6 Ways New Rent Laws Will Affect New Yorkers

@Andrew Because it's not about maintaining affordable housing for those who actually need it, rather populist pandering by NY politicians.

@Biz Griz... “Another argument could target the retroactive rule that limits how much landlords can charge tenants for past upgrades”

@Biz Griz The new legislation provides in part that the MCI increase shall: " ...cease thirty years from the date the increase became effective." It would seem that the legislation is retroactive and the increases are capped at 30 years. Whether or not the current tenant was a tenant at that time is irrelevant.

@Robert Plautz I've read nowhere that past MCI's are retroactive. I don't believe that's the case. Major capital improvements were made based on the law at the time which was that MCI's were permanent. Property owner's have a very strong case if in fact the politicians are trying to retroactively apply the new 30 year MCI rules. I haven't read that anywhere except in this partly erroneous NY Times article.

Maybe you miss the point. The legislation is trying to preserve the existing affordable housing stock. RE development will still progress targeted on the affluent and wealthy. I doubt more are denying anything. As for letting the market decide - your argument was used a few years ago to justify loosening real estate rules - where has that gotten us? The market decided that the highly affluent and wealthy were the only ones that mattered. New York might suffer from a tight market, with low vacancy rates, but along with changes to Federal tax law, making our plutocracy even more unequal, the inherent corruption of international wealth, and the opaqueness of our RE declaration laws, development has disproportionately been at the high end.

Regarding the market, in New York, it feels like the higher the price they put on something, the more people want it! :). With "Evita" coming back this fall with a $135 regular ticket ($2500 if you want to go to the gala), I'm reminded that the first time around, when they upped the normal price by $2.50, the proverbial everyone said "$22.50? No one's going to pay $22.50 - to sit in a theater for 2-1/2 hours? People aren't crazy. You've got to be kidding."

@James Igoe And even worse, it is already having the opposite effect - landlords are starting to leave apartments empty, because when you rent a stabilized apartment you are basically giving away your ownership rights to the tenant, and that becomes way too expensive in the long run.

@MIKEinNYC What defines a "trouble making tenant?? A tenant who wants the heat on by October 15 as per the law? A tenant who wants repairs completed in a timely fashion? A wheel chair bound tenant stuck in her apartment for 1 month waiting for elevator repair (happened to my relative)? When these tenants call everyday is that being a trouble maker or someone who wants the service their rent pays for?

Well, NYCSandi, there's the tenant who sells drugs from his apartment, or the one who's so stoned that more than once she's left a towel on a lit stove and set the kitchen on fire. There's the tenant whose 13-year-old son routinely vandalizes the building and she violently defends him against landlord and police. Not every tenant is you. Not every landlord is Kushner.

@MIKEinNYC: On the contrary, PLENTY of buildings are sold at a premium precisely BECAUSE they have rent-regulated apartments in them - with the *wink, wink* "understanding" that the NEW owner is going to get as many of the existing regulated tenants out as possible. I've watched this happen in 2 buildings on my block: one immediately next door to me, and one across the backyard from me. These buildings are sold as having, in real estate parlance, "tremendous upside" - meaning, again: get the existing tenants out, "renovate" and lease for 5-10x what the previous tenant paid. Many of these landlords deserve prison time for what they've done & continue to do, but few of them ever are called to account. And their actions serve to destabilize a neighborhood. One building on my block was ENTIRELY emptied of its long-term regulated residents by the new landlord - some residents took a "buy-out" & the rest were essentially harassed out by these tactics: no heat in the winter, water may be turned off for many hours each day, debris from renovation left in the hallways, front door to the building left propped open, the lock on the front door is "broken" repeatedly. We (as a neighborhood) lost dozens of long-term, stable, middle-class renters who cared about the quality of life around here. The new tenants are almost all 20-somethings who are paying over $3,500/month for a 1-bedroom apartment. They stay for a year, put down no roots, and don't care about the neighborhood at all.

@Shivani Shukla Love the word flâneuse! Early Welcome to New York. You’ll have a great time. I do hope others here and maybe Azi will put together ideas for your explorations. I’ll think as well....