5.14.2015
financial realities and non-realities of life in Manhattan
I am trying to write this from not-my-computer, but rather a mobile device, so we'll see whether it works or not. I've actually been missing blogging a lot. It feels very 2005 to me, but I miss the longer form. I've been having great conversations on Facebook and Twitter, but I am really more of a long-form person, which longtime readers probably know without my explicating it. I have 147 drafts in my drafts folder, stretching from May 2006 to October 2013, so you may seem some of those backlogged posts soon. Maybe. I thought I would start blogging again before, and that didn't happen, so it may not work this time, either.
I recently saw this posted on Facebook:
I recently saw this posted on Facebook:
The outrage is expressed in the tagline, "If you make less than $180,000 a year, you don't exist," because the Wall Street Journal infographic only includes examples of units earning at least $180,000/year. It seems quite...out of touch with actual reality for many people in Manhattan. (See: "Manhattan’s median annual household income is $66,739...where the median monthly rent is $3,100," here.)
It's not just the Wall Street Journal that is guilty of this type of oddly-skewed-to-the-wealthy-while-pretending-that-they-are-middle-class-or-poorer journalism. The New York Times is full of it. In this article ("What Is Middle Class in Manhattan?" 1/18/2013), for example, someone says that "making $250,000 a year is...maybe the upper edge of middle class." Claims like this one, that earning $500,000/year in Manhattan makes you middle class, abound.
I have a hard time with such claims. I think it's really hard for a single person to live on $35,000/year or less in Manhattan, unless (maybe) you manage to find a really cheap rent stabilized apartment in Harlem or Washington Heights or Hamilton Heights and your job comes with excellent medical, vision, and dental benefits. Maybe even $40,000, if you don't have health insurance through your job and don't want to live in a converted apartment (wherein part of the living room becomes a bedroom), in Washington Heights, or in a tiny studio, or if you don't have dental insurance or bad teeth. I am sure that it costs a lot more once you have kids. I don't know if it costs more or less if you're married. (Some people claim that it costs more and some people claim that it costs less. I think it depends on where you're coming from. Two single people sharing a converted one bedroom vs. a married couple sharing a one bedroom seems about the same to me.) But I cannot imagine that a family of four earning $200,000/year is barely squeaking by, or a family of six earning $650,000 is struggling in any way. If they are, move to the 'burbs!
Labels: economics, New York, real estate
9.02.2009
Apartment-hunting on the Upper West Side and in Washington Heights
This is probably too late for most of you, who have already arrived, fresh and naive, to my fair city. For others, it may be helpful. This is mostly useful for those looking for apartments with shomer Shabbat/kashrut roommates on the Upper West Side and in Washington Heights, although it can also help with those looking for new apartments, with or without roommates. Some of it may also help in other areas of New York City.
As I'm sure you've already discovered, apartment-hunting in NYC can be very stressful, although it may be better now that fewer people have jobs and thus fewer people are flocking to NYC.
There is a website called BangItOut.com with lots of apartment listings, especially if you're open to moving into apartment with one or two other usually SS/SK (shomer-Shabbat/shomer-kashrut) roommates. It is best for the Upper West Side, but also has a few apartment listings in other parts of NYC and other cities. You can put an ad there if you're looking, although it's best to be proactive and read through the listings. This is true in general in NYC, since there seem to be a lot more people seeking apartments (especially of the less expensive, not gross variety) than apartments/rooms available. The burden is really on the seeker to find a place, not the people with the apartment to find new roommates.
As I'm sure you've already discovered, apartment-hunting in NYC can be very stressful, although it may be better now that fewer people have jobs and thus fewer people are flocking to NYC.
There is a website called BangItOut.com with lots of apartment listings, especially if you're open to moving into apartment with one or two other usually SS/SK (shomer-Shabbat/shomer-kashrut) roommates. It is best for the Upper West Side, but also has a few apartment listings in other parts of NYC and other cities. You can put an ad there if you're looking, although it's best to be proactive and read through the listings. This is true in general in NYC, since there seem to be a lot more people seeking apartments (especially of the less expensive, not gross variety) than apartments/rooms available. The burden is really on the seeker to find a place, not the people with the apartment to find new roommates.
Upper West Side
Other UWS-specific listings that may help include:
One way that people I know have been successful at finding apartments directly through the real estate manager/landlord is by literally walking the streets in the neighborhood in which you are interested in living and talking names/numbers off of buildings or speaking to supers/doormen about the availability of apartments in that building.
Other UWS-specific listings that may help include:
- Maalot West, the less popular sibling of Maalot Washington (the way to find an apartment with a room open in Washington Heights if you're looking in the SS/SK market)
- the KOE (Kehilat Orach Eliezer) weekly Shabbat announcements with listings (I don't see it online, since KOE just apparently redid their website)
- the Kehilat Hadar weekly Shabbat announcements with listings (http://www.kehilathadar.org/community/postings)
- Look on Craigslist for Upper West Side and Morningside Heights, if you're willing to go a bit further north (past 100th St.). Note that some "Upper West Side" apartment listings will be well into Harlem, which is all fine and good, except that some parts of Harlem (most?) are outside the Upper Manhattan eruv.
Speaking of eruvin, here is a useful map of the Upper Manhattan Eruv.
Washington Heights
Washington Heights-specific listings and listserves that may help include:
- There is a great website called Maalot Washington with lots of apartment listings, especially if you're open to moving into apartment with one or two other roommates.
- You can put an ad on the Maalot listserv in addition to posting on the Maalot Washington website and responding to ads there and on the listserv.
- Look on Craigslist for Washington Heights and also Hudson Heights. (Realtors started calling the fancier part of Washington Heights "Hudson Heights" after it started gentrifying/going upscale. Hudson Heights would generally be the area north of 181st St. and West of Fort Washington Ave.) I saw some apartments that way.
- You can put an ad on the Migdal Or listserv by writing, I think, to midgalor [at] gmail.com.
Here is the map of the Washington Heights eruv. Lots of people live outside the eruv, although fewer as time goes on (the eruv is only a few years old). It is almost always cheaper to do so. I live outside the eruv, but it's a little sadder to be outside the eruv now that several of my friends have babies. (There is also an eruv on the Yeshiva University side of Washington Heights, but I know almost nothing about it. Information on the YU eruv can be found here.)
General NYC apartment-hunting advice
NOISE: Some buildings/areas are a lot noisier than others (usually traffic noise, but also loud music late at night in Washington Heights, and noise from people gathering outside of bars on the Upper West Side), so if that's an issue for you, check it out before signing. I usually try to visit potential apartments once during the day and once at night before signing anything. A quiet neighborhood at 5 pm might be rocking at 11 pm, which may or may not bother you.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that an apartment in the West 90s between Amsterdam and Broadway was far, far quieter than an apartment on (and facing) Columbus Ave. It also depends, of course, on how high the apartment is--the further from the street, the quieter it will be. I am pretty sure that an apartment that's higher up will also be cleaner, since dirt from car exhaust seems to be a huge part of the dirtiness of the city. I don't have scientific evidence of that, though. It also depends a lot on whether the apartment in question faces the front (street) or back (alleyway) of the building. Likewise, if an apartment faces the George Washington Bridge, it will almost certainly be too noisy to stand. However, you may find another apartment in the same building, which faces in a different direction, that is bearable. Keep in mind, too, that noise levels will be different in the summer, with the windows open than in the winter, with the windows closed.
FEES: If you can get something directly from a real estate manager/landlord without paying a fee, that's obviously the best, since realtor's fees are often as high as 15% of the annual rent. You can usually see a lot more with a broker/realtor, though, although (almost?) all of them charge, or at least they did in 2007, the last time I looked for an apartment in NYC. I've lived in three apartments in NYC: two that already had people living in that I joined, and one that I found new with a friend. The last one is the only one that I paid a fee for. It was $2000 for a $1200/month place (if you live outside NYC, you will think, "That's so expensive!" and if you live inside NYC, you will think, "Wow, that's so cheap!"). I just amortized that cost over the two year lease and took it into consideration when comparing rents, and it was still worth it. It is a huge chunk of change all at once, though.
One way that people I know have been successful at finding apartments directly through the real estate manager/landlord is by literally walking the streets in the neighborhood in which you are interested in living and talking names/numbers off of buildings or speaking to supers/doormen about the availability of apartments in that building.
SAFETY: All of Manhattan is pretty safe these days, although I do always try to walk on busier, well-lit streets in the later hours, and there are some places I just won't walk alone late at night. (This usually just means that I get off at a different subway stop or take a different subway home.)
If you want to see how one neighborhood you're considering compares to another, you can check out the NYPD police precinct crime statistics.
The precincts on the Upper West Side are:
- 20th: W. 59th to W. 86th St.
- 24th: W. 86th to W. 110th St.
- 26th: W. 110th St. to W. 133rd St.
Note that Central Park is its own separate precinct.
The precincts in Washington Heights are:
- 33rd: W. 156th to W. 179th St.
- 34th: W. 179th St. to the top of Manhattan (includes Inwood)
ONE LAST WORD: Check for black mold and water damage in the walls/ceilings, especially in older apartments. They are legally required to remove black mold, but it's hard to remove. (It's a health issue.) Black mold looks like you'd expect it to look. It's especially prevalent in bathrooms, but if you see it anywhere else, it means that the walls/ceilings are, or once were, wet. Water damage is often due to old plumbing, which should be replaced (rather than repainting/replastering the walls, which is what they will want to do). You can spot water damage from round stains on the ceiling or walls, and also by places where the paint bubbles out or is kind of buckled. Not just peeling, which could just mean that the paint job is just old, but coming off of the walls in roundish bubbles. Even if the wall is dry there, that usually means that it was wet there once.
Good luck! And New Yorkers, please add tips of your own in the comments, if you have 'em (and I know you do!).
Labels: New York, real estate
6.01.2009
Stretching the truth in advertising
I'm sure that this apartment is lovely and the location is great. However, saying that Mekor Haim St. is in Baka is like saying that 120th St. is on the Upper West Side. Close, but no cigar.
Also, I don't know if this is stretching the truth exactly, but I would not advertise myself as a Technion grad if I could only tutor math at a junior high/middle school level. If you're going to tout the fancy smarty-pants school, it should be because you feel you can tutor high school and university students. At least high school!
And here is the Hebrew:
Labels: Israel, real estate
8.10.2007
Still kickin'
I don't have time to blog right now, nor any almost-complete draft posts to polish up and publish, but I just wanted to assure everyone that I am still alive and kicking.
The latest in my overly-long apartment saga is that the apartment won't be ready* on August 15, which is the date on the lease that we signed and, not coincidentally, the date by which the broker promised it would be done. We signed the lease on July 16. I think a month should have been enough time to fix up the apartment. I think this was a problem caused by lack of communication.
Anyway, the upshot is that I am bumming housing off of friends and relatives for one more week than planned. Two weeks without a real home seemed so doable. Now, three weeks sounds much less palatable. See this post for the original schedule. Also, my parents were supposed to stay with me starting on August 22. Now, that's obviously not happening.
I was told on Monday that the apartment would not be ready by August 15, and that they didn't know when it would be ready. August 20? August 22? September 1? Who knew?
As of yesterday, the word is, hopefully-but-no-promises, August 22.
I want to write more about this whole housing and moving thing, but I think it has to be when I am settled and have the room of one's own that Virginia Woolf so astutely points out is necessary to write.
Note to self: At some point, I would like to blog about the crumbling New York City infrastructure and why we lose Internet access at work every time it rains. This week, I found myself writing e-mails in Outlook, printing them up, and faxing them to people. I used to be quite fax-illiterate--no longer! (Don't press "9" for an outside line, do put all the pages in face up.)
And now that my shoes and pants are finally dry, I must go back out into the rain.
Shabbat shalom!
______________________________________________
* Ready = up to code and with a new kitchen and bathroom. I think that the previous tenant must have lived there for 30-50 years. It looked like the kitchen had its original cabinets--which would have been gorgeous if they had been stripped, sanded, and refinished, but will instead be ripped out and replaced with something faker containing more plastic. The bathtub was worn through to black. I counted at least three ceiling leaks. The window sills were crumbling where the air-conditioners. The electrical work was crazy--wires plugged into outlets that then snaked out through small holes in the wall to other rooms. Etc. It basically needed a lot of work.
The latest in my overly-long apartment saga is that the apartment won't be ready* on August 15, which is the date on the lease that we signed and, not coincidentally, the date by which the broker promised it would be done. We signed the lease on July 16. I think a month should have been enough time to fix up the apartment. I think this was a problem caused by lack of communication.
Anyway, the upshot is that I am bumming housing off of friends and relatives for one more week than planned. Two weeks without a real home seemed so doable. Now, three weeks sounds much less palatable. See this post for the original schedule. Also, my parents were supposed to stay with me starting on August 22. Now, that's obviously not happening.
I was told on Monday that the apartment would not be ready by August 15, and that they didn't know when it would be ready. August 20? August 22? September 1? Who knew?
As of yesterday, the word is, hopefully-but-no-promises, August 22.
I want to write more about this whole housing and moving thing, but I think it has to be when I am settled and have the room of one's own that Virginia Woolf so astutely points out is necessary to write.
Note to self: At some point, I would like to blog about the crumbling New York City infrastructure and why we lose Internet access at work every time it rains. This week, I found myself writing e-mails in Outlook, printing them up, and faxing them to people. I used to be quite fax-illiterate--no longer! (Don't press "9" for an outside line, do put all the pages in face up.)
And now that my shoes and pants are finally dry, I must go back out into the rain.
Shabbat shalom!
______________________________________________
* Ready = up to code and with a new kitchen and bathroom. I think that the previous tenant must have lived there for 30-50 years. It looked like the kitchen had its original cabinets--which would have been gorgeous if they had been stripped, sanded, and refinished, but will instead be ripped out and replaced with something faker containing more plastic. The bathtub was worn through to black. I counted at least three ceiling leaks. The window sills were crumbling where the air-conditioners. The electrical work was crazy--wires plugged into outlets that then snaked out through small holes in the wall to other rooms. Etc. It basically needed a lot of work.
Labels: life, New York, real estate
8.03.2007
rent-stabilization, glass high-rises, demise of small indy toy store, and more on NYC real estate
- First, moderately good news, from June, for people in rent-stabilized apartments. I mean, it could be better and it could be worse.
By the way, "people in rent-stabilized apartments" will soon include me! I am happy to report that Phase I of my move is now complete. I am presently in what shall be called the "homeless period," during which I will stay with various friends and relatives and be very grateful that I have local friends and relatives, such that I am not truly homeless. Just a bit nomadic.
Phase II takes place on August 15, when I move into my new rent-stabilized place in Washington Heights, where I will be paying 55% of my previous, Upper West Side rent and have one less roommate. The apartment is still converted (1 bedroom to 2 bedrooms with 2 occupants and 1 bathroom), but it will be better than my previous apartment (2 bedrooms to 3 bedrooms with 3.75 occupants and 1 bathroom).
Of course, the cost of moving, storage, and broker fee is equivalent to a little over 2x one month's rent in my Upper West Side apartment or 3.9x one month's rent in my new Washington Heights apartment, so I won't see that 45% savings for quite some time. Also, just to avoid making you all jealous of my 45% rental savings (and one less roommate! or 1.75 fewer roommates, if you count the .75 roommate in the old place!), I should add that my new apartment is next door to the Cross Bronx Expressway and a dark-and-slightly-scary underpass. I am four miles farther uptown, and no longer walking distance from work or Central Park or my grandmother's apartment. I also no longer have a part-time doorman who lets random strangers into the building. Make of that what you will. I liked having him there so I could get packages delivered, but I can't say he made me feel that much safer than a locked door would have.
- In less personal coverage, a New York Times article ("High Anxiety") from several months ago ago about the new high rise condos on the Upper West Side. Here is one letter in reaction and online comments, many of which are quite reasonable. I saw another letter online, but now I can't find it, which pointed out the environmental benefits of denser living, such as is provided by high rise residential buildings.
- The latest Upper West Side real estate news is, of course, the collapse of the retaining wall during construction at the 808 Columbus Avenue construction project. Or maybe that's old news already, since it happened in July. In any case, more people are talking about that project than about the Ariel Towers, which were sort of old news even in June, when the NYT article came out.
- Little Extras, a cute little independent toy store on Amsterdam Avenue, went out of business in June, due to rising rents. They had high quality wooden and fabric children's toys, as well as a small assortment of children's books. It was started by a woman who retired after years of office work, who then decided that what she'd really like to do was open a toy store. It was a nice story, and I was sorry to see it close.
- Remember how I said that I heard that West Side Judaica was going to have to close because of rising rents? Apparently, their monthly rent had been $8K and it's going up to $18K. However, they're going to stay open until the fall and then decide. If you want them to stay open, go buy something there. (At least, that's what the local shuls are recommending.)
- Here's a fun read. (I think that this is the best comment of them all: "Disparaging other places is a frequently used means by which Manhattan residents attempt to offset the cognitive dissonance of paying exorbitant prices for unappealing living spaces.") I've linked to individual Curbed posts before, but now I see that they have tags by neighborhood, so you can read all of the articles with references to real estate on the Upper West Side.
- Finally, I added a "real estate" label (tag), so you can read just those articles about real estate, should you so desire. Expect more coverage of Washington Heights real estate, in addition to Upper West Side real estate, from here on out. Also, possibly an ode to my departed apartment.
Labels: life, New York, real estate
5.17.2007
If you think sharing an apartment with two or three roommates is hard...
You should try sharing it with a couple of chickens! This is a cute story ("All Cooped Up in a Manhattan Co-op"). And it puts my search for a decent housing situation into perspective. At least I don't have a chicken coop in my bedroom. Thank God.
Other things I've been meaning to share but not gotten around to yet:
Special thanks to everyone who voted for me in the JIB awards! It looks like I came in third place (bronze?) for Best Personal Blog. Yay!
Other things I've been meaning to share but not gotten around to yet:
- In February, Doctor Mama wrote a post called "Why Ask Why?" that I loved. It's about our constant need to try to find reasons for things, and how we handle it when there is no reason to be found.
- Also from February, Dr. Barbara Ehrenreich's take on "think positive, be passionate, smile all the time" advice given by business gurus. I have liked Barbara Ehrenreich since I read her For Her Own Good: 100 Years of the Experts' Advice to Women (written with Deirdre English and first published in 1978) when I was in high school. It was an interesting book and my first real exposure to gender studies and its application to history. I didn't read her book Nickel and Dimed, but I read the January 1999 Harper's Magazine article on which the book is based. I found the article to be thought-provoking and the book is probably only more so. The premise is that she tries to live on a minimum wage and finds it basically impossible.
- Speaking of how easy or difficult it may be to live as a poor person in America today, here is the blog of a woman in San Francisco, named Rebecca Blood, who is trying to eat all organic food on a food stamp budget. She's not actually on a food stamp budget; she's just doing it to see if she can. I know that I wouldn't be able to.
- Speaking of spending minimal amounts on food but still trying to eat decently, here is a post from Half-Changed World about one woman's attempt to feed her family on the USDA's Thrifty Food Plan in January 2005. (Here [pdf] is the 2006 version, published in April 2007.) In case you hadn't heard of it (as I had not), the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion website says of the plan: "The Thrifty Food Plan, the basis for maximum food stamp allotments, is a nutritious, minimal-cost diet." For background, here is Half-Changed World's introductory post to the problems of poverty and obesity.
- Huh. This is turning into a post about poverty and food, under the guise of sharing a Manhattan co-op with chickens. Interesting. So, while you're at it (or even before you read all of that stuff above), read Michael Pollan's column ("You Are What You Grow") from the New York Times Magazine on April 22 about the upcoming US farm bill and the way groceries are priced in the US, due to corn subsidies and other nefarious practices. He does an excellent job of answering the question: "So how is it that today the people with the least amount of money to spend on food are the ones most likely to be overweight?" I know from my own experiences, that when I went to buy cranberry juice in the grocery store, it was either $5-$6 for a little bottle of 100% juice, or $3 for a bottle of "juice" in which the very first ingredient was corn syrup. (I ended up not buying it at all.)
- Here is an old news story from January about hareidim in Israel burning what they deem to be immodest women's clothing. It's old news, but I didn't get a chance to write about it before. The photo is disturbing. Is that a hareidi guy using a havdalah candle to burn women's clothing? That seems particularly sick. Can't they sew up the slits, give clothing that's tight to smaller women or pre-teens, etc.? Add material? Kick pleats, anyone? I mean, is burning clothing really the best way to handle this? SephardiLady over at Orthonomics said this much better than I ever could awhile ago. I want to write more, much more, about tsniut [the Jewish concept of modesty] sometime, but don't have the guts/energy/oomph to do so now.
- Finally, on a lighter note, go to cringebook.com if you want to:
Share [your] old diaries, journals, letters, notes, songs, poems... anything you wrote during the crushing misery of adolescence and then saved in a hidden box at your parents' house all these years. Top secret no more.
Oh, it looks like they are no longer taking submissions. Oh, well. The book will be out in Spring 2008 and you can then revel in the knowledge that other adolescents (and pre-adolescents) also had crushing, miserable experiences growing up.
The more dramatic, embarrassing or excruciating the writing, the better. A good test to determine whether or not your material is Cringe-worthy: when you read it to yourself, do you physically cringe? Then for the love of god, it needs to be in this book. Seriously. You are going to be so glad you did this. Cheaper and better than therapy.
Special thanks to everyone who voted for me in the JIB awards! It looks like I came in third place (bronze?) for Best Personal Blog. Yay!
Labels: books/reading, links, New York, real estate, science/health/environment
5.10.2007
Living at the office--not just an expression anymore! and more on UWS rent
Read this article ("New York City Renters Cope With Squeeze").
I mixed feelings about this particular article, although mostly horror at the prospect of looking for an affordable place to live in this market. But, come on, people whose parents are rich camping out in an office space? Weird. People who choose to go to NYU, which is notoriously expensive without a great reputation for financial aid, living in an office space? Also weird. Maybe they should consider one of these schools (click on the multimedia link) that meet 96-100% of students' financial need (as they determine it based on FAFSA and school-specific forms) through a combination of loans and grants? I'm not sure about all of the schools, but it looks like a decent list of choices for someone who could get into NYU. (In the same NYT Education Life supplement were this interesting article about community colleges and who benefits and who doesn't benefit from them and this long-overdue article about plans to simplify the FAFSA form).
On the other hand, this part of the article resonated with me, and I thought was good to bring to the public's attention (if they aren't dealing with it directly themselves):
Back to the horror at the prospect of looking for an affordable place to live--yeah. That's probably why I won't live in NYC forever. Right now, it's super convenient, but if I have to leave the Upper West Side because of skyrocketing rental prices, and live elsewhere in Manhattan or another borough, it will be less convenient to one or another of the many things that I have gotten used to here, and I may as well live somewhere else where I can't walk to work or to Fairway or to ten different kinds of kosher take-out in both dairy and meat varieties. (I don't get take-out all that often, but just knowing that I can! At 10:30 on a Wednesday or Thursday night! Six blocks from my apartment! That would be difficult to give up.)
Here's something funny. "The Melar, that...luxury Upper West Side development at 93rd and Broadway, finally has its very own website and pricing info. Studio rentals start from around $2,580 a month, while there's a high-floor two-bedroom with two bathrooms listed for more than three times that: $8,050." The scary thing is that only one apartment is still available, a two bedroom going for the bargain price of $5675/mo.
Another funny: The Lyric, where you can get a studio for only $3,295/month, a one-bedroom for a mere $4,095.00/month, and a two-bedroom for only $7,295/month. Oh, but it has two bathrooms. And a terrace. As if that makes it worth $7295/month!
Who are the people who can afford these apartments, and why won't they go live somewhere else? Go to the East Side, people! Or downtown! Somewhere where I don't really want to live!
Now, I'm not suggesting that I, or anyone I know, wants or needs to live in these sorts of luxury accommodations, where fewer than three people share one bathroom and no one lives in the living room. I'm only sharing these prices so any of you who live far away from this insanity can get a better sense of the market.
I met what looked like a woman and her teenage daughter who recently moved into my building, displacing some of the long-term tenants who had to flee in the face of 50%+ rent increases. I told my new other-side-of-the-building neighbor that I thought the new rents were outrageous, and she said, "Oh, but the apartment is so large!" So I guess people are willing and able to pay these prices.
Sigh... (I know, I know, David is going to leave a comment telling me to move to DC. Maybe I will, someday. I heard rumor that you're even going to have a partnership minyan of some sort down there one day, which is a nice added bonus. But, tell me, will I be able to walk to work through a park? Get kosher take-out at all hours? Do my grocery shopping at midnight on a Sunday night if the mood strikes?)
A few other bits of news related to rising costs of renting on the Upper West Side:
Need to get away after reading all of that? Try www.localhikes.com, where you can find information about hikes near both large and small cities. Here are the New York City/Northern New Jersey/Long Island ones.
I mixed feelings about this particular article, although mostly horror at the prospect of looking for an affordable place to live in this market. But, come on, people whose parents are rich camping out in an office space? Weird. People who choose to go to NYU, which is notoriously expensive without a great reputation for financial aid, living in an office space? Also weird. Maybe they should consider one of these schools (click on the multimedia link) that meet 96-100% of students' financial need (as they determine it based on FAFSA and school-specific forms) through a combination of loans and grants? I'm not sure about all of the schools, but it looks like a decent list of choices for someone who could get into NYU. (In the same NYT Education Life supplement were this interesting article about community colleges and who benefits and who doesn't benefit from them and this long-overdue article about plans to simplify the FAFSA form).
On the other hand, this part of the article resonated with me, and I thought was good to bring to the public's attention (if they aren't dealing with it directly themselves):
Renters without high salaries have not been shut out of the market. They are squeezing in extra roommates or making alterations as never before much to the frustration of landlords. The rents for one-bedroom apartments in Manhattan average $2,567 a month, and two-bedrooms average $3,854 a month, according to data from Citi Habitats, a large rental brokerage company, but rents tend to be far higher in coveted neighborhoods like the Upper West Side and TriBeCa.
Because landlords typically require renters to earn 40 times their monthly rent in annual income, renters of those average apartments would need to earn at least $102,680, individually or combined, to qualify for a one-bedroom and $154,160 to afford a two-bedroom.
Young people making a fraction of those salaries are doubling up in small spaces and creating housing code violations, said Jamie Heiberger-Jacobsen, a real estate lawyer with her own practice. She is representing landlords in 26 cases that claim overcrowding or illegal alterations in elevator buildings in Murray Hill, the Upper East and Upper West Sides and the Lower East Side. A year ago, she handled a half-dozen such cases. Ms. Heiberger-Jacobsen said she was seeing the overcrowding not only in tenement-type buildings, but also in doorman buildings. “It really does create fire hazards,” she said. “You can’t just have beds all over the place.”
But more renters are finding that they cannot afford to stay in the city without resorting to less conventional living arrangements. For the last five years, Mindy Abovitz, 27, a drummer and graphic designer, has been living with four roommates in a 1,500-square-foot loft with one bathroom in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which has become a haven for young people, that rents for $2,600 a month.
About these doubling and tripling-up situations: I'm pretty sure that it's illegal according to most leases, but most landlords know about it and don't say anything, because they get extra rent money that way. When Archstone-Smith bought the Westmont and the KeyWest (see this post for more info), there were rumors that they were going to actually enforce the no-building-extra-walls-to-stick-two-extra-people-into-your-apartment bit of the lease. However, they were unable to get people into their super-expensive, large, luxury apartments, so they relaxed and let people keep their walls or put up new ones in apartments that didn't already have them.
Back to the horror at the prospect of looking for an affordable place to live--yeah. That's probably why I won't live in NYC forever. Right now, it's super convenient, but if I have to leave the Upper West Side because of skyrocketing rental prices, and live elsewhere in Manhattan or another borough, it will be less convenient to one or another of the many things that I have gotten used to here, and I may as well live somewhere else where I can't walk to work or to Fairway or to ten different kinds of kosher take-out in both dairy and meat varieties. (I don't get take-out all that often, but just knowing that I can! At 10:30 on a Wednesday or Thursday night! Six blocks from my apartment! That would be difficult to give up.)
Here's something funny. "The Melar, that...luxury Upper West Side development at 93rd and Broadway, finally has its very own website and pricing info. Studio rentals start from around $2,580 a month, while there's a high-floor two-bedroom with two bathrooms listed for more than three times that: $8,050." The scary thing is that only one apartment is still available, a two bedroom going for the bargain price of $5675/mo.
Another funny: The Lyric, where you can get a studio for only $3,295/month, a one-bedroom for a mere $4,095.00/month, and a two-bedroom for only $7,295/month. Oh, but it has two bathrooms. And a terrace. As if that makes it worth $7295/month!
Who are the people who can afford these apartments, and why won't they go live somewhere else? Go to the East Side, people! Or downtown! Somewhere where I don't really want to live!
Now, I'm not suggesting that I, or anyone I know, wants or needs to live in these sorts of luxury accommodations, where fewer than three people share one bathroom and no one lives in the living room. I'm only sharing these prices so any of you who live far away from this insanity can get a better sense of the market.
I met what looked like a woman and her teenage daughter who recently moved into my building, displacing some of the long-term tenants who had to flee in the face of 50%+ rent increases. I told my new other-side-of-the-building neighbor that I thought the new rents were outrageous, and she said, "Oh, but the apartment is so large!" So I guess people are willing and able to pay these prices.
Sigh... (I know, I know, David is going to leave a comment telling me to move to DC. Maybe I will, someday. I heard rumor that you're even going to have a partnership minyan of some sort down there one day, which is a nice added bonus. But, tell me, will I be able to walk to work through a park? Get kosher take-out at all hours? Do my grocery shopping at midnight on a Sunday night if the mood strikes?)
A few other bits of news related to rising costs of renting on the Upper West Side:
- I heard, from several people, that West Side Judaica is going out of business. If you want to try to save them, you can go shop there today. I'm not sure if it's too late or not. I'm sad because there are always people in there buying things--both people who look less-than-comfortable in a Judaica store and those who appear to be right at home--and so I feel like they provide a valuable service to the Upper West Side.
I mostly go there go buy milk-meat-pareve stickers, pretty Chanukah candles, the occasional haggadah, siddur, or reference book, and dreidels for playing with my cousin, and if it wasn't there, I would miss it. I don't want to have to go running to midtown or Brooklyn for these things. - The Dale & Thomas Popcorn store on Broadway between 76th and 77th closed in mid-April. Yummy, kosher, super-rich popcorn is no longer walking distance from my domicile. I hope the one in Times Square is still there.
- Morris Brothers, which has been open on the Upper West Side (currently Broadway at 84th) for more than 50 years, lost their lease and is going out of business.
- You may already know about Eden Wok closing. It was very sudden. They closed for Pesach and never reopened.
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Need to get away after reading all of that? Try www.localhikes.com, where you can find information about hikes near both large and small cities. Here are the New York City/Northern New Jersey/Long Island ones.
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Finally, if you want to vote for AbacaxiMamao as the Best Jewish Personal Blog in the final round of the JIB Awards, you can vote here. There are lots of other good people to vote for, too. I mean in the other categories. Vote for me in my category; for them in the other categories. Voting is open until 10 pm US-EDT next Wednesday, May 16. Thanks for your support.
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Oh, one more thing. A lot of people get to my blog by Googling various things about the crazy rent in Manhattan generally and the Upper West Side specifically. For any of you just joining me, previous posts on this topic are below:- Rising Rent on the Upper West Side (updated)
- Historical perspective on Upper West Side rents...and more!
- More (depressing news) about the real estate situation in Manhattan
- Separate Entrance For Poor People? (Real Estate Ramblings)
Labels: links, New York, real estate
5.06.2007
Useful Google mashups for housing searches
Ah, look at all of the things that didn't exist when I was young (i.e., when I last went apartment-hunting)!
Of course, these are only as accurate as their third-party data, and I have no idea how accurate that data is. The second mashup seemed to relocate some clearly East Side craigslist apartments to the West Side in the map.
If you need some coffee to maintain your strength for the search, check out this mashup.
(Wikipedia defines a mashup here, for those not in the know.)
Of course, these are only as accurate as their third-party data, and I have no idea how accurate that data is. The second mashup seemed to relocate some clearly East Side craigslist apartments to the West Side in the map.
If you need some coffee to maintain your strength for the search, check out this mashup.
(Wikipedia defines a mashup here, for those not in the know.)
Labels: links, New York, real estate
3.20.2007
Separate Entrance For Poor People? (Real Estate Ramblings)
It's funny how our interests change once we start paying rent, isn't it?
This is an interesting article from Friday's New York Sun. I never read The Sun, but I saw the article over someone's shoulder on the bus on Friday morning and it looked interesting. (I managed to read most of it during the bus ride.)
It discusses a residential building to be built on and over the West-Park Presbyterian Church at W. 86th St. and Amsterdam. The building would have 50 affordable-housing rental units (for tenants aged 55 and over) and 27 market-rate condos. Sounds good so far, right? I mean, maybe it's sad that they're ripping down part of a 19th century red stone church to build residential units, but it seems necessary to save the rest of the church, and surely more affordable housing in Manhattan is a blessing! The catch? The renters and condo-owners are going to have separate entrances. They will live on entirely separate floors, and only condo-owners will have access to amenities like the gym, playroom, and media room. The title of the article is "Critics See Signs of Segregation In a Proposed West Side Tower," and it's pretty clear why. Without the separate entrances and separate floors, actually, I'm not sure that there would be much of a story. The final quote is, "a spokesman for New York Acorn, an affordable housing advocacy organization, Jonathan Rosen, said the proposal 'brings a type of social exclusion that really has no place in the city in this day and age.'"
First of all, what is he talking about? Social exclusion is the calling card of Manhattan! It's just usually the case that poor people are so socially excluded by rich people that the two groups hardly ever have to meet, I mean really meet (not be asked for money on the street or in the subway). In my neighborhood, for example, there are housing projects and expensive high-rises right across the street from each other. Do you think the tenants of the two buildings party together? Do their laundry together? No. Social exclusion is what happens when people of different social statuses (stati?) live in the same neighborhood or in abutting neighborhoods. It happens in New York all the time, and probably in other cities as well. So I'm not sure the proposal brings social exclusion as much as highlights existing social norms. I'm also not saying that social exclusion is okay, only that it is sort of inevitable in an economically stratified society such as ours. And if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem. So I am part of the problem. Although, if you compare the salaries of all of my friends, from undergraduates and graduate students through i-bankers, my social circle(s) probably has (have) a wide range of incomes.
As far as the proposal itself goes, it seems reasonable that affordable-housing residents would not have access to the amenities that million-dollar condo owners do. Separate entrances, though, pisses me off and reeks of, I don't know--something. Segregation, I suppose. Disgusting.
Bonus real estate links:
This is an interesting article from Friday's New York Sun. I never read The Sun, but I saw the article over someone's shoulder on the bus on Friday morning and it looked interesting. (I managed to read most of it during the bus ride.)
It discusses a residential building to be built on and over the West-Park Presbyterian Church at W. 86th St. and Amsterdam. The building would have 50 affordable-housing rental units (for tenants aged 55 and over) and 27 market-rate condos. Sounds good so far, right? I mean, maybe it's sad that they're ripping down part of a 19th century red stone church to build residential units, but it seems necessary to save the rest of the church, and surely more affordable housing in Manhattan is a blessing! The catch? The renters and condo-owners are going to have separate entrances. They will live on entirely separate floors, and only condo-owners will have access to amenities like the gym, playroom, and media room. The title of the article is "Critics See Signs of Segregation In a Proposed West Side Tower," and it's pretty clear why. Without the separate entrances and separate floors, actually, I'm not sure that there would be much of a story. The final quote is, "a spokesman for New York Acorn, an affordable housing advocacy organization, Jonathan Rosen, said the proposal 'brings a type of social exclusion that really has no place in the city in this day and age.'"
First of all, what is he talking about? Social exclusion is the calling card of Manhattan! It's just usually the case that poor people are so socially excluded by rich people that the two groups hardly ever have to meet, I mean really meet (not be asked for money on the street or in the subway). In my neighborhood, for example, there are housing projects and expensive high-rises right across the street from each other. Do you think the tenants of the two buildings party together? Do their laundry together? No. Social exclusion is what happens when people of different social statuses (stati?) live in the same neighborhood or in abutting neighborhoods. It happens in New York all the time, and probably in other cities as well. So I'm not sure the proposal brings social exclusion as much as highlights existing social norms. I'm also not saying that social exclusion is okay, only that it is sort of inevitable in an economically stratified society such as ours. And if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem. So I am part of the problem. Although, if you compare the salaries of all of my friends, from undergraduates and graduate students through i-bankers, my social circle(s) probably has (have) a wide range of incomes.
As far as the proposal itself goes, it seems reasonable that affordable-housing residents would not have access to the amenities that million-dollar condo owners do. Separate entrances, though, pisses me off and reeks of, I don't know--something. Segregation, I suppose. Disgusting.
$ $ $ $ $ $
Bonus real estate links:
- "Choosing Israel, Not the Hamptons," New York Times, Friday, March 9, 2007
- Washington Heights: the next victim of rising rents? See this NYT article from Sunday, March 4. I'm sure that some people are being pushed out of Washington Heights already, and will continue to do so, because of the yuppification or hipsterfication of Washington Heights. First the immigrants will get pushed out, then the students and non-profit professionals. Sigh...
- "Buying With Help From Mom and Dad," New York Times, Sunday, March 18, 2007. I do know people whose parents bought apartments for them. Like, maybe two people. They work the same kinds of non-profit jobs that I do, but they wear nicer clothes and seem less stressed out. Oh, well. I'm not complaining about my own situation, which is just fine and dandy, only expressing some jealousy over those whose parents choose to invest in NYC apartments in which their children then live, rent-free, in the meantime. (It's probably a smart investment. I don't see rents or property values on the UWS crashing anytime soon, especially if you buy in the currently-gentrifying-formerly-drug-infested areas.)
- I'm not about to move to the Midwest over it, even though I'm sure I could get a nice house there for what I currently pay for a bedroom in an apartment with two (and a half) roommates. Heck, I could move to plenty of other nice cities and probably get a nice one bedroom for what I currently pay for my room. Oh, I could also move to Queens, Staten Island, or even many parts of Manhattan or Brooklyn and get a nice studio or possibly even a one bedroom for what I currently pay for my room. It's just that right now, I don't want to live there. Or in the Midwest. Neither do a lot of other people, which is why rent is so high here in this part of Manhattan and in the parts of Brooklyn where hipsters want to live, and lower elsewhere. What am I ranting about, you say? Gawker gets all snarky about this personal narrative from the Sunday, February 25 New York Times. Gothamist agrees. And I, more or less, do as well, although I'm not quite as prone to snarkiness and personal attacks as some of the Gawker and Gothamist commenters.
- This isn't exactly about real estate, only something to possibly consider when you think of safe vs. unsafe neighborhoods in Manhattan. [Hat tip to Cyburbia.]
Labels: links, New York, real estate
2.25.2007
More (depressing news) about the real estate situation in Manhattan
I take that back. This is only depressing if you're a renter. If you're a real estate developer, building owner, The Man, etc., this is terrific news!
The depressing news isn't news so much as corroboration for (of?) what I already knew. It comes in the form of an article from today's (Sunday's) Real Estate section of the New York Times, called "When Renters Reach the Breaking Point." it says, among other things, that people are either buying places or leaving Manhattan because the rent has become untenable. What I found most interesting/horrifying was the following:
Another somewhat horrifying aspect of the article was the tale it told of a 37-year old woman who has been living in a rent-stabilized 150 square foot (if you count the sleeping loft she built) studio on the Upper West Side for the past nine years. Nine years, people! 150 square feet! And she's paid up to $1000/month for the space! A bargain! (Read those last two words with the proper amount of sarcasm.) 150 square feet is hardly enough room to turn around in, if it's measured counting the bathroom and sleeping loft.
In response to EAR's comment about organizing a tenants' group, we did sort of attempt to do that in my building, but it's hard. About half of the tenants are rent stabilized and have separate concerns from the market rate tenants. Since our tenants' meeting, many tenants have left because they couldn't afford the higher rents, and since nobody particularly likes the management and the apartments themselves are sort of falling apart (each one in its own special way, but still), there's little incentive to stay and fight the rent increase. It's not like the market rate tenants feel like they currently have a bargain. It's also not clear what leverage tenants would use to fight the rent increase.
I'm also not sure what legislative/community-wide action is workable. It's not like anyone is going to expand rent control or rent stabilizing laws right now. The Ariel buildings going up certainly helped gentrify Broadway a little further North than it was previously gentrified, but more condos don't directly raise the rent, and I'm not sure on what basis one could/should prevent developers from putting up more housing in Manhattan, on land that is already zoned for mixed commercial/residential, and assuming they aren't taking down historic buildings. I mean, it seems pretty clear, with a 0.43% vacancy rate, that more housing of all kinds is needed in Manhattan.
I think that the answer, at least for me, is going to be, as Avi suggested, to move into a doorman-less walk-up in a slightly less-gentrified area. (Really, all I want the doorman for is to let Shabbat guests in, but people find ways to make that work.) It might also be time to leave the Upper West Side vicinity or Manhattan altogether. Hell, maybe even New York.
Finally, about EAR's comment regarding increased graffiti on the subway and what that might say about the changing neighborhood: that's due to new graffiti technology, not more graffiti happening. When it was just spray paint, they washed it off the cars every night. Now, the graffiti "artists" are using hydrofluoric acid (a.k.a. "etching acid"), which can't be washed off. According to the NYTimes article linked to above (and here), all subway cars produced since 2000 have Mylar-coated windows that are resistant to etching acid, so you'll only see it on the older cars. I guess the fact that the graffiti can't be removed easily encourages more of it, though, so maybe it's now "more graffiti" in addition to "new graffiti technology" issue. In any case, it's not directly connected to changes in any particular neighborhood. I still see people cleaning regular spray paint graffiti off of things in Central Park all the time.
And with that, I'll wish you all a good night/morning. If you're in New York or environs, enjoy the snow!
The depressing news isn't news so much as corroboration for (of?) what I already knew. It comes in the form of an article from today's (Sunday's) Real Estate section of the New York Times, called "When Renters Reach the Breaking Point." it says, among other things, that people are either buying places or leaving Manhattan because the rent has become untenable. What I found most interesting/horrifying was the following:
In the last year, rents for market-rate apartments in Manhattan have jumped as much as 20 percent, or nearly three times the standard 5 to 7 percent increases seen each year in the last 15 years, said Fritz Frigan, the director of sales and leasing for Halstead Property. "Rents heated up so much that people said, ‘At this level, we’re better off buying," Mr. Frigan said.Why are rents going up so rapidly? The article explains how low-rate mortgages drove a lot of people to buy condos in the city or houses outside it, and how a lot of rental apartments converted to condos to meet that demand. Now that that's no longer the case:
Then, by early 2006, New Yorkers who were scared about buying in an uncertain market flooded back into the rental market and found that there were fewer units to choose from. So by last May, the vacancy rate in Manhattan had shrunk to a record low of 0.43 percent. The vacancy rate was even lower in some neighborhoods, like Murray Hill and the West Village, and people were offering to pay more than the asking rents or to put down a year’s rent upfront.I still don't know what my rent is going to be next year (have several months left on this lease), but this makes it seem unlikely that they won't try to raise it by at least 10%. In this rental market, a 10% raise would probably seem quite reasonable, but I already feel like I'm overpaying for what I'm getting, so it looks like it's time to move.
Another somewhat horrifying aspect of the article was the tale it told of a 37-year old woman who has been living in a rent-stabilized 150 square foot (if you count the sleeping loft she built) studio on the Upper West Side for the past nine years. Nine years, people! 150 square feet! And she's paid up to $1000/month for the space! A bargain! (Read those last two words with the proper amount of sarcasm.) 150 square feet is hardly enough room to turn around in, if it's measured counting the bathroom and sleeping loft.
For nine years, Candice Spielman, a 37-year old freelance television producer, lived in a rent-stabilized apartment on the Upper West Side that measured about 150 square feet if you count the sleeping loft she had built over her refrigerator and desk.Luckily, the story has a happy ending. Because she's been saving her money on rent and investing wisely for all of these years, she managed to save $100,000, which was enough for a down-payment "on a $510,000 apartment, a 470-square-foot studio in the Cocoa Exchange building downtown." She "expects to pay about $2,500 a month for the mortgage and common charge." Reading that part was a good reminder about how I should really be saving more money, even though I couldn't live in a 150 square foot studio to do so. (For one thing, living in a 150 square foot studio would make having Shabbat meals with actual guests impossible. For another, I own too many books and don't have family in New Jersey to serve as free storage.)
As she stretched her arms across a five-foot-wide section of the living space, she spoke about how she learned to tolerate the rattling in the walls when her neighbors watched television and how she saved room by keeping most of her belongings at her mother and stepfather’s house in New Jersey....Sitting in her old place, Ms. Spielman described how she managed all those years. “You can never fully relax because you can’t sit down on a couch,” she said. “You’re always sitting in a straight chair.”
When she tried to rent something larger, she found most studio apartments with a similar amount of space cost more than $2,000 a month.
In response to EAR's comment about organizing a tenants' group, we did sort of attempt to do that in my building, but it's hard. About half of the tenants are rent stabilized and have separate concerns from the market rate tenants. Since our tenants' meeting, many tenants have left because they couldn't afford the higher rents, and since nobody particularly likes the management and the apartments themselves are sort of falling apart (each one in its own special way, but still), there's little incentive to stay and fight the rent increase. It's not like the market rate tenants feel like they currently have a bargain. It's also not clear what leverage tenants would use to fight the rent increase.
I'm also not sure what legislative/community-wide action is workable. It's not like anyone is going to expand rent control or rent stabilizing laws right now. The Ariel buildings going up certainly helped gentrify Broadway a little further North than it was previously gentrified, but more condos don't directly raise the rent, and I'm not sure on what basis one could/should prevent developers from putting up more housing in Manhattan, on land that is already zoned for mixed commercial/residential, and assuming they aren't taking down historic buildings. I mean, it seems pretty clear, with a 0.43% vacancy rate, that more housing of all kinds is needed in Manhattan.
I think that the answer, at least for me, is going to be, as Avi suggested, to move into a doorman-less walk-up in a slightly less-gentrified area. (Really, all I want the doorman for is to let Shabbat guests in, but people find ways to make that work.) It might also be time to leave the Upper West Side vicinity or Manhattan altogether. Hell, maybe even New York.
Finally, about EAR's comment regarding increased graffiti on the subway and what that might say about the changing neighborhood: that's due to new graffiti technology, not more graffiti happening. When it was just spray paint, they washed it off the cars every night. Now, the graffiti "artists" are using hydrofluoric acid (a.k.a. "etching acid"), which can't be washed off. According to the NYTimes article linked to above (and here), all subway cars produced since 2000 have Mylar-coated windows that are resistant to etching acid, so you'll only see it on the older cars. I guess the fact that the graffiti can't be removed easily encourages more of it, though, so maybe it's now "more graffiti" in addition to "new graffiti technology" issue. In any case, it's not directly connected to changes in any particular neighborhood. I still see people cleaning regular spray paint graffiti off of things in Central Park all the time.
And with that, I'll wish you all a good night/morning. If you're in New York or environs, enjoy the snow!
Labels: New York, real estate
2.21.2007
Historical perspective on Upper West Side rents...and more!
Read this. Fascinating. According to the NYT article, one-bedroom apartments started at $1,350/month when the Westmont was brand-new in 1986. According to this US government inflation calculator, that would be about $2,483 in 2006. And, yet, one-bedroom apartments in the Westmont currently start at $3,460, which is 39% more than $2,483! Two-bedroom apartments haven't gone up nearly as much. Using the same method of calculation (i.e., comparing 1986 rent to 2007 rent in today's dollars), they've only gone up 6%. I'm not sure how to describe the discrepancy. Maybe two-bedroom apartments were way-overpriced to begin with, which is why people moved in and added two bedrooms so make them semi-affordable. (And, hey, it could be worse! You could be paying $3,280/month to live in a less-than-500 ft2 Archstone-Smith studio apartment in Chelsea!)
I think the New York City housing market has outpaced inflation by quite a bit over the past twenty years, so the 39% increase since 1986 might be in line with rent increases elsewhere in the city over the past 20 years. Something tells me that they are not, though. It would really be interesting to figure that out, though, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, I am too lazy (or busy, depending on how you look at it), to compare rent to salaries in 1986, rent to salaries now, and Westmont rent to salaries now, and to compare the Westmont rent to other buildings both in the area and elsewhere in NYC.
Luckily, some hard-working people at the New York City Rent Guidelines Board have done some of that rent:salary calculating and surveying rents across the city legwork for me. In their publication titled "2006 Income and Affordability Study" [PDF], on pages 54-55, they report:
And here, they discuss the increase in salaries vs. housing costs over the past 20-25 years, since that article was written about the construction of the Westmont and Key West. This is what really interested me.
Other items related to that last post, but not about a historical perspective on rents...
Someone from the State Insurance Fund Of New York saw the previous post at 10 am yesterday. They got to it by Googling "fake wall New York." Should I be concerned? Is there a worker's comp issue here? Are lots of people getting injured on the job putting up fake walls? And do you know how many other people have gotten to my blog since Friday by Googling "fake wall" or "turn one bedroom into two"? Several! This is clearly a hot topic.
How about the fact that someone from Archstone-Smith headquarters, in Denver, CO, was reading the post at home at 8 pm on Monday night? They were reading it because someone (possibly an electronic clipping service?) e-mailed it to them. Do you think corporate read my post and issued a directive: "Take her down!" Or maybe they'll read it and decide, "You know what? ALG is right (as usual). These new higher rents are ridiculous!"
Also, read EAR's first comment on the last post if you haven't yet. It has some suggestions of actual steps you can take if you find yourself in a similar situation. Feel free to respond to her comment with more suggestions.
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15. The HUD benchmark for housing affordability is a 30% rent-to-income ratio. Source: Basic Laws on Housing and Community Development, Subcommittee on Housing and Community Development of the Committee on Banking Finance and Urban Affairs, revised through December 31, 1994, Section 3.(a)(2).
16. 2004 American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/acs/www/index.html
17. National Low Income Housing Coalition report,"Out of Reach 2005."
19. "Pulling Apart in New York: An Analysis of Income Trends in New York State," Fiscal Policy Institute. January 26, 2006. [You can find some of the Fiscal Policy Institute's material here, but it looks like they haven't put this paper from 2006 online yet.]
I think the New York City housing market has outpaced inflation by quite a bit over the past twenty years, so the 39% increase since 1986 might be in line with rent increases elsewhere in the city over the past 20 years. Something tells me that they are not, though. It would really be interesting to figure that out, though, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, I am too lazy (or busy, depending on how you look at it), to compare rent to salaries in 1986, rent to salaries now, and Westmont rent to salaries now, and to compare the Westmont rent to other buildings both in the area and elsewhere in NYC.
Luckily, some hard-working people at the New York City Rent Guidelines Board have done some of that rent:salary calculating and surveying rents across the city legwork for me. In their publication titled "2006 Income and Affordability Study" [PDF], on pages 54-55, they report:
Affordability of Rental HousingI didn't realize that HUD determined Fair Market Rent. I was under the impression that Fair Market Rent is "whatever people are willing to afford," which, at least in my neck of the woods, seems to be heading towards "a helluva lot of money and much more than I could ever afford." These are HUD's Fair Market Rent data sets. I don't know what one does with such data other than bemoan one's overpriced apartment. Oh. Never mind. Based on what little I've read online in the past, um, five minutes, I think that they are used to figure out some housing assistance programs (Section 8?), but I'm not sure of the details. This [PDF] explains more. In any case, FMR it seems to be correlated to city-wide rental prices, so if it's grown faster than average city salaries, that indicates something about rent:salaries in general. FMR clearly has almost nothing to do with rents in one small part of Manhattan, which must be the most expensive borough.
Examining affordability of rental housing, the 2005 HVS reported that the median gross rent-to-income ratio for all renters was 31.2%, meaning that half of all households residing in rental housing pay more than 31.2% of their income in gross rent, and half pay less. Furthermore, more than a quarter (28.8%) of rental households pay more than 50% of their household income in gross rent. Generally, housing is considered affordable when a household pays no more than 30% of their income in rent.15 Both the overall gross rent-to-income ratio and the proportion of households paying more than 50% of income towards rent increased from the 2002 HVS, which reported proportions of 28.6% and 25.5% respectively....
Despite ongoing efforts by a number of government agencies and non-profit groups, housing affordability remains an issue in a city ranked 11th highest in a nationwide survey of monthly rental costs ($856), but only 27th highest in median household income ($41,509).16
A number of studies have chronicled the difficulty New Yorkers face in finding affordable housing, including an annual study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition that found NYC housing to be unaffordable to the poorest working New Yorkers. In order to afford a two-bedroom apartment at the City’s Fair Market Rent ($1,133 a month), as determined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), a full-time worker must earn $21.79 per hour, or $45,320 a year. Alternately, those who earn minimum wage would have to work the equivalent of 145 hours a week (or two people residing together would each have to work 72.5 hours a week) to be able to afford a two bedroom unit priced at Fair Market Rent.17
And here, they discuss the increase in salaries vs. housing costs over the past 20-25 years, since that article was written about the construction of the Westmont and Key West. This is what really interested me.
A report released in January 2006, “Pulling Apart in New York,” documents income trends for both New York State and New York City from the early 1980s through the early 2000s.19 The study found that New York State has the widest income gap between rich and poor of all fifty states, and the gap grew over the past twenty years, with only income disparity in Arizona growing at a faster rate. While nationwide the income of the rich grew at three times the pace of the poor, in New York State it grew at five times the rate.
Finally, I want to clarify, before I move on, that I'm just picking on the Westmont and Key West because I have that data easily available to me. However, I do think what's happened to the rent in those buildings over the past year, not to mention twenty years, is symptomatic of what's happening to the rents in other, non-luxury, Upper West Side buildings. Please feel free to submit your own data points from now or from years past.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~Other items related to that last post, but not about a historical perspective on rents...
Someone from the State Insurance Fund Of New York saw the previous post at 10 am yesterday. They got to it by Googling "fake wall New York." Should I be concerned? Is there a worker's comp issue here? Are lots of people getting injured on the job putting up fake walls? And do you know how many other people have gotten to my blog since Friday by Googling "fake wall" or "turn one bedroom into two"? Several! This is clearly a hot topic.
How about the fact that someone from Archstone-Smith headquarters, in Denver, CO, was reading the post at home at 8 pm on Monday night? They were reading it because someone (possibly an electronic clipping service?) e-mailed it to them. Do you think corporate read my post and issued a directive: "Take her down!" Or maybe they'll read it and decide, "You know what? ALG is right (as usual). These new higher rents are ridiculous!"
Also, read EAR's first comment on the last post if you haven't yet. It has some suggestions of actual steps you can take if you find yourself in a similar situation. Feel free to respond to her comment with more suggestions.
------------------------------------------------------
15. The HUD benchmark for housing affordability is a 30% rent-to-income ratio. Source: Basic Laws on Housing and Community Development, Subcommittee on Housing and Community Development of the Committee on Banking Finance and Urban Affairs, revised through December 31, 1994, Section 3.(a)(2).
16. 2004 American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/acs/www/index.html
17. National Low Income Housing Coalition report,"Out of Reach 2005."
19. "Pulling Apart in New York: An Analysis of Income Trends in New York State," Fiscal Policy Institute. January 26, 2006. [You can find some of the Fiscal Policy Institute's material here, but it looks like they haven't put this paper from 2006 online yet.]
Labels: history, New York, real estate
2.20.2007
Rising Rent on the Upper West Side (updated)
Is anyone blogging about this? I haven't come across anything about this, but I'm not the biggest reader of blogs originating on the Upper West Side.
If you live in the West 90s and are friends with anyone who lives in the Westmont or the Key West, you've surely heard the rumors. Both buildings were acquired by Archstone-Smith over the past six months (the Westmont in July and the Key West in September). The new owners summarily raised rents by 30-50% on new leases. These new leases also forbad (forbade?) putting up the temporary walls that make these several-thousand-dollar-a-month rents affordable for young singles on the Upper West Side. (Side question: Is the Charles E. Smith whose name appears on the Archstone-Smith website the same Charle E. Smith who funded this day school, about which I've only heard amazing things? This implies that the answer is yes.)
Background: Many young, single Modern Orthodox Jews live in the Westmont and the Key West, in addition to the Paris and the James Tower. In most, if not all, cases, one bedroom apartments are occupied by two people and two bedroom apartments are occupied by four people. This is accomplished by hiring people to build temporary walls that turn small dining areas and half of the living room into two separate bedrooms. (This photo shows what looks like a 2-bedroom apartment without walls. In the converted apartment that I lived in, the two windows would have been windows to two new bedrooms.)
Even in other buildings, almost everyone I know, including myself, has at least one fake wall or has turned a closet-less dining room in an old, pre-war apartment into a bedroom. As far as I know, if you have moved to New York any time within the past three years or so, this is the only way to find a place to live with your own bedroom between W 70th St. and W 100th St. for $1200/month or less. There are some very small bedrooms available in these Westmont/KeyWest apartments that are less money, but I couldn't live in a small space that had room for a twin bed and a dresser and nothing else. Other people get lucky and find rent-stabilized apartments with lower rents or where you get more for your money. Also, if you happen upon an apartment that has been passed down from person to person for awhile, with at least one previous tenant always staying on, you can get a very good deal, maybe even around $900/month, especially if you know Elba. (You have to know her and you have to bribe her, though, and there's still no guarantee something will be available. And if something in one of her buildings breaks, tough luck.) More information about typical Upper West Side rents here.
Anyway, so this is how people live.
But that opulent lifestyle is now threatened by rising rents. It's not just the Westmont and the Key West. I have a friend who lives in a door-man-less walk-up on 100th, between Columbus Ave. and Central Park West (not the fanciest part of the Upper West Side by any stretch of the imagination), and her rent is being increased by 10% this year. Maybe that's "typical" (is it?), but if your rent is starting out at $1200/month for a studio, having it go up to $1320/month is not easy.
In my building, which is not billed as a luxury building, new leases are being sent out with increases from 46% to 76%! Some people managed to "bargain" the management down to a 20-30% rent increase, but it's still crazy. We have a part-time doorman (8 am to 11 pm, roughly), laundry in the basement, and elevators, but that's the extent of the luxuriousness of my building. It was originally built in the 1910's and it has not been well-maintained. The plumbing is terrible, both in terms of wacky water pressure and in terms of sudden, surprising switches from temperate water to very hot or very cold water. It makes for unpleasant showers, but, well, we put up with it. Certain times of day are better than others. (The management said that they couldn't fix it without ripping out the entire building's plumbing and starting over from scratch.) There are also serious structural problems with the building. A few people have literally had their kitchen ceilings fall down, and it's not uncommon to see tiles buckling in the bathroom or large water leaks in the walls that the super comes and paints over every once in awhile. The lobby smells strongly of gas or heating oil when it's cold outside, and the doorman told me that it's been that way for the past 28 years and it's because they use No. 6 oil. Nothing can be done, he says with a shrug. How can you possibly charge $4000/month or more for a two bedroom apartment in such circumstances?
Entire floors of these buildings are, of course, moving out. The Westmont and Key West are, apparently, having enough trouble filling these newly-vacated, $4900/month two bedroom apartments that they're offering $500 to current residents if they find tenants. The floor below me in my building has emptied out, too.
I'm not sure what will happen. I'm hoping that nobody will be willing to pay these higher rents and that the rents come back down to the "reasonable" range.
Barring that, it is probably possible to find reasonable rents further north, between 100th and 116th Sts, or further east, say, around 103rd and Central Park West. There is also the possibility that large numbers of people will move to other neighborhoods like Washington Heights or Park Slope, but I am loathe to leave my Central Park, Riverside Park, and Fairway behind. It's also possible that all of my friends are teachers, social workers, non-profit-do-gooders, but that a lot of the occupants of these apartments may be lawyers and bankers and that they can pay the new, higher rents, and are willing to. (At some point, even rich people must get tired of throwing their money away.)
Only time will tell. In the meantime, if you know of a good deal on a place starting late summer, I might be looking to move...
If you live in the West 90s and are friends with anyone who lives in the Westmont or the Key West, you've surely heard the rumors. Both buildings were acquired by Archstone-Smith over the past six months (the Westmont in July and the Key West in September). The new owners summarily raised rents by 30-50% on new leases. These new leases also forbad (forbade?) putting up the temporary walls that make these several-thousand-dollar-a-month rents affordable for young singles on the Upper West Side. (Side question: Is the Charles E. Smith whose name appears on the Archstone-Smith website the same Charle E. Smith who funded this day school, about which I've only heard amazing things? This implies that the answer is yes.)
Background: Many young, single Modern Orthodox Jews live in the Westmont and the Key West, in addition to the Paris and the James Tower. In most, if not all, cases, one bedroom apartments are occupied by two people and two bedroom apartments are occupied by four people. This is accomplished by hiring people to build temporary walls that turn small dining areas and half of the living room into two separate bedrooms. (This photo shows what looks like a 2-bedroom apartment without walls. In the converted apartment that I lived in, the two windows would have been windows to two new bedrooms.)
Even in other buildings, almost everyone I know, including myself, has at least one fake wall or has turned a closet-less dining room in an old, pre-war apartment into a bedroom. As far as I know, if you have moved to New York any time within the past three years or so, this is the only way to find a place to live with your own bedroom between W 70th St. and W 100th St. for $1200/month or less. There are some very small bedrooms available in these Westmont/KeyWest apartments that are less money, but I couldn't live in a small space that had room for a twin bed and a dresser and nothing else. Other people get lucky and find rent-stabilized apartments with lower rents or where you get more for your money. Also, if you happen upon an apartment that has been passed down from person to person for awhile, with at least one previous tenant always staying on, you can get a very good deal, maybe even around $900/month, especially if you know Elba. (You have to know her and you have to bribe her, though, and there's still no guarantee something will be available. And if something in one of her buildings breaks, tough luck.) More information about typical Upper West Side rents here.Anyway, so this is how people live.
But that opulent lifestyle is now threatened by rising rents. It's not just the Westmont and the Key West. I have a friend who lives in a door-man-less walk-up on 100th, between Columbus Ave. and Central Park West (not the fanciest part of the Upper West Side by any stretch of the imagination), and her rent is being increased by 10% this year. Maybe that's "typical" (is it?), but if your rent is starting out at $1200/month for a studio, having it go up to $1320/month is not easy.
In my building, which is not billed as a luxury building, new leases are being sent out with increases from 46% to 76%! Some people managed to "bargain" the management down to a 20-30% rent increase, but it's still crazy. We have a part-time doorman (8 am to 11 pm, roughly), laundry in the basement, and elevators, but that's the extent of the luxuriousness of my building. It was originally built in the 1910's and it has not been well-maintained. The plumbing is terrible, both in terms of wacky water pressure and in terms of sudden, surprising switches from temperate water to very hot or very cold water. It makes for unpleasant showers, but, well, we put up with it. Certain times of day are better than others. (The management said that they couldn't fix it without ripping out the entire building's plumbing and starting over from scratch.) There are also serious structural problems with the building. A few people have literally had their kitchen ceilings fall down, and it's not uncommon to see tiles buckling in the bathroom or large water leaks in the walls that the super comes and paints over every once in awhile. The lobby smells strongly of gas or heating oil when it's cold outside, and the doorman told me that it's been that way for the past 28 years and it's because they use No. 6 oil. Nothing can be done, he says with a shrug. How can you possibly charge $4000/month or more for a two bedroom apartment in such circumstances?
Entire floors of these buildings are, of course, moving out. The Westmont and Key West are, apparently, having enough trouble filling these newly-vacated, $4900/month two bedroom apartments that they're offering $500 to current residents if they find tenants. The floor below me in my building has emptied out, too.
I'm not sure what will happen. I'm hoping that nobody will be willing to pay these higher rents and that the rents come back down to the "reasonable" range.
Barring that, it is probably possible to find reasonable rents further north, between 100th and 116th Sts, or further east, say, around 103rd and Central Park West. There is also the possibility that large numbers of people will move to other neighborhoods like Washington Heights or Park Slope, but I am loathe to leave my Central Park, Riverside Park, and Fairway behind. It's also possible that all of my friends are teachers, social workers, non-profit-do-gooders, but that a lot of the occupants of these apartments may be lawyers and bankers and that they can pay the new, higher rents, and are willing to. (At some point, even rich people must get tired of throwing their money away.)
Only time will tell. In the meantime, if you know of a good deal on a place starting late summer, I might be looking to move...
Labels: New York, real estate
1.19.2007
Jerry Seinfeld and the Sabbath-Observant Real Estate Broker
No, there's no punch line. The story is here.
This is one of those stories that some enterprising kiruv professional will no doubt turn into evidence that being Shabbat-observant will lead to a financial windfall. What I learned from it is that you shouldn't try to cheat your real estate broker out of her commission just because you're a celebrity, have deep pockets, and think you can get away with it.
Shabbat shalom!
This is one of those stories that some enterprising kiruv professional will no doubt turn into evidence that being Shabbat-observant will lead to a financial windfall. What I learned from it is that you shouldn't try to cheat your real estate broker out of her commission just because you're a celebrity, have deep pockets, and think you can get away with it.
Shabbat shalom!
Labels: New York, real estate
10.06.2006
A fifth reason to leave New York City
I didn't want to be flip and just post this. I wanted to write a whole essay on children, wealth, jealousy, sharing bedrooms, and what was said to me on the playground by a classmate in 1989. But the hour is late, the author is exhausted, and this brief posting will have to do.
From last Sunday's New York Times Real Estate section, go read an article called "The Toughest Critics are the Smallest" about competition among New York's youngest residents for the biggest and best house, and how one feels about kids who don't have nice houses. Here are some choice quotes, since I think it won't be available after this Sunday, and here it is, already early Friday morning:
[This is part of a continuing series. Previous reasons to leave NYC included:
1. "My Daddy owns more buildings than your Daddy!" (Abacaxi Mamao, 12/19/05 )
2. mongrammed spit-up cloths (Abacaxi Mamao, 2/9/06)
3. higher incidence of depression and general mental distress (New York Times, 4/10/06)
4. toxicity in New York City dust and dirt (Science & The City, 4/10/06)]
Categories: New York
From last Sunday's New York Times Real Estate section, go read an article called "The Toughest Critics are the Smallest" about competition among New York's youngest residents for the biggest and best house, and how one feels about kids who don't have nice houses. Here are some choice quotes, since I think it won't be available after this Sunday, and here it is, already early Friday morning:
“A lot of my son’s friends are in private school because of our neighborhood,” Ms. Bruder-Frydman said. “When he goes to a friend’s house whose bedroom is three times the size of his, even though his is professionally decorated with fancy furniture and hand-painted, and he has everything that he needs, he says, ‘Mommy, how come my room isn’t this big?’ ”
I don't know who to be annoyed with more--the kids or their parents. I think their parents...
Yeah, the parents. Definitely the parents.“I think the kids are more aware of how much other people have,” said the teacher, who spoke on the condition that her name not be used because it’s against school policy to talk to reporters. “Teaching kindergarten, I was overhearing kids after a play date with each other. The children spoke along the lines of, ‘I’ve been to his house — he had so many toys, and his playroom is bigger than my own.’ ”
“I think they’re so young that they’re not doing it to be mean,” said the teacher, who recalled how two of her young students visited her studio apartment and asked, “Where is the rest of it?”
“They have no idea how their comments can be hurtful to someone else,” she said. “They’re just kind of sponges for what they hear at home.”
Perhaps it's not so much about the individual parents or children, as about this statement:A study of privileged suburban children suggests that parents with smaller homes have reason to feel self-conscious. Two years ago, Heather Beth Johnson, an assistant professor of sociology at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., interviewed 20 children ranging from 5 to 12 years old in affluent suburban enclaves of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Half of the children attended private schools.
“When asked how they viewed families who lived in smaller houses, they said, ‘I feel sorry for them that they have a bad house, but if they really wanted to, they could work harder and have a better one.’ They would look down on the parents, and they felt sad for the kids,” said Dr. Johnson, the author of “The American Dream and the Power of Wealth” (Taylor & Francis Group, 2006).
Children in New York City “are as in tune with real estate as sneakers,” Ms. Friedman said. “It’s just a commodity. And in a lot of New York City families, it really is a topic of conversation just as much as what happens on the front page.”Who would want to raise children in such a place?
Youngsters are particularly apt to ape their parents and society at large, said Daniel Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard and the author of “Stumbling on Happiness” (Knopf, 2006). “You’re bringing children up in the single most materialistic culture that has ever existed on the face of the earth,” he said.Yeah... Like I said, a good reason to leave NYC before starting a family.
But in Manhattan, where the giddy heights of wealth, status and ego can induce as much vertigo as the tallest Trump tower, parents at all levels evinced a reluctance to discuss with their children issues of class inequality or its subset, conspicuous real estate, leading to the sort of finding that Dr. Johnson, the Lehigh sociologist, found chilling.Or, if you stay, to talk about wealth, power, money, and ego. With young children. Because they'll talk about it even if you don't.
* * * * * * * * *
[This is part of a continuing series. Previous reasons to leave NYC included:
1. "My Daddy owns more buildings than your Daddy!" (Abacaxi Mamao, 12/19/05 )
2. mongrammed spit-up cloths (Abacaxi Mamao, 2/9/06)
3. higher incidence of depression and general mental distress (New York Times, 4/10/06)
4. toxicity in New York City dust and dirt (Science & The City, 4/10/06)]
Categories: New York
Labels: New York, real estate
12.19.2005
Why I have to leave this city before I get sucked into the vortex
Over the weekend, I heard three or four little boys, probably in the 8-10 year old range (although I find that the older I get, the harder it is for me to estimate these things), having an argument. They were talking about real estate. One said to the other, "Your father doesn't even own any real estate!" Then the landed gentry among them (not the poor fellow whose father didn't own any real estate) continued to argue over whose father owned more buildings.
Ugh!
Ugh!
Labels: New York, real estate
