Rent Stabilized vs. Landlord on Bergen Street

Our very own Economakis situation on Bergen Street in this week's Village Voice.

Bailey and Loughrey no doubt felt right at home when they moved into the building at 533 Bergen and joined the renters who'd been living there for years—and then began kicking them out.

Just as soon as Bailey and Loughrey can remove a few more of those tenants, the couple can move into the rest of the 20-room remodelled home they have planned for the building.

In May, The New York Times reported on a troubling sideshow in the endlessly inflating local real-estate market (which, financial crisis notwithstanding, shows little sign of abating): A real-estate executive named Alistair Economakis had purchased a building on the Lower East Side and was evicting all of its tenants to create one enormous, 11,000-square-foot residence for his family of four.

Bailey and Loughrey aren't entirely following the Economakis playbook in their smaller building: They only want to kick out the people paying low rents.

After the couple purchased the building (it remains unclear what their financial agreement is with Cheuk and Wiesmayr), they planned a $134,000, 3,500-square-foot renovation and began forcing out longtime residents. The only thing now standing between them and the realization of their dream home is one pesky rent-stabilized resident who won't leave. (They aren't chasing out the tenants in three higher-rent units.)

New York's rent regulations allow property owners to evict rent-stabilized tenants if the owners plan to move in. The landlord must live in a newly vacated apartment for at least three years or risk being penalized. But only in the past few years, affordable-housing advocates say, have landlords begun using that provision to clear out entire buildings. Some worry that's it's just the latest strategem of greed, that landlords taking advantage of the provision secretly plan to stay only for the three-year minimum before moving out and selling the property at a profit (and with no rent-stabilized units to hold the price down). But that doesn't appear to be the case at 533 Bergen. "These people are just hipsters who want their dream home," says Dave Powell, a tenant organizer at Brooklyn's Fifth Avenue Committee.

Well, that's disgusting.

Wah! Wah! I am entitled to an apartment for next to nothing for life at the expense of someone else's constitutional property rights!

WAH

WAH

WAH

The landlord has every right to occupy his OWN PROPERTY!!!!!

Lo Kee is right on the money!!!!!

legal ≠ ethical

if they do have the right to remove a tenant disabled by colon cancer to change the apartment into a bicycle storage area and TV room for their son with a "medical" need for more space, that doesn't make the decision less disgusting.

why not just buy a brownstone? i'm guessing because this building was pretty cheap for the area (800K and change) -- probably because of the rent stabilized tenants.

i very much doubt that the owners haven't benefited from structures as "unfair" as rent stabilization, for what it's worth.

that sucks, but im telling you, NO ONE IS SAFE if they dont own their own property. hell, my landlord has been consistently raising my rent $100/yr for the past 2 years. !!!

A 3 bedroom for $400? Cry me a river

I'm sorry, unless you're name is Elizabeth von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha or Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, or Margrethe Alexandrine Þórhildur Ingrid, you probably don't have an absolute right to occupy your own property, even if it's a brownstone, or a palace. I'm sorry that this person is sick, but she lives in rented property, which is by definition, not her property, and therefore, transient. Even the three Great Ladies mentioned in the first sentence of this entry can be evicted by revolution, the same process by which this great nation was established. Sorry, cash is king.

sounds like this particular eviction may not be all that legal though -- otherwise, this apartment would already be cleared.

What is really funny -not funny haha- is that the owners still claim to just be trying to make a home for themselves, nothing more. So _that_ is why they are booting _all_ the stabilized tenants and _none_ of the market rate ones, right? Hmm.

Let us see. Yes, cash is king. And no, you are not safe if you own your property. It hasn't nailed NYC so much (yet,) but talk to property owners in LI or NJ about their property taxes and how safe they are...

The difference between the rent stabilized and market rate tenants is that the landlord can decline to renew the market rate leases and those tenants will have to leave. It makes sense to me to tackle the hardest part of an eviction plan - the regulated tenants - first, then give notice to the market rate tenants. Sweet tea, this is all being handled through attorneys and the Housing Court, I am not sure what basis you have for the assertion that this is not legal, although time will tell on that one.

Ms. Suarez has an even more serious problem now. She admitted in the Village Voice interview that she has "off the books" jobs. You can bet your bottom dollar that the landlords or their attorney have supplied a copy of that interview to both the IRS and the NY State Department of Taxation and Finance. Both those agencies are likely to investigate her tax returns and may subject her to audit. She may well need any buyout money offered by the landlord to pay back taxes and fines.

bohuma wrote: The difference between the rent stabilized and market rate tenants is that the landlord can decline to renew the market rate leases and those tenants will have to leave. It makes sense to me to tackle the hardest part of an eviction plan - the regulated tenants - first, then give notice to the market rate tenants.

Yes, I'm _certain_ that it has NOTHING to do with the fact that they are making tons of money off the market rate folks, and not so much off the stabilized. </sarchasm>

If they are so gung-ho on moving into and making their Barbie dream house, would it not make sense to dump the folks that are easy to get rid of and get to work already ready already?

Without knowing what rents the market rate tenants are paying it is impossible to tell whether they are makeing tons of money. At a guess though, I'd say that $400 a month for an apartment in a walk up brownstone that has only had basic maintenance done in 30 years is probably about what the market rate should be. Whilst the landlords could rent the apartment for more than that if the tenant left, to get any decent kind of rent or a decent tenant, they'd have to undertake a gut renovation. To do any kind of major capital improvment, even something as basic as updating the fridge and the stove, the landlord needs the agreement of the tenant, because the landlord can apply to increase the monthly rent by 1/40th of the cost of the improvment. Most tenants don't want improvements if it means more rent. I would not consider renting an apartment with 30 year old appliances.

Anybody who reads this blog would give their left nut, girls included, to rent a 3 bed. apartment for 400 a month. Even if it didn't have glass in the windows or running water, 400 is a steal. LL needs to invest 64 K in renovations to get the rent up to 2K a month so he can raise it to market value. Better to leave the apartment empty for 400 a month from the LL point of view.

Hell, I'd steal someone's left nut to pay that little amount of money for a huge apartment.

What the owners are prob doing is move, in kick everyone out (including rent stabies), to get the three year exemption then sell the whole deal to make a huge profit.

(Hence the undisclosed financial arrangement with the other, ehem, couple, that put up money)

And you know what...

That is their absolute right to do so.

ITS THEIR PROPERTY.

I remember when I was a grad student living in an undisclosed location (ahem, west 136), and my daily food budget was .60 (YEP) and I walked into the grocery store (a shithole) to get my ramen for the day...

Getting to the back of the line of 4 or 5 carts of people who weren't even citizens with their city benifits carrs, wishing I could have a meal with meat for the evening, knowing my taxes paid for theirs.

Entitlement is a beatch.

Thankfully, this is not a commuinist coutry, YET, for the underclass.

*sniff* *sniff*

i smell a transplant.

besides... constitutional originalism is so simplistic, unsophisticated, and absurd.

modsquad wrote: Anybody who reads this blog would give their left nut, girls included, to rent a 3 bed. apartment for 400 a month. Even if it didn't have glass in the windows or running water, 400 is a steal. LL needs to invest 64 K in renovations to get the rent up to 2K a month so he can raise it to market value. Better to leave the apartment empty for 400 a month from the LL point of view.

That would be true if you could make some improvements, but just as a landlord needs a tenant's agreement to make improvements, the tenant needs the landlord's approval to make improvements. While you might get away with making improvements where the landlord/management company aren't in the building, the owners in this case live in the building, they'd be on to any tenant improvements very quickly and filing a vandalism motion in Housing Court.

Lo Kee wrote: What the owners are prob doing is move, in kick everyone out (including rent stabies), to get the three year exemption then sell the whole deal to make a huge profit.

(Hence the undisclosed financial arrangement with the other, ehem, couple, that put up money)

And you know what...

That is their absolute right to do so.

ITS THEIR PROPERTY.

I remember when I was a grad student living in an undisclosed location (ahem, west 136), and my daily food budget was .60 (YEP) and I walked into the grocery store (a shithole) to get my ramen for the day...

Getting to the back of the line of 4 or 5 carts of people who weren't even citizens with their city benifits carrs, wishing I could have a meal with meat for the evening, knowing my taxes paid for theirs.

Entitlement is a beatch.

Thankfully, this is not a commuinist coutry, YET, for the underclass.

I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not being snarky, just really curious. Why didn't you apply for public assistance? As a grad student you probably could have been eligible. I lived a pretty spartan life in college, but I don't remember feeling like I needed more or it wasn't fair that others were getting something that I was not. Was it something that you ever considered, and if not, why not?

(browser's messed up can;t quote.)

It wasn't a whole "I'm going to get by on my own steam" pride thing but more a time commitment to school of more than 70 hours a week that didn't leave a lot leftover for stading in line at state/city offices.

And it was only toward the end that I started to really run low on money and I saw a light at the end of the tunnel.

bohuma wrote: [quote=modsquad]Anybody who reads this blog would give their left nut, girls included, to rent a 3 bed. apartment for 400 a month. Even if it didn't have glass in the windows or running water, 400 is a steal. LL needs to invest 64 K in renovations to get the rent up to 2K a month so he can raise it to market value. Better to leave the apartment empty for 400 a month from the LL point of view.

That would be true if you could make some improvements, but just as a landlord needs a tenant's agreement to make improvements, the tenant needs the landlord's approval to make improvements. While you might get away with making improvements where the landlord/management company aren't in the building, the owners in this case live in the building, they'd be on to any tenant improvements very quickly and filing a vandalism motion in Housing Court.

The law requires that you have glass in the windows and hot and cold running water. LL is required to fix it or you may fix it yourself and with hold the rent to do so.

bohuma wrote: [quote=modsquad]Anybody who reads this blog would give their left nut, girls included, to rent a 3 bed. apartment for 400 a month. Even if it didn't have glass in the windows or running water, 400 is a steal. LL needs to invest 64 K in renovations to get the rent up to 2K a month so he can raise it to market value. Better to leave the apartment empty for 400 a month from the LL point of view.

That would be true if you could make some improvements, but just as a landlord needs a tenant's agreement to make improvements, the tenant needs the landlord's approval to make improvements. While you might get away with making improvements where the landlord/management company aren't in the building, the owners in this case live in the building, they'd be on to any tenant improvements very quickly and filing a vandalism motion in Housing Court.

Among many other things the law requires that you have glass in the windows and hot and cold running water. LL is required to fix it or you may fix it yourself and with hold the rent to do so.

modsquad wrote: [quote=bohuma][quote=modsquad]Anybody who reads this blog would give their left nut, girls included, to rent a 3 bed. apartment for 400 a month. Even if it didn't have glass in the windows or running water, 400 is a steal. LL needs to invest 64 K in renovations to get the rent up to 2K a month so he can raise it to market value. Better to leave the apartment empty for 400 a month from the LL point of view.

That would be true if you could make some improvements, but just as a landlord needs a tenant's agreement to make improvements, the tenant needs the landlord's approval to make improvements. While you might get away with making improvements where the landlord/management company aren't in the building, the owners in this case live in the building, they'd be on to any tenant improvements very quickly and filing a vandalism motion in Housing Court.

Among many other things the law requires that you have glass in the windows and hot and cold running water. LL is required to fix it or you may fix it yourself and with hold the rent to do so.

True, but the landlord is not required to replace, or permit you to replace, that 30 year old stove or fridge that still works, or to replace those lime green cabinets in the kitchen that still function. As for that hot pink bathroom from the 1950's, as long as everything is in working order, the landlord does not have to replace it. Further, if the stove or fridge does die, I am not sure that the landlord has to replace them with new, s/he could replace them with functioning, but ugly, used items.

oh yah I can totally see how having a functioning but ugly stove or fridge, hell how about we go nuts and say stove AND fridge would justify a rent decrease from $3,500 to $400/mo in a market rate.

are you a landlord?

I seriously wants to rents from you.

bohuma wrote: True, but the landlord is not required to replace, or permit you to replace, that 30 year old stove or fridge that still works, or to replace those lime green cabinets in the kitchen that still function. As for that hot pink bathroom from the 1950's, as long as everything is in working order, the landlord does not have to replace it. Further, if the stove or fridge does die, I am not sure that the landlord has to replace them with new, s/he could replace them with functioning, but ugly, used items.

Shit! If my apartment looked like that , I could charge admission.

Our whole situation here is screwed up in New York. In a normal housing market, a person should be able to buy a building and do what they like with it, within the limits of the zoning.

But NYC isn't normal, and the idea of throwing a family out of their apartment feels about the same as throwing a family out of a lifeboat. The real problem is the situation. The lifeboat isn't big enough and the water is full of sharks.

I think Bloomberg is slowly trying to make New York a more normal market. He's encouraging the construction of lots of new housing. In a normal market, there is such a thing as too much housing, so that landlords and sellers sometimes have to cut prices from year to year — that almost never happens here.

Also, fighting crime is good for housing — because for decades housing in a few neighborhoods was priced at the maximum people could afford and housing in places that weren't in that shrinking circle was priced at almost nothing...

Here's another thing that might make the city a more normal market — Wall Street money has been distorting the market for years. That meant that the small (but growing) number of places to live in the small (but growing) number of safe-seeming neighborhoods could be bid up to what a Wall Street person could afford...

What will New York look like in ten years? If Wall Street money is much weaker (but doesn't vanish), and crime doesn't spike, and the new housing gets finished, instead of getting abandoned, maybe a city like ours can offer something in between this family's $400 apartment with, what was it, three bedrooms? and a crazy expensive $1,700 a month studio.