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Manhattan apartments for rent will see a rent increase on with both new and renewal leases.
Rent stabilized apartments NYC will see new rent hikes applied to new leases coming due, starting in October. The city’s Rent Guidelines Board voted Thursday night to increase rents for the nearly 1 million rent stabilized apartments in the city. The guidelines affect renewal leases entered into from Oct. 1, 2012 through Sept. 30, 2013.
Cindy Rodriguez of WNYC reported on the following on the Rent Guidelines Board vote;
The board, by a vote of 5-4, approved raises of 2 percent or $20 for one-year leases and a 4 percent or $40 for two-year leases. Individual raises in rent depend on whichever number is greater.
The always-raucous vote pits landlords against tenants with both sides trying to make the case they’re financially strapped. They were considering rent hikes of 1.75 to 4 percent on one-year leases and 3.5 to 6.75 percent on two-year leases.
The approved increases were on the low end of the proposed increases, which extended as high as 4 percent for one-year leases and 6.75 percent for two-year leases.
According to studies conducted by the Rent Guidelines Board, the majority of rent-stabilized tenants cannot afford their apartments.
The same studies showed that the cost to operate a rent-stabilized apartment building went up by 2.8 percent in 2012.
Last year, the board raised rents 3.75 percent on one-year leases and 7.25 percent on two-year leases.
Forty-five percent of all renters in the city live in rent-stabilized apartments. The median annual income for this group was $37,000 and their median rent was $1,160 a month in 2010, according to to the Rent Guideline Board.
The number of rent stabilized apartments has been decreasing in New York City.
Last year, there was a net loss of 6,000 apartments in large part because of a rule that allows landlords to convert their apartments to market rates once a monthly rent reaches $2,500.
Personally, I don’t think any truly expected the Rent Guidelines Board not to grant some kind of a rent increase to landlords. After all, landlord costs have been going up and the city has increased certain taxes on landlord’s properties. To withhold an increase would be unjust. But on the flip side, many renters have seen their incomes go down! Businesses are paying employees less and we all know that unemployment is higher than normal. So the Rent Guidelines Board was truly stuck between a rock and a hard place. Their decision was probably a reasonably just decision. I hate to say it, but I think many of the tenants who complain loudest will have to think about discontinuing their premium cable subscriptions or their expensive phone texting plans. A 2% increase on an $1,800 rent is $36 dollars per month. The just aren’t many people who couldn’t come up with $36 dollars by cutting down some of their wasteful spending. We’re talking about the equivalent of about a cup of coffee a day purchased from a food cart.
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