportions. Plus a vicious cycle of higher rents/higher wages/higher prices. Seriously, the prices in NY, SF, Honolulu, LA and maybe DC look like they are in Lira or something… :eek:
NYC (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx)
Actually, to hear the real estate agents talk, rents in Manhattan are ‘depressed’ at least in comparison to buying. You can get a 1br apartment for under a grand, and there are a bunch of 3brs out there for under 2 grand. That’s actually comparable to what I was spending when I was in the burbs, though their real estate prices have soared as well.
Want to buy? A 1br will run you at least $250,000 + 400/mo maintenance. A 3br? Probably $500K with $1000/mo maintenance on the low end.
Location, location, location. Your low priced apartments will be in bad neighborhoods. Manhattan has been getting safer and safer over the years, which means there aren’t as many bad neighborhoods, which means there aren’t as many hideous 5 story walkups in dangerous places for poor musicians to rent.
I think Williamsburg, Brooklyn is where most of the poor artists are hanging out these days, with some of them going all the way up to Inwood at the tip of Manhattan.
That’s your idea of “depressed?” :eek:
My roommate and I rent a 2 bedroom apartment in a nice safe area, with nicely maintained grounds, and close to the freeways and shopping areas, for under $900/month. A 1 bedroom is about 700. You guys are still paying thru the nose, just not quite as much as before.
Can I add to the OP’s question?
When did a two or three bedroom apartment nice, normal area in Manhattan become unaffordable to the middle class? You know, folks like accountants, engineers, city employees and the like?
Where on earth are you seeing 1BRs for $1000/mo? In my neighborhood, Chelsea, studios are going for almost $2000/mo.
I agree with the rest of your post, BTW, almost every neighborhood in Manhattan is getting gentrified. I strongly suspect that we have Giuliani to thank more than anyone else - squashing down crime did more to help an NYC residential resurgance than anything else. Even Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Dumbo are getting pretty pricey, though. Hell, from what I’ve seen Bed-Stuy’s doing well, at least in the historic district.
Oh, and I can tell you from what a friend’s going through now - you can’t find a 3BR in a decent area of Manhattan for less than around $900K - $1M.
I’d say that they’ve been unaffordable to the more “middle” bits of the middle class for a very long time; otherwise there’d have been no perceived for Mitchell-Lama or other middle-income housing programs back in the 70s.
Basically, to find affordable housing in that size range you’ve had to be a bit of a pioneer: willing to go to a place without much infrastructure (including, in many cases, schools, grocery stores, etc.), or go into a neighborhood that was lower-income. Artists and gay men have traditionally been more willing that married middle-managers or civil-servants to play that role.
Ultimately, of course, supply and demand determine the price in a relatively open capitalist economy. There are some, however, who point out that NYC endured many, many years of rent control, which had the effect of discouraging the creation of new rental housing. I can’t find the quote, nor can I remember who said it, but one economist said, “We economists may not know how to cure inflation, but we certainly know how to create a shortage of something - control the price.”
This is more properly a subject for Great Debates, but I think it’s safe to say that price controls may be necessary for a short period to overcome a short-term crisis, but if you leave them in place for too long, they end up biting you in the butt.
Supply and demand of course, but the government has done a lot to suppress the supply. I have one friend who lives in NYC and develops real estate in Texas. I asked why he doesn’t develop real estate in NY and he laughed and said he’d be crazy to do that. Rent control still exists but there are many other overregulation problems. Once again, more well intentioned government=more poor people get screwed.
Aren’t salaries in NYC also artifically inflated to compensate for the extreme housing costs? I have a friend whose daughter makes over 1M/year in NYC. That would likely be under a $500,000 salary out here in the “middle states”.
If they are, the person with the bike pump skipped my paycheck.
Geez, it’s expensive, but not all that out of line with comparable places. A nice (but not too nice) two bedroom in Manhattan will run from $2300-3000. in San Francisco, $2000 wouldn’t be outrageous. Boston wouldn’t be much cheaper either, I believe.
Yet another reason I encourage my younger friends who can to line up a telecommuting job and move off the big cities.
I have a young (not so anymore, I think he’s 28) friend who’s an editor in DC. He’s married and they have a young (infant) daughter.
He just got himself a new apartment, 2BR, in Fairfax County. $1800 per month. That’s more than I paid for my house IN DC.
Here is rural Ohio, where we now live (and Lady Chance telecommutes back east to) I have a 2700 sq foot, four bedroom victorian with halfway finished attic and basement (bringing the sq footage up towards 4500).
$582 per month mortgage.
Telecommuting. It’s what’s for dinner.
That’s great. The only disadvantage is that you live in rural Ohio.
I was just checking out the classifieds in the NYTimes, most of them would be in places like Harlem, Inwood, Washington Heights, not anywhere considered especially desireable. They may be dung heaps, but they’re out there.
Housing is also expensive out here in the San Jose area. Most lower professionals (teachers, accountants, etc) can’t afford anyplace nice. I know this as I am one, and altho i have a fairly cheap rented 1 bedroom apt- I can’t possibly buy anything. Yes, i do get paid more… but my salary is only $60K- in a cheaper area it’d be about 50K. That isn’t enough of a difference.
Bad rent contol laws (and I think NYC had one) can certainly hurt the market. Unfortunately, having the gumption to stick to a reasonable rent control law is very hard. In fact- AFAIK, only San Jose of any big city has one. (It allows for an 8%/year increase- only super greedy gougers would want more- even the local Landlords assoc agrees our law isn’t very restrictive). Once the “nose of the camel is in the tent”, rent control laws tend to get overly restrictive real fast. It’s simple- landlords have one vote, their tenants have 50 votes. But SF has even more restrictive Rent Control I think, and rent is still not crazy there. High, yes. So- it can’t just be rent control.
High taxes, and overly slow & controling regulation (including unions, sometimes), will also mean a reduction in “new housing starts”. Esp. “affordable” housing, as sometimes the permits & taxes would make it unfeasable.
In NYC it seems to have been the combo of “supply and demand”, bad rent control, too much taxes & regulations, and high crime areas where landlords would just abandon the buildings. Anyplace “livable” became even more “demanded” then Rent control, taxes & regs and the high crime areas meant that no one in their right mind would build anything new that didn’t start with skyhigh rents.
Hey tell me where I can get a 1 bdroom for under $1k!
I was walking around Inwood just a couple of weeks ago and I can say that’s it’s a really sweet area! Off the beaten path, not busy like you think of Manhattan. The area is called “Hudson Heights” these days because the realtors wanted to distinguish it from Washington Heights LOL. I hear you can get a one bedroom co-op for $150k -$250k. suh-weeet.
A search on NYTimes.com gives me at least 90 results for 1,000 and less. Most are studios, but there are more than a few 1br listed.