wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Dearest Radio Gods - I love your show, but don't you know that there are also doorwomen. Brian kept saying "doorman" or "doormen" on the show today. It's 2009 and women are in every profession. These old fashioned single- gendered names are so 1950's. Gender likes specificity in this city.

You can stay out of housing court and still exercise some of your rights as a tenant by calling 311. For ongoing service interruptions, dangerous conditions, unlicensed workers... you can file a complaint. You often then need to be home when an inspector arrives to validate the complaint. And each inspector can *only* investigate the specific thing they were sent out for, and not subsequent damage or stuff in other people's apartments. So it is labor-intensive.

Don't get me started on the catch-22 of the buildings department. [Guys are doing stuff outside of the permit. You file a complaint with 311. Building inspector comes a few days later, and if the guys aren't actually working at that moment, the complaint is closed.]

But staying on top of building permits and open building violations is a good idea for any tenant. They're public records, searchable online at the nyc.gov site, DOB area. You have to format your address the same way they do, so it's a bit of trial and error, but once you get the link for your building, you can see its whole history -- even when the permit was issued for it to be built.

Our building was bought by a landlord who buys occupied rent-regulated buildings for cheap, empties the apartments, gut reno's, and rents the result as "luxury" apartments.

We've learned a *lot* about protections and pitfalls.

*There *is* a harassment protection law on the books already. Housing court can seem to offer protection to tenants in two ways: 1)tenants can bring an HP (Housing Part) action against a negligent landlord, and can even petition for a "rent rollback" on grounds of denial of basic services; and 2) tenants, as of March 2008, can allege harassment.

However, there's a big catch-22. Housing court *sells the names of tenants involved in any housing court action.* This list of names is known as the "blacklist." Being on the blacklist can torpedo your chances of renting or even buying in New York City.

In addition, highly motivated landlords can prolong housing court cases for months with continuances. A majority of tenants in housing court *have no lawyer*, while landlords invariably do.

A motivated landlord can also take the offensive in housing court, alleging that the tenant does not live in the apartment as primary residence, or turning a legitimate rent strike (where conditions are documented, certified letters have announced the strike, and rents are paid into an escrow account) into an eviction-for-nonpayment action. Once an action is brought, the tenant is on the blacklist. And the onus is on the tenant to provide exhaustive documentation of residency or valid rent withholding. Again, the continuances can go on for years.

It's Dickensian.

Yes, the preferred rent rule that was meant to help landlords during lean times is now being used to attack tenants, thanks to a 2003 change in the law (after millions of $$$ in landlord lobbying) that allows landlords to switch from preferred to actual rent on currently occupying tenants. My landlord upped my rent $500 a month this year, so I split. And am much happier for it, to be honest.

I mean to add that we broke our lease on our Manhattan apartment, and the management gave us no trouble. They quickly re-rented it to a new couple for the same amount we were paying.

My partner and I moved into our Chelsea 1-bedroom 5 years ago, paying $1750 for a decent-sized unit in a basic, pre-war elevator building. Over the last two years our rent has risen drastically to $2300 so we started reconsidering our options. We were feeling too cramped, lacking storage, and our apartment hardly got enough light since it was on the back of the building.

We're moving next week to a new luxury building on the jersey city waterfront where we have twice the square footage: 2-bed, 2 bath, two huge walk-in closets, laundry in the unit, a terrace and parking in the building. For all that we're paying the same in rent. A year ago the same place would have been close to $3k.

For some the tradeoff in location isn't worth it, but we are thrilled. The PATH makes for an easy commute, better than many parts of brooklyn or queens.

One issue that wasn't addressed on this segment, and which I hope you might take on in the future is the use of preferential rents within the rent stabilization system. When the legal rent exceeds what the market will bear, landlords will rent at preferential rates. This causes two problems:

1) Since preferential rates are usually governed by a rider limiting the rate to the current lease, renters potentially face devastating rent increases (up to the legal rent) when renewing. Renters in this situation loose one of the principle benefits of stabilization.

2) Decontrol is based on the legal rent, not the preferential rent, so apartments that have never actually rented above the decontrol threshold, may be decontrolled on the basis of vacancy increases and improvements that have upped only the legal rent. This allows landlords to more rapidly decontrol apartments.

PS - And I did try to negotiate with my landlord but he didn't bite. However, he did say that he'll "bring the place up" to what I'll be paying. Let's see...

Not all rent stabilized apartments are great deals. I live in a rent stabilized apartment in Bushwick and my landlord is raising the rent to $1085 for a 1 yr & $1125 for a 2 yr lease. Considering the place hasn't had significant renovations since the 60's and the section I live in is still very much "da hood", it's actually overpriced.

Has anyone received a lease renewal in Stuy town lately? Was your rent raised, lowered or kept the same? I am up at the end of the summer and trying to see what options my roommate and I have.

My rent in Ft. Greene just went up $60/month from $2300 to $2360. We called and spoke to the landlord, but they didn't budge. Unfortunately, we don't have the cash upfront to pay a broker's fee or movers, so we're going to stick around for at least another year.

Some rent control and rent regulated apartments rent for under $800.00 a month. Utilities such as oil and water have gone up in price far more then the rent guidelines allow. The landlord also has to maintain the building and pay the real estate taxes. The $800.00 a month does not cover these expenses.

If the regulations become more cumbersome the landlords will be unable to maintain the buildings.

The landlords do have a right to make some money. They are not working for the government.

I was paying $1475 for a one-bedroom in Greenpoint and I was laid off in January. I called my landlord and told him I lost my job and was going to have to move out before my lease ends in June if he was not able to lower the rent. He said he could still rent it for $1350, I said I thought $1200 was more likely these days, so we met in the middle at $1275. I had spoken with friends in the area to see what they were paying for similarly sized places and most are paying $1150-1300.

I was looking for 2 bedrooms to split with a roommate for around $2000, but most of the apartments I saw were really crappy and I didn't have a definite roommate lined up so I decided to accept my landlord's offer. I'm paying a lot I know, but I like my place and I won't have the expense of moving.

So my advice in negotiating with landlords is to do your research about what similar apartments are going for and be honest about your financial situation, and hopefully you have a landlord that would rather decrease the rent than risk having the place sit empty.

We've been stabilized tenants in Chelsea for 30 years (before it was fashionable) so our rent is below "market". Recently, "the board" instituted a penalty of $80 on top of the stablization increase for tenents paying less than $1000/mo, ostensibly because of the high price of oil.
Oil has since dropped by more than half but our rent didn't roll back.

I'm over 50 and lost my income back in July so I'm about to loose the government dole so that $80 bucks would be useful.

* And I meant to mention the price for the three-bedroom in Nyack: $2200/mo.

I rent an apartment on Lafayette Ave. at Bedford Ave. in Brooklyn for just under $1250. The only reason it was listed as a two bedroom is because the landlord can put doors on rooms with windows. I recently had two neighbors move and their apartments were barely touched by a paint brush and are now rented for $200-$300 more than their last tenants. If rents are are dropping then what's happening in Brooklyn?

My husband and I live in a (market rate) one bedroom in Stuytown with our 5-month old baby. We checked into upgrading to a two bedroom here back in September, and they quoted us over $4000. We laughed, and decided it was time to move on. We are signing a lease for a beautiful three bedroom Victorian in Nyack for April. Farewell, Manhattan... parting is such sweet sorrow...

Brian and producers:

I think you are right on to have a regular monthly segment on rents in the NYC region. Rents in the 5 boroughs is one of the primary ways that the health of the economy can be measured, especially since New Yorkers pay a disproportionate amount on rent compared to other Americans.

You could even set up an ongoing mini-site like the "Uncommon Economic Indicators."

Rent here is getting rediculous. I've been living at my current place for most of my life. 5 years ago the building gets sold off and my rent goes from just under 600 to about 2600 dollars a month. Luckily we were able to get a section-8 voucher to keep us from being on the streets, but they continue to raise rents every 2 years. Now my rent is up to 2800 dollars a month! What's going on with these landlords?
When you rent, make sure you keep solid records of payment too. My landlords tried to claim that I underpaid rent, but I showed them and their laywers that they were mistaken with a simple sheet of paper and a receipt. Those bastards...

I live in an 8 bedroom victorian in Montclair, NJ, and have owned my home since 1995. My mortgage and taxes were around $1650 per month for the longest time. Montclair reassessed, my taxes doubled. That's right--a 100% increase over night. Now, my taxes are more by 50% than my mortgage. It's forcing me to sell my house and go back to either renting or moving.

Here on the Upper West Side, I am not yet seeing the return of the small businesses that were forced out because of extraordinarily high rents. I still mourn the loss of Murder Ink. In Union Square, another small woman-owned business bit the dust because of high rents.

Similarly, I'm not seeing much change in our building which is half stabilized, half not stabilized. There are still families paying $5,000 + rent for a 3 bedroom apartment in a building where the pipes burst constantly, there is no doorman, the elevator routinely breaks and the service elevator was condemned, and you can't run an air conditioner in more than one room because the fuses will blow. I can't fathom how they are still finding people to rent at those high prices in our building.

Oh, yes, I forgot the giant rats in the basement. We have a lovely cat that we adopted from the ASPCA who takes care of most of the mice. She missed one little baby mouse in February that crawled into my purse and died there. I had to throw out the purse and was going crazy for 2-3 days trying to figure out why the smell of dead mouse followed me everywhere.

Every time my wife and were looking to buy in during the economic boom, we always backed off because renting was far better in comparison to the carrying costs for 30 years. Even last year after the market fell, we thought about buying our small building in Brooklyn for a deal, and again we woke up to this phenomenon. Sure we would have this investment, but what about the rest of our life that would be sacrificed for real estate?

I am overpaying a whoopy $3,150 for my 2 bedroom apartment that is plagued by noisy trash pick up 3 times a week at 3:00am. I live just above the trash room so I am totally sleep deprived. The management company for these apartments does not want to lower the rent. Is going to court my only option? Any suggestions?

Mini-storage spaces are negotiable currently. We were considering getting rid of our storage space. We let the management know we were leaving at the end of the month a couple of days later we received a call offering to lower the rent by 1/3 if we stayed. We took them up on it.

My partner and I own a 1br in Chelsea that we rent for 2650 but we rent a $5300 duplex in the east vill. I lost my job and asked our landlord for a reduction and they offered a $1000 reduction for 90 dyas. Not sure we'll be able to stay even with that reduction. but we liekly won't displace our Chelsea renter and instead will move to a smaller cheaper rental. How easy is it to break a lease in NYC?

Drew

For people looking to rent, there used to be a whole calculus of _when_ to move to take advantage of lower demand, fewer movers in off months, etc. Is that still the case?

I have been religiously looking for a new apartment in my neighborhood - but I have not seen any decrease in rent here. In fact, rents do seem to be rising still. I don't know if this is because we are a neighborhood that people from Manhattan or more expensive areas may move to in order to save money - so rent still seems cheap.

I have noticed, however, that there are many more apartments for rent by owner which suggests that people are no longer willing or able to pay broker fees.

I live in a rented apartment in a brownstone in a lovely, safe part of Bed-Stuy. The apartment under ours, a parlor floor-through, was offered at $1400 including utilities and it's down to $1200, still no takers.

I would love to know how to negotiate the rent for a rent stabilized! My fiance & I live in a 1-bedroom, which we have occupied for about 8-years... Our rent just went up, AND I have lost a day of work a week (retail, cutting hours because of slow economy), which has tightened our budget.
I had thought there was no negotiation for rent stabilized..

We just renewed our lease on the Upper East side. The landlord wanted to raise it $300/mo, but we negotiated it to not increase AND a 6 month lease instead of a 1 year lease. We are hoping rents will continue to drop so that in October we can find even a better deal.

Roommate and I just moved from Astoria to the West Village for $100 more per month, per person. We went from a rather industrial area off Steinway to the corner of West 3rd and Thompson. What a move! The only downside: we're now working with only about 600 square feet. I think we'll deal with it, though.

This goes for assisted living facilities as well. My 99 year old grandmother found out her residence was increasing rates by close to $12,000 a year. My mother canvassed for a reduced rate and was able to convince the "landlords" to waive the increase--so important when it comes to caring for those in our society who are easily taken advantage. (I'm thinking elder care AND day care).

I'm lucky in a way: I found my place in Bay Ridge (yes, Bay Ridge!) on a random walk through my neighborood. My ladylady never raises the rent. I pay $900 for a huge 1 bedroom. How the heck do people live in Manhattan and pay any more than that?

Are rents going down in Williamsburg?

I'm moving from a 1 BR sublet in the Village to a 2BR, sharing with a friend in Harlem. My rent will drop by more than half, from $1900 on my own to $1750 (which ends up being $1895 including the fee) split in half.

The Harlem broker told us that they'd originally listed the place for more, but after a month on the market with no bites, they lowered it. My friend and I saw lots of pretty reasonable 2 BRs between $1750-$2300, in Harlem and even on the Upper West Side.

just do your homework. go online and see what is happening (nytimes, nybits, monthly real estate report). one month free is for sure, some are offering 2 mos. i asked and my rent went down 5% plus I got 1 mo. free. But if u don't ask, they are not going to give it to you. I am surprised how many people don't bother.

Are there any neighborhoods were rents are going up? My sister lives in Washington Heights, and her landlord is trying to raise her rent by a whopping 15%. His reasoning is that the recession is causing more people to to more inexpensive neighborhoods like hers. Is there any truth to that?

We just found out the newly vacant (and identical) apartments in our building are renting for $200-300 less than ours; these are all sub-$2000 studios in the East Village. We've been here for a couple of years, but we still have 6 months left on our lease... do we have any options for getting the rent lowered?

I moved back to the city in 2007 from North Carolina where I paid $500. I moved in with my girlfriend and now pay $900 a month. That was fine when I was working but the industry (advertising) I'm in is in deep trouble. So, when the lease runs out in August we may just head back South or perhaps upstate.

We recently moved from Midwood to Williamsburg and are paying $600+ more each month, but we moved to a first floor apartment with a pvt garden yard, that would have easily been way more than we could have afforded a year ago.
So, we're hoping that things will hold for us financially. But we're happy with the move, better neighborhood, more amenities.
Cheers!

I have been a tenant in my Kensington apartment for 10 years. My landlord is raising the rent $200/month for a second year in a row. I now need move to find a cheaper apartment.

We moved in January... UWS, true 2 bed (could be a 3 bed if you used the dining room as a bedroom) with a great layout for 2800. they listed at 3000 but were very willing to negotiate. We negotiated the brokers fee as well, but was dissapointed that as of feb the landlord covered the brokers fee.

Truffles Tribeca's slogan?

"You gotta have swine to show you where the truffles are."

Not sure who the swine are supposed to be. The developers? What a great way to promote trust.

I just completed a successful renegotiation for my eighth lease extension for my 2BR, 900+ SF apartment. (Been here since 2000.) They had sent me a renewal that went up(!) $100. But I negotiated down to $3150 (from $3650).

In August our one bedroom walk up on W 120th Street had all apartments occupied and we signed up to pay $2050. Since then other tenants have been leaving for cheaper places and the new tenants in our building are paying as low as $1700 -- we are going to ask for a rent reduction!!

Our landlord in Greenpoint wouldn't negotiate the rent or give us a lease-thinks he'll be able to sell his crumbling 700s.f. house for $500,000. Yup, we've got killer credit and pay the rent on time or early.
So we just moved to a 900 s.f. loft in Bushwick for $1600, and yes, they gave us a break over the last tenant.

My wife and I just moved from Washington DC and found that of all places in the 5 boroughs, Manhattan was where rents were dropping. We searched for about 2 weeks, definitely had the upper hand in asking for fee reimbursements or free rent and the like, but finally settled on a (no doorman) 1BR in Washington Heights that runs us $1225/mo (down from $1505), and the landlord paid the broker fee.

Last year I filed a rent overcharge complaint and I now pay half of what I payed last year. Tip to anyone who thinks they're overpaying for a rent stabilized apartment and who has not lived in the apartment for more than 4 years, contact the state for your apartment payment history.

Freelance business went bust and I was facing eviction from my one bedroom in Bed/Sty. The daunting task of finding yet another unaffordable NYC apartment was just beyond my tolerance level. My sisters talked me into moving home to Pittsburgh after 30 years in NYC. My rent is literally one quarter what it was in NY and I'm having a much easier time finding work.

Rents are still way to high. The rents went up as a direct consequence of the two bubbles: dot.com/finance bubbles. Two bubbles created rent bubble.

Market Rate rents are DOWN across the board in ALL NYC. If anyone who signs a lease and does not get a rent reduction on it, they are a complete moron.

I really don't know where anyone is getting this idea that a.) rents are "low"...many rents are far greater than a decent mortgage payment.

My rent in Brooklyn is a whopping $1695 for a two bedroom, raised 4.5% and 8% over the life of the lease...my neighbor downstairs, whose bathroom ceiling just collapsed, got an 8% increase. The building has no laundry, no doorman, is barely clean, is frequently tagged with graffiti and is, in general, badly maintained.

Well I thought I was getting a great deal -- finally my own 1-bedrom! No more roommates for a mere $1100/month. However now I am out of work and wondering if I made the right move afterall...

Rents are down in the Silicon Valley too. And by the way, we can pay rents online now.

If rent prices are going down in your area, what are some tips for renegotiating a lower rent for your next lease signing?

yeah, we're packing our bags for cheaper digs-- in Los Angeles. Trading $5100 in Westchester for $3800 in Los Feliz, for a bigger house with a bigger yard. (I lost my publishing-industry job in January and my wife, who had been at home with the kids, got offered her old job back at UCLA.)

My friend lives in the East Village and just re-signed her (rent stabilized) studio lease with no increase in rent for the next year, 1650 for maybe 350-400 sf. I'm hoping for the same no increase (I also live in the EV). This is only after asking, I doubt landlords/mgmt companies willingly provide this discount.

One question: how does that work? I would never have thought that rent stabilized apartments would be subject to the same market reactions as market-rate apartments if my friend never told me about this.

my lease is up at the end of may, i'd like to negotiate for lower rent... any tips on how to approach my landlord?