When we first moved to the city, it didn’t take much to become fascinated with real estate. I thought that if we could just make enough money to buy a plot of land to build a 15-story parking lot, we would be fine. A business that pulls in cash with few employees. Those days are gone.
For a long time, we never had the capital to buy anything other than a home, but I kept looking because I love building things and real estate. We were invested in venture, not real estate. There was a time in the late 90s when I wanted to start buying residential properties near subway stops in Brooklyn. Again, not the right time for us.
Eventually, we began buying and building real estate. Given today’s real estate market, I was not the only one looking for opportunities. Unfortunately, too many real estate landlords are awful landlords. The bad ones don’t care about their tenants. We do.
There are countless small property owners who have been hit with rising taxes, insurance premiums, and, of course, rent regulations who are getting squeezed every day. Because of this, many of these buildings are not maintained, and the tenants are the ones who pay for it. Freezing the rent is not the answer because real estate is far from one-size-fits-all.
Zohran is trying to reshape real estate policy. He is trying to build more housing, changing the simple economics of supply and demand. He established the pied-a-terre tax, which I am a big fan of. Those who own second homes in NYC must pay an annual tax based on the value of the apartment. As they should. The fear is that these people will leave the city, but they won’t, because NYC is a luxury, and they all love coming here for their culture fix, which is why many own places here even though Florida is their “place of residency”. Zohran is forcing landlords to fix properties, as he should. Some NYCHA buildings are uninhabitable, yet people still live there, and it is unacceptable.
I have been reading There Is No Place For Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone, who won a Pulitzer for this book. I keep thinking rinse, wash, repeat. The cadence of the book hits as if you are going through the highs and lows of getting housing yourself. It is painful, but maybe that is the point. Zohran makes the point, which I do agree with, that for NYC to continue to succeed, we need more affordable housing for our many working people. It is not like we have built high-speed rail lines to get people in and out of NYC with ease, so they can live in affordable areas. The social programs have been slashed, and given the cost, compared to the positive outcomes that would help many, it makes zero sense that we have so many people in need of housing. Compassion and housing go a long way.
Real estate owners have built tremendous wealth over the last couple of decades, setting prices that continue to rise without reacting to the market because being empty is fine with them. It is killing our city.
Where should the power be?
