For those of you outside of the New York Area, that is the Unknown World of Hicks, Farmers and Uncultured Peasants, finding a New York Apartment is a process that combines the Marathon with the Paperwork Necessary For Completion of A Federal Education Grant and the level of anxiety felt by the guy pressing the LAUNCH button at Cape Canaveral.
We, the people living in the City, ought to explain further: Roberta, you go first.
Joe(Don't forget to explain the difference between Rent Control and Rent Stabilized) Nation
Joe, Gosh, thanks for the graceful hand-off.
Rent control, I think, is no more or is being eased out. My cousin has a rent controlled apartment in the village, and he informed me that his rent has risen a number of times.
For the uninformed, rent control was a law that prevented a landlord from ever raising your rent!!! Ever. The amount you paid in your initial lease was what you paid as long as you stayed in the apartment. Your rent could be raised a miniscule amount if you had an improvement (like a new stove) put into the apartment.
Rent stabilization (what I have) is that the amount the landlord can charge you when your lease expires is limited by law. This significantly limits what the landlord can charge you. In my building, whenever someone in a stabilized apartment moved out, the landlord renovated the apartment, thus moving it from stabilized to destabilized status.
Destabilized means that the landlord can charge whatever the market will bear and is not limited in the amount of the increase when the current lease expires.
What this all boils down to is that the only way to find a reasonably priced apartment in NYC is to already be living there. I've been in my apartment for over 30 years. I ain't goin' nowhere. I have a decent-sized one-bedroom apartment and pay less than most people in my building in studios. I pay about three times less than people on other floors in the same apartment.
People have gone to extraordinary lengths to prove residency in controlled and stabilized apartments. Joe can fill you in on that.
I have heard of relatives moving into rent controlled apartments in Manhattan when the original tenants died.
Actually, landlords are better off, in both rent controlled and rent stabilized apartments, when there is a lot of turnover. You can have the a number of similar apartments in a buiding renting for hugely different amounts. Each time the apartment is rented, the rent increases.
Phoenix, You have to prove that you were a resident of the apartment before the relative died. Otherwise, you can't get the apartment.
Phoenix, The mind boggles at the lengths people will go to. There was a Law and Order episode about it some years ago. What the granddaughter did to get her grandmother's apartment. Watch your back, Granny.
Speaking of grannies, before my grandmother went into a nursing home, she's been paying $65 a month for a three-bedroom apartment. That was years ago, but the landlord may still be celebrating her departure.
This story about NYC leases reminds me of a story some years ago about a woman in Paris who lost her apartment for some strange reason I now forget. Anybody?
dadpad wrote:I'm pissed that you didnt even consider the suggestion I made. Its heaps nicer, its cheaper, got views,
commute would be a bugger but you cant have everything.
Maccas is over an hours drive away.... gus are you perchance shopping for a new hovel?
$775,000 is cheap to you? Why don't you just adopt me and leave it to me in your will?
I'd say the pros outweigh the cons. The only real advantage to your current situation seems to be the air-conditioner.
The hill is good exercise, and after a couple of months you won't notice it. Bad neighborhoods are only bad at night, or at least dangerous to walk through. Unless you've asked for it, no one is going to bother you during the day, especially during winter.
