Apartment rental in NYC

In the apartment Jerry was offering to Elaine an apartment in his building asking for $400? Can someone living in NY tell me if this is realistic or just fiction? This sounds too cheap to believe comparing to the rent we are paying here.

New York rents aren't cheap, but due to rent stabilization, there are some people paying extremely low rents. Particularly people who have lived in a rent stabilized building for many years.

Actually, a lot of things ARE cheap in New York. For example, photo equip- ment and electronics. And there are so many great restaurants, the competition tends to keep them reasonable.

As far as $400 per month rents are concerned, I've even heard of half that.

Joe

Totally unrealistic! I mean, it is *conceivable* that it might be a rent-controlled apartment, but...

"Rent control" is one of the many abominations with which liberal policticians have cursed New York City. It is one of the main reasons young people leave New York, as I did (when I was younger).

Like most liberal schemes, it started with a noble premise: aging citizens with limited fixed incomes should not be driven out of their apartments by rents rising with the market rate. The effect of this law was to create a privileged elite class of senior citizens in NYC who are paying rents like $400 a month for apartments that, in a free rental market, would rent for three or four times (or even more) that amount.

People literally live in prime West Side and East Side real estate at these artificially low rents until they pass away. That's why the vacancy rate in NYC is less than 1%. If you vacate the apartment, the landlord can raise the rent by only a certain pre-determined percentage. That's why there are so many jokes about people checking the obits for old people who die, so that people can run over and bribe the super for the apartment.

Ultimately, if you are not one of the chosen few, you have to pay a higher rent for one of the few good apartments that aren't rent-controlled. Also, many landlords end up neglecting making needed maintenance on their properties because they aren't getting enough rent money to keep up the repairs. Hence, buildings are abandoned, availability shrinks and rents go up even more.

Hope this clears things up.

Lee Salem wrote:

<very informative (but rather political *grin*) explanation of rent control deleted>

Quite nicely. Thanks.

Doug

The $400 per month was bullshit.

Rick Bryan

Excerpts from netnews.alt.tv.seinfeld: 16-Jul-96 Apartment rental in NYC [email] (243*)

Your average rent for a one bedroom here (NYC) now is about $1,500, and that doesn't get you anything special. $400 places exist in rent controlled apts. if the renter had been living there for over a century or so, and the only way to get something like that is if you wait by that person's deathbed.

comparing > to the rent we are paying here.> .

In Edmonton, you can get a one bedroom apartment as low as $300. And $400 for a pretty decent one. In Vancouver, my brother pays $1100 for a one bedroom dump.

In the apartment Jerry was offering to Elaine an apartment in his building asking for $400? Can someone living in NY tell me if this is realistic or just fiction? This sounds too cheap to believe

i live in a apartment on 79th street (just about where jerry lives) and our apartment would cost about 2500 a month if it was not rent control, you can;t find an apartment on the upper west side now for under 700 even a bachelor pad;

[email], quoting someone, wrote:

$400 in Seinfeld's neighborhood is insanely cheap. $1500 is closer to the mark for a one-bedroom, $1000 would be a steal.

Evan Morris ([email]) wrote:

You're forgetting that many places in NYC have rent control.