Omnipresent Woes
June 4, 2015 5:28 PM   Subscribe

...an interactive map that shows both the median rents in [some] New York City neighborhoods right now as well as their evolution in those areas over the last seven years—a period that has been marked by significant new development
Mapping New York Neighborhoods Hit Hardest by High Rents
posted by griphus (42 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hmm.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:33 PM on June 4, 2015 [2 favorites]



i) How about showing the change in rents over time in graph form so we can see actual levels and compare their rate of increase? The map ain't so useful.

ii) As a commenter pointed out, these are rents for advertised apartments on streeteasy. There is a big dark pool of informal letting and long-in-place renters that are not reflected in this data....
posted by lalochezia at 5:34 PM on June 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


I see it's still cheap to live in Central Park. (Otherwise, why not give numbers to that damned map?)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:38 PM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


How about showing the change in rents over time in graph form so we can see actual levels and compare their rate of increase?

If you click on a particular neighborhood and click "see more" there's a graph in there. You can keep it open and click on different places to see their graphs too.
posted by griphus at 5:39 PM on June 4, 2015


Doh. Apologies.
posted by lalochezia at 6:04 PM on June 4, 2015


Interesting data, but I'm having trouble really processing it because I can't even begin to wrap my head around paying that much in rent. I mean, I get it to a degree, different costs of living and wages etc., but still. That is just so far outside my frame of reference.
posted by xedrik at 6:13 PM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


I used scoff at the rents people in NYC and SF were willing to pay but now rents have been going crazy around here; the average rent in my neighborhood is pushing toward $2000 a month.
posted by octothorpe at 6:32 PM on June 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


Let's all live in the woods like elves instead.
posted by The Whelk at 6:38 PM on June 4, 2015 [6 favorites]


fly you fools
posted by vrakatar at 6:42 PM on June 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


Don't come to Durham! Just stay and pay!
posted by oceanjesse at 7:15 PM on June 4, 2015


Median rent for what size apartment? If one area has a lot of 3 bedrooms and another has a lot of 1 bedrooms, it's really going to skew things. I don't know New York so maybe different sizes really are evenly distributed, but I think this graphic would be more useful if you were comparing apples to apples.

In any case I pay $575 for a large one bedroom so y'all are crazy.
posted by desjardins at 7:27 PM on June 4, 2015


I used scoff at the rents people in NYC and SF were willing to pay but now rents have been going crazy around here; the average rent in my neighborhood is pushing toward $2000 a month.

Seriously. I used to laugh at the ridiculous amount I paid a few years ago for a room in Brooklyn because it seemed totally absurd and location-specific; now my room in an outer-inner-suburb of Boston costs $100 more per month, and is just about the best deal in the neighborhood.
posted by threeants at 7:30 PM on June 4, 2015


It seems pretty good.
posted by draon9 at 7:36 PM on June 4, 2015


Things are tough all over.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:09 PM on June 4, 2015


I feel blessed yet again by my nice apartment in Williamsburg, and yet I pay for it more than ten times what I paid for the first apartment I ever rented...

> In any case I pay $575 for a large one bedroom so y'all are crazy.

Yeah, but New York City is a pretty amazing place to live. Once you live here for a bit, you're spoiled for anywhere else...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:59 PM on June 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


... that doesn't have forest beyond the property line to the north, goats at the neighbor to the east, chickens at the neighbor to the west, a giant 12' tall Tin-Man sculpture in the backyard across the street, the ocean a five minute drive. Also a two car garage and basement. I pay a lot less than most of those red areas on my monthly mortgage payment.

On the other hand, I am in the position where I need to build an online presence as a political figure in my town, as a Koch-backed "Free Market Think Tank Strategic Researcher" (not even kidding) stepped in to deliberately torpedo all-day Kindergarten for my kid in a bullshit budget referendum sprung on the Town at the last second.

On the gripping hand, do you have any doubt that I will destroy him, the self-proclaimed "think-tank" that pays an unemployed carpenter to rip kids from their deserved education, and homeowners of their property value (School systems SELL HOMES, families with kids who move here because of the schools BRING MONEY TO SPEND), and embarrass his backers into abandoning New England outright?

Oh! Now I have a hobby! Hail Ruralia!
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:12 PM on June 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


This is foreign to me. I live in a rural area in Michigan, only 45 miles from Detroit, 18 miles from Ann Arbor (a university town, lots of things to do). We're in a house, 2 bedrooms, finished basement, on a lake. Our mortgage payment is about $700 a month... the house will be paid off in 6 years or so and we'll have $200,000 in equity... Yes, NY is neat, lots to do, fun, Broadway, etc... but... damn, I just don't get it...
posted by HuronBob at 9:16 PM on June 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I'd gnaw my own arm off before living in rural Michigan. (Well, rural anywhere, I'm not slagging Michigan).
posted by Justinian at 9:17 PM on June 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


Meh, if I didn't have to pay for a car, random house expenses, and got an NYC salary for my job, I could pretty easily break even on 2500 rent. And I currently live in one of the most affordable cities in the country.
posted by miyabo at 10:04 PM on June 4, 2015


Downtown Brooklyn from about $2,330 to 3,215; Ridgewood from $1,340 to $2,300; and the Flatiron District from $3,695 to $4,650.

That's like a 25-40% increase in five years, or a 5-8% annual increase when the annual inflation rate is under 2% so it is something more than inflation that is driving prices up. And funny how prices can rise like this and the official inflation rate remains low.
posted by three blind mice at 12:14 AM on June 5, 2015


Not that surprising; most people don't live in the parts of NYC (or SF) which are seeing those sorts of increases so the effect on the inflation rate is negligible.
posted by Justinian at 1:39 AM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


But seriously though, the rent is too damn high.
posted by Drexen at 3:20 AM on June 5, 2015 [5 favorites]


Food prices go up, rent goes up, but gosh darn it we're getting faster and faster smartphones, so low inflation is real! All praise the basket of goods, for it cannot be manipulated for policy reasons!
posted by Yowser at 4:52 AM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, but New York City is a pretty amazing place to live. Once you live here for a bit, you're spoiled for anywhere else...

But I couldn't live anywhere where I couldn't buy my own house. That's pretty much a deal-breaker for any city for me.
posted by octothorpe at 5:00 AM on June 5, 2015


I love you guys but nobody cares why you don't live in New York City.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:13 AM on June 5, 2015 [11 favorites]


If it makes you feel any better A. nobody in new york cares why anybody lives here and
B. now nobody cares why I'm leaving. (which, see above).
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:14 AM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


The best thing about living in new york city is moving to a suburb of a lesser city and thinking everything is cheap and huge by comparison.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:15 AM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


That said: All of the reddest places are places I would never ever want to live. Midtown? Dumbo? Bleh. Inwood, Ditmars, Sunset Park--great places to be. The problem is that the bleeding never stops, the tide keeps rising and the day never gets any longer.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:17 AM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


The depressing thing ( apart from the vast destruction of affordable neighborhoods for working-class folks ) is the inexorable march to complete sterilization of everything once the artists start to get squeezed out. The LES and Williamsburg are two recent examples; they are finance-douche and safe-deposit-condo succubi breeding grounds now.

"Ooooh, now we're here lets put a dunkin donuts, whole foods, and identical glass towers everywhere. Maybe one or two expensive art galleries for a soupcon of culture. Let's make it a goddamn clone of houston! That's why I live in NYC; expensive homogeneity. "
posted by lalochezia at 5:31 AM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


. . . when the annual inflation rate is under 2% so it is something more than inflation that is driving prices up.

True . . . and numbering among those factors "other than inflation" driving rental prices up in New York City is property tax increases. The NYC property tax system is arcane, and increases vary based on the type and quality of the building, but tax bills steadily rise for all landlords, even in bearish real estate markets. These increases get passed on to renters (who, in many, but unfortunately not all cases, are beneficiaries of spending by the NYC government).

Add to this the overall appreciation of the price of residential apartment buildings. Buildings change hands frequently in NYC, and prices, now that the 2008 financial meltdown is a distant memory, have begun to appreciate again. If a new landlord buys a building at a price that's 20% higher than a few years back, she is going to get a hustle on to spruce up apartments and re-rent at premium prices . . . just to be able to afford the monthly principle and interest payments for the mortgage.

The scenario is similar to somebody who buys an expensive house and has to up his game to afford the higher debt servicing costs. Just about everybody buying real estate in NYC--apart from Russian oligarchs looking to park cash--is saddled with a mortgage, and these mortgages grow in size proportionate to price increases in condos and residential buildings.
posted by Gordion Knott at 5:40 AM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


A. nobody in new york cares why anybody lives here and
B. now nobody cares why I'm leaving. (which, see above).

The best thing about living in new york city is moving to a suburb of a lesser city and thinking everything is cheap and huge by comparison.


Well, I'm not that pressed about what New Yorkers care about (not that that ever stops you all from explaining it to the rest of us), but speaking on behalf of those of us in lesser cities, we also don't care why New Yorkers are leaving, just so long as you don't fucking move here.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 6:07 AM on June 5, 2015 [3 favorites]


OK
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:13 AM on June 5, 2015 [8 favorites]


Looking at NYC rents gives me the sad same sinking feeling that looking at London rents does. My husband would move to NYC in a heartbeat, and as would I to London, but dang, who can afford that?
posted by Kitteh at 6:28 AM on June 5, 2015


NYCFilter
posted by Legomancer at 6:33 AM on June 5, 2015


These are not median rents. These are the median rents of leases that were listed on StreetEasy. Big difference there (and also explains the lack of data for most of the boroughs). Just as a "for instance," I have friend who found a very nice 1BR in the "upper Washington Heights/lower Inwood" area for well under the listed median. But she didn't find that apartment on no schmancy web site. She found it by walking around the neighborhood, taking phone numbers off of buildings and inquiring of building supervisors she saw doing outside work. It took less than two weeks for her to find something.


It's also the case, of course, that generally speaking jobs in NYC pay more than jobs in places where you can get really cheap rent rates. A lot more, in many cases. More than double in plenty of cases. As a musician with a lot of artsy types in my circle of friends, I know tons of people with day jobs. And, for example, I have several friends who earn substantially more as legal assistants in NYC than those in "professional positions" in Wisconsin, Kansas, etc. Meanwhile, for those who are happy to live 45 miles away from NYC, there are plenty of nice 2BR homes to be found for $200K depending on where you look.
posted by slkinsey at 7:58 AM on June 5, 2015


This is foreign to me. I live in a rural area in Michigan, only 45 miles from Detroit, 18 miles from Ann Arbor (a university town, lots of things to do). We're in a house, 2 bedrooms, finished basement, on a lake. Our mortgage payment is about $700 a month... the house will be paid off in 6 years or so and we'll have $200,000 in equity... Yes, NY is neat, lots to do, fun, Broadway, etc... but... damn, I just don't get it...
posted by HuronBob at 12:16 AM on June 5 [3 favorites +] [!]


...my gay marriage is legal recognized...and considered normal and unremarkable...the main jobs in my profession and cultural centers of my hobbies are centered here...I mean what sane person would make these choices.
posted by edbles at 9:49 AM on June 5, 2015


As for me, I'm mostly just waiting for NYC to stop being seen as So Impossibly Cool in most parts of the country, because it's annoying as hell to move to a different city and try and make friends, and have people give your sincerity all kinds of side-eye and assume you are fucking with them when you say "actually I really like it here" just because you once briefly lived in NYC
posted by likeatoaster at 2:19 PM on June 5, 2015


That's like a 25-40% increase in five years, or a 5-8% annual increase when the annual inflation rate is under 2% so it is something more than inflation that is driving prices up. And funny how prices can rise like this and the official inflation rate remains low.

Yet last week, when I sat down for drinks with a friend here in SF--who is a lawyer (for the government, so his salary is fairly fixed) and who rents*--he stated that rent control was a terrible, unfair burden for the landlords here. When I explained that another friend of mine had to move out of her apartment (to Oakland**) because her rent was rising 10% this year even under our rent control regime, he said he didn't think 10% sounded like much. Even though the maximum he will be able to expect for a salary increase in the next couple of years (if he moves up a rung) is 4%.

Which led me to realize that (a) some lawyers are incredibly bad at math and (b) my friend will probably be homeless soon.

*and who now has a roommate for the first time in his adult life

**because of course

posted by psoas at 3:25 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


Slightly OT but I can't help myself. I realised the other day that I am now, in San Francisco, paying more than 3x what I paid in 2008 for an equivalent rental here. I was chatting the other day with a store clerk in my neighbourhood: he has lived in the city for decades and pays just under 1/10th what I do, and says when his elderly landlord dies he will immediately move to Portland. I know people in their thirties with roommates: lots of them, including plenty of engineers.
posted by Susan PG at 5:53 PM on June 6, 2015


Also you get fuck-all for your money in San Francisco. Unlike New York.
posted by Susan PG at 5:56 PM on June 6, 2015


Susan, I invite you to consider that while SF may score somewhat low on some measures of New York-ness, NYC scores even lower on certain areas of San Francisco-ness.
posted by psoas at 9:30 AM on June 8, 2015




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