By Kim Velsey 3/27/12 3:18pm

The Rent

Raising the (rent regs) roof. (rnguyen01/Flickr)

Rental Relief! Mayor Bloomberg Renews NYC Rent Regulation Law

Even with a Supreme Court battle looming in the background, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg didn’t hesitate to sign a City Council bill extending New York’s Rent Stabilization Law through April 2015.

“In order to extend the Rent Stabilization Law, the City must determine that a housing emergency exists to merit the need for rent stabilization,” Bloomberg said in a release about the bill’s passage, citing the city’s vacancy rate of 3.12 percent to declare the requisite emergency. Read More

By Michael Ewing 3/19/12 4:02pm

The Rent

Fifty-five bucks to live here? Hot damn! (PropertyShark)

At $55 a Month, This May Be the Cheapest Apartment in New York, Let Alone Soho

Rent control might be running out by the decade’s end, but some rent-controlled tenants gladly pay their double digit rent and plan to pass it on to future generations, much to their landlords (and lawyers’) dismay.

Consider the case of two elders in Soho–Thomas Lombardi and Robert Cohen—who have been paying $55.01 and $71.23, respectively, for their apartments, according to the Post. Read More

By Michael Ewing 3/15/12 2:35pm

The Rent

Affordable housing? (Turduckern/Flickr)

Five Borough Living Actually Kinda Cheap (By Certain Measures)

The National Low Income Housing Coalition published their “Out of Reach 2012: America’s Forgotten Housing Crisis” report this week. The report, in short, calculates the required hourly wages (at 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year) to sustain a two bedroom apartment. The report surveyed hundreds of counties, metropolitian areas, and cities across the United States, and then our buen vecino Puerto Rico.

Keep in mind that the report also stipulated that an affordable two bedroom apartment is 30 percent of your monthly income. Here are some interesting breakdowns (in hourly wages at 2080 hours a year). Read More

By Stephen Duffy 2/08/12 3:20pm

the way things were

The Studio apartment, and extinct species?

Size Matters: New York Used to Be Full of ‘Singletons,’ But Bigger Apartments and Rising Prices Means Living Alone Is Harder Than Ever

“This is an incredible thing. It’s new. No human society in all of history has organized life in this way,” enthused NYU sociology professor Eric Klinenberg. He had met The Observer at Jacques Torres in Hudson Square to discuss his new book, Going Solo, which investigates what Mr. Klinenberg sees as a desire of a large number of people to live alone. In the book he coins the term “singleton” for this supposed emerging group—take that, BoBos!—and he calls Manhattan “the capital of singletons.”

“The typical New Yorker gets married after 30 these days,” said Mr. Klinenberg, “and they have children even later. We had a huge number of years where we used to live with other people. Now we’re free to do what we want to do.” In his book, Mr. Klinenberg cites numerous statistics over the past 50 years that do show a gradual shift in this direction, from the standard (expected) nuclear family to the rise of what he calls “the cult of the individual.”

“Most people we interviewed said that after a few years of living with roommates they are ready for a place of their own.” Mr. Klinenberg said. He has a whole host of reasons why: “Roommates who don’t pay rent on time, roommates who don’t like the person you are dating …” etc., etc.

The idea of the New York loner is as old as the city itself. Look no further than the solemn, solitary Statue of Liberty. But recent trends actually point away from a city of “singletons,” not toward one. Read More

By Matt Chaban 12/02/11 5:09pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

It's better than nothing... or warmed over Mexican. (Getty)

M.T.A. Throws Apple Pie at DiNapoli, Declares 'Bring It On'

This time next Friday—actually, starting sometime around Monday probably—the fan boys will begin lining up in Grand Central Terminal to be the first into the new Apple Store when it opens Dec. 9.

Will they care whether Apple is paying $60 per square foot, or $80, or $180? Probably not. But State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli cares, and yesterday, his office announced they would do an audit of the M.T.A.’s real estate practices, following up on one from last year, to make sure the transit agency is not cutting anybody—Apple, Danny Meyer, their mother—a sweetheart deal.

To which the M.T.A.’s response is: “Bring it on.” Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/09/11 9:47am

The Rent

Starting at $3,340—below average!

Are Rents Headed Down?

One of the confounding things about the past three years is that while the economy has slumped and housing has been an absolute mess nationwide, in New York, we are almost back to the same levels as during the boom, especially as far as rentals are concerned. Crain’s sees some softening ahead, however.

With Read More

By Elise Knutsen 10/31/11 11:47am

Harlem Shuffle

A boarded apartment building in Harlem (photo from Harlem Bespoke)

Harlem Landlords Like Their Buildings Empty, Actually

While some say Harlem is the city’s new housing hotspot, hundreds of empty residential buildings bespeak serious issues still affecting the community, The New York Times reports. While storefronts in the neighborhood are generally bustling, an unsettling number of residences above are boarded up, and have been for decades. Business may be good on the ground floor, but landlords, often times wealthy real estate firms, have forsaken the residential apartments, leaving blighted buildings dotting the neighborhood. Read More