More than 13K rent-stabilized units in NYC are sitting empty for multiple years, report finds
gothamist.com
A city Independent Budget Office report examines vacancy data from the state’s housing agency amid concerns of "warehousing."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/12162

Why? Because apparently they need some more incentive to keep units occupied. Also, even though a property might be vacant, there’s still imputed rental income there. Its owner is just receiving it in the form of enjoying the unit for himself instead of receiving an actual rent check from a tenant. That imputed rent ought to be taxed like any other income.

  • @Olgratin_MagmatoeEnglish
    1•10 months ago

    but property ownership still comes with a level of long-term required investment that many people simply do not want and cannot afford.

    That’s largely due to the lack of supply of housing. And that’s why I think the government should be absolutely spamming housing units. Even if we kept landlords, they’d have no leverage to keep rents sky high.

    People like me need to rent, and thus we need to rent from somebody.

    And I think that your choice for that somebody should be better than some rich fuck who owns half the city’s housing (mildly exaggerating).

    you’ve got the existence of an intermediate owner that performs maintenance and searches for tenants, with the bonus and curse that that intermediate has no profit motive to actually perform that work.

    The person who does that work doesn’t need to be the owner though.

    • BraveSirZaphod
      2•10 months ago

      You know, so long as we can agree that lack of supply is the core issue, the rest of all that is really just details haha. I’m not hugely confident of public housing’s track record in the US (though there’s obviously a lot that went into that), but whether it’s new public housing or just loosening zoning and allowing the market to actually meet demand, I don’t really care so long as there are units.

      • @Olgratin_MagmatoeEnglish
        2•10 months ago

        You know, so long as we can agree that lack of supply is the core issue

        It’s one of the core issues. I think there is a lot more baked into this, but if this is one of the things we can agree on then so be it.

        I’m not hugely confident of public housing

        While I do think public housing is a part of the solution, and has a lot of mistakes to learn from, I think co-ops should be the main workhorse/end goal for government built housing.

        public housing or just loosening zoning and allowing the market to actually meet demand, I don’t really care so long as there are units.

        I say, all of the above. Any possible way to increase the supply is a good thing.