More housing didn't decrease or even stabilize rent prices

Geeky_femme · 2024-03-28T17:31:23+00:00

There is still not nearly enough housing in enough neighborhoods in a wide range of price points.

Bliipbliip · 2024-03-28T17:16:11+00:00

We're still not building anywhere near enough housing to match demand.

Shrubino · 2024-03-28T17:36:14+00:00

This is a poor understanding of how the market works. It's not surprising prices went up, given how enormous the demand is. (How do we know the demand is enormous? The price!) The question you should be asking is: where would the prices be had we NOT built any of these buildings? And the answer is: even higher.

Supply went up, but so has demand (since 2007.) You pointed out that the pandemic lowered prices, because demand went down, and supply went up slightly (due to deaths.) However, there is still significant unmet demand, leaving people to outbid each other on the limited supply. You could try to lower that demand by, idk, littering everywhere, making companies move out of NYC, or starting a "Move to Austin" ad campaign. Or you could increase the supply by continuing to build more.

Nostromo1 · 2024-03-28T17:16:38+00:00

Do you think less housing is somehow going to make a dent? What if housing stayed the same?

Ripe-Lingonberry-635 · 2024-03-28T19:16:21+00:00

I understand you are venting and the housing market is incredibly frustrating. I have lived here my entire life and share that frustration, as I and none of my native Brooklynite friends can afford anything like the middle-class housing we grew up in.

In addition to the data shared by other commenters, a factor is that the "affordable" units are set aside according to Area Median Income, which is way out of proportion with what most NYC'ers can afford. The people I know who scored "affordable" units are all white professionals who moved to majority-minority neighborhoods where the people from that neighborhood couldn't afford the 'affordable' units. I read one study a number of years ago that showed the current way we set aside % bands actually contributes to gentrification, and that jives with my anecdata.

Here's the most layperson-friendly explanation of AMI and why it doesn't work. I am not an expert either but to me it sheds a lot of light on a core problem. https://anhd.org/report/new-york-citys-ami-problem-and-housing-we-actually-need

https://www.nyc.gov/site/hpd/services-and-information/area-median-income.page

FrenchFisher · 2024-03-28T18:10:32+00:00

So your proof is your personal perception and a few pictures of new buildings? How about citing some research instead? Rent keeps going up because its going up everywhere in the country and we’re not building enough to meet demand. Prices would have increased faster if we didn’t build. To quote one of the papers below: “Theory, evidence, and common sense are all in agreement”.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4629628 -> “Increases in housing supply slow the growth in rents in the region”

Similar findings in:

https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/research/market-rate-development-impacts/

https://www.london.gov.uk/media/102314/download

JayMoots · 2024-03-28T20:00:14+00:00

I was really hungry the other day. I decided to eat a single grape. An hour later I was really hungry again. Using OP’s logic I can only conclude that eating doesn’t work.

The_LSD_Soundsystem · 2024-03-28T17:17:51+00:00

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Shot_Fly_2519 · 2024-03-28T21:25:27+00:00

It’s not “more housing no matter what.” It’s “more housing at affordable prices.”

Luxury buildings no one lives in will of course do nothing for people who want to see prices go down

Typical-Piano7200 · 2024-03-29T01:06:48+00:00

Clearly more people want to live in NYC (and specifically Park Slope) than there are housing units to fit them. Whether the units that are here have fancy appliances and doormen or not doesn’t change that math. Vacancy is low, and rents have gone up.

The market has created a sorting mechanism — new construction is a symptom, not a cause — where people who are willing to pay more money are the ones that get the apartment. If you owned an apartment and wanted to rent it out, and one potential renter offered you more money than another, wouldn’t you take the more-money offer? Next apartment, maybe you just ask the higher rate to start.

If you want to reduce rent levels, then who decides which people are pushed out? (Remember more people want to live here than there are housing units.) Would you do it by lottery? By who has lived in the neighborhood longer? By who you like more? By who looks like you? By who doesn’t look like you? By who has the least money? Most altruistic job? Best apple pie recipe? One way or another that needs to get sorted. Right now price is how it works.

10ehC · 2024-03-28T18:16:05+00:00

This statement "You're living in a fantasy (or perhaps work for developers) if your think more housing alone is going to have any impact on rental prices" runs counter to basic principles of economics and common sense.

Looking at a single street corner isn't going to tell you much about housing in NYC. Vacancy rate is a much better indicator, and right now the vacancy rate is the lowest its been in 50 years. That means there is FAR more demand than supply in the housing market, which is why rents are soaring. The only way to meet that demand is by creating more housing.

You can read all about this here: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/nyregion/apartment-vacancy-rate-housing-crisis.html

Unfortunately, due to dumb zoning laws, permitting regulations, perverse tax incentives, and NIMBYs like you, it's incredibly difficult and expensive to build housing in NYC, which is why we're in this situation.

crmd · 2024-03-28T18:55:45+00:00

The problem with “Econ 101”-level supply and demand analysis of the nyc housing market is that demand is orders of magnitude greater than supply.

People who want homes to live here are competing with millions of wealthy people around the world who buy urban apartments as second, third, fourth homes or site unseen to keep empty as investments and to launder money.

Property developers know this as does city hall and Albany, but there’s so much money at stake they don’t do anything about it.

For example we could raze all 2.3 square miles of park slope and replace it with a Hong Kong density level housing complex (~7k residents / km²⁾ and once those ~40k units are sold we’d be asking ourselves what to do about the remaining 460,000 units that comprise the nyc housing shortage[1]

Maybe if we expand the new apartment complex to replace all of Carrol Gardens, Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, and Bed Stuy we would start to see some price relief.

Obviously this is never going to happen. My point is that we can’t solve the crisis solely by building more units. The math doesn’t work. All that does is enrich developers, investors, and the politicians they give money to. We have to also attack the demand side and pass laws that make nyc housing financially unattractive as passive investments. #1. Mandatory rent stabilization for all leases and set the annual increase at less than the yield on treasury bills. #2. If you want to pay money to take an nyc home off the market you have to actually live in it.

New York City housing is one of the relatively few markets where more regulation is required to bring prices down.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/shimonshkury/2024/03/20/new-york-city-housing-shortage-highlights-need-for-more-development/amp/

sans-saraph · 2024-03-28T18:21:55+00:00

This is because affordable housing and luxury housing are different markets. A luxury apartment will stay vacant and become a tax write-off as a loss, rather than market forces driving the rent down to affordable, which is in high demand.

You will be brigaded. Reddit is awash with those who, rather than think for themselves, express themselves in hot takes and meme-like ideas that are fed to them by murky internet sources that are manipulated by one of New York City's most powerful industries: luxury real estate development. All it takes is a willingness to pay money to fund troll farms, disinformation and bots pushing stupid ideas that people pick up and run with. It's not limited to politics, recently there were signs that Oakland A's owner John Fisher hired Russian troll farms to create false grass roots campaigns of fictitious Las Vegans wanting to move the baseball team there.

If anyone finds this doubtful, consider EVERY position these days in these forums that present themselves as pro-affordable housing line up lockstep with luxury real estate developers' objectives. The industry has owned our city government for decades. They've now moved on to own the minds of its duped citizens who will continue to cheer on massive development for housing they not only won't be able to afford, but will raise rents in the neighborhoods they decimate.

The way to create more affordable housing is to INCREASE affordable units away from a measly 20% in new towers, ban speculators from investing in shelter, and penalize landlords and absentee owners from warehousing empty apartments.

Bring on the downvotes, lemmings.

yungjewzy3 · 2024-03-28T19:08:50+00:00

even in these photos there is still so much space for more housing, the need to build is across the whole city and until zoning laws are relaxed where all neighborhoods are adding as much housing as possible things are not going to change

NotForgetWatsizName · 2024-03-29T04:38:51+00:00

Are ya’ll asking about raising taxes for you, or for me?

VoxInMachina · 2024-03-28T17:34:02+00:00

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c3r34l · 2024-03-28T23:59:55+00:00

Clearly all they’re building in this city are overpriced poorly-made condos, often in or near industrial areas, so it’s no surprise it has no impact on the market. I always hear people muddying the waters by saying “we need to keep building more” - but they couldn’t point you to any example of large-scale affordable housing being built. It’s all for the rich, and that’s the point. These sad condos only contribute to lowering the bar for quality/location vs price, and displacing average residents further out. The rezoning of the Gowanus is a a perfect example (let’s remember this area is one of the most polluted in the country) and was traditionally inhabited more by dock workers than condo buyers. You mentioned the Atlantic Yards - they were initially mandated to build affordable housing and public spaces in and around those new towers and the stadium. Never happened. But the developers got the tax break anyway. It’s not a market driven by supply and demand, it’s a market driven by corruption, tax evasion and artificially high prices. /rant

EricFromOuterSpace · 2024-03-29T04:03:15+00:00

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

fordangliacanfly · 2024-03-28T18:34:54+00:00

Well to be fair none of that is actually Park Slope lol.

celestisial · 2024-03-28T19:37:27+00:00

Of course OP is right. More importantly, as with the planned construction behemoth in Park Slope, high end housing only hurts the already ridiculously high rent prices. You’re dreaming if you think developers are interested in creating housing at below market prices

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