This is what I’m seeing: + 2.4 million rent-controlled apartments in a city with a massive housing shortage and 1.4% vacancy rate.

+ A huge % of these tenants are wealthy, white boomers using the units as pieds-a-terres while they spend their weekends and summers elsewhere.

+ Meanwhile, the government is using rent control to purposely drive down the value of multifamily housing, so that it can be purchased in a fire sale by the government.

+ The small-time landlords with big rent rolls of “stabilized” units are going under. Their portfolios end up in the arms of PE and foreign money (how are Progressives okay with this?) The banks will get hit by this too.

+ Because there is such a reduction in supply (~40% of units are price-controlled), leftover supply is ~33% more expensive + Because NYC gov is not friendly towards landlords, there is a lack of development –> even less supply

+ Rich and homeowners overwhelmingly support these laws b/c it drives up the value of their condos & co-ops (less supply –> higher prices for condos)

+ Big PE companies like these policies b/c they can buy buildings in fire sales and wait for rent control reform (5-10 years out)

+ Meanwhile – ~2.4 million units are rotting and won’t be brought up to code as tenants leave b/c the numbers don’t pencil –> 50k “ghost apartments” padlocked off market now, maybe 100k soon

+ Gen Z and the working class continue to vote for these policies, hoping they will be among the lucky few to win the lottery ticket of a rent-controlled apartment

+ Meanwhile, boomers hang onto their units and pass them to their children, family members, etc. –> NYC’s housing stock is rotting slowly, going offline, and becoming more expensive

Here is the link.  Here is some Maryland data, not sophisticated econometrics.