Kind of interesting looking at the unit breakdown. Someone making up to $32k a year will get a studio for $485/month. BUT someone who makes $72k a year will have to pay just over $2k/month for exact same unit. Breakdown is here.
But better question is who the hell would want to pay $2k for a studio in that location? You can also get a $4244 3 bed if you make up to $218k/year as a 3 person family. But again... who?
Area is flanked by Citi Field parking lots on one side and surrounded by highways on all three other sides. Literal opposite of a walking paradise. You can get to 7 train, but you gotta go through a bunch of parkin lots. Flushing Meadows park is right there, but 30 minute walk minimum because you gotta dodge all the car infrastructure.
The city has a history of doing this. Which is dumping housing projects in terrible locations and filling them with poor people. Origin story of Mott Haven, East New York, waterfront Lower East Side, and Far Rockaways.
Reason public housing got defunded in the 90s is that even progressives agreed high concentration of poverty was bad for both cities and people who lived in such slums.
Worst case scenario, with addition of Casino, this becomes a shitshow that makes Atlantic City blush. Best case is there is an actual vision here and this part of the city transforms into something really unique.
Land price was likely low (I have to check) which makes it viable from a financing perspective.
Oh this is 100% the case.
I'm just wondering, fast forward 20+ years, and you have the Mets stadium and a casino and these infamous housing slums with high crime and where all the kids have chronic asthma because highways are right in your face.
Lessons learned from 30+ years ago are completely forgotten.
Developers built a shit ton of new construction in north part of East NY. It was intended to be market housing for good chunk of it. Total flop. Entire buildings got leased out by city to dump Section 8 recipients there. I feel all the new construction in Mott Haven will face the same fate. Another colossal flop. I honestly can't picture anyone wanting to pay thousands a month to live in that slice of queens either.
Again, if planned and built carefully, you could have something really cool there. I'm just not seeing it right now. Feels like another indirect plan to dispose of poor people and make sure they stay poor.
Kind of interesting looking at the unit breakdown. Someone making up to $32k a year will get a studio for $485/month. BUT someone who makes $72k a year will have to pay just over $2k/month for exact same unit.
After the differential in housing costs and taxes, I wonder how much take home pat the person making $72k a year is pulling down vs. the person making $32k?
It does kind of suck, but I'd rather live off the $30k than the $20k. Someone making $26k net does really need all the help they can get. That said I wouldn't be comfortable locking into $2k rent at $52k net personally.
They are going to build it out, with a path and walkways straight to Flushing main street as well as shuttle buses, however that is probably a year or two away. There will be infrastructure here and it will be fully built out but you just have to wait it out, in the meantime your rent is locked in and even that person paying 4244 for a 3 bedroom their rent wont go higher than 50-100$ more in 5 years time by the time its all done. picture of the plan: 12
Source: My family was the first tenant of an extremely run down lottery area that is now thriving and is the hot new spot to live 13 years later, everyone wants to live there now that its built out. The benefit of these lotteries is the price lock in, the rent my family pays has not increased passed 150$ in 13 years, the non-lottery 3 bedroom price in 5 years I assure you will be no where near 4200$.
But better question is who the hell would want to pay $2k for a studio in that location? You can also get a $4244 3 bed if you make up to $218k/year as a 3 person family. But again... who?
Hard disagree. To me, this is a top 5 place to live in all of NYC. One, you can go to Met games basically whenever you feel like it. Two, you are near the Skyview mall with all that shopping. Downtown Flushing has bars. Great food options in the area. In addition to the 7 train you also have LIRR so you can be in midtown fast. The area is also safe.
15-20 minute super-crummy walk to a frigging shopping mall is not a selling point for me. You can have that experience in most of America for half the price and 3 times more space.
But it takes all kinds! I am not saying you are wrong in any way whatsoever.
City moves or whatever places eff tons of voucher holders, homeless/shelter and other social placements in these lottery apartments. If units cannot be rented via lottery for whatever reason (such as people who qualify not being interested), three guesses who city will place in those apartments.
Well 421a expired and got replaced with 485x program. This project is what you get trying to achieve maximum property tax abatement compliance. But there is more to it for this one. Casino thing muddles up the waters quite a bit.
If people of a specific class, demographic, or region are more likely to make decisions which lead to negative outcomes, then there's a part of the system which makes them victims.
You absolutely can; the question is the social cost of the ban vs the social cost of not banning it. Right now we are at a point with gambling where the social cost of not banning it is clearly higher. We have a generation of mal adapted zoomers with internet brain addicted to rainbet and casinos cover the last half of the gambling gambit.
Furthermore; kids don’t go to casinos and time will bear out that these are just bad for everyone
Maybe we can harvest all the energy of the sun and directed towards continually saving an infinitely-expanding number of people from all of their bad decisions and accountability
I get the joke ur making but is this not literally what education and proper parenting is for, lol. Otherwise not sure what you're doing besides strawmanning sorry.
With regard to economic impact, the study finds that, for every $1,000,000 in sales, independent retail stores generate $450,000 in local economic activity, compared to just $170,000 for chains. Among restaurants, the figures are $650,000 for independents and $300,000 for chains. Across both sectors, this translates into about 2.6 times as many local jobs created when spending is directed to independent businesses instead of chains. (“Independent BC: Small Business and the British Columbia Economy”. Civic Economics, Feb. 2013.)
And this is only comparing like to like businesses. Gambling takes far more disposable income from the community and very little is circulated back in return.
Edit: nice block you coward ha, doesn't take many braincells to understand the negative impact gambling has on the local economy.
Assuming these were $500k each to make taking out the rent payment it would cost the city $105,000,000,000 each year to service the debt… roughly the total city budget
LMAO. Jesus Christ I knew Chicago and DC would be disasters but that is shocking even for those two disastrous cities.
Fun fact. If Mamdani's 200,000 units of permanently affordable housing came in at $1.2m a piece, it would amount to nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars.
While we should make it easier and faster and cheaper to build, focusing on the pure cost of construction is a mistake. We should be thinking of these as investments in our communities. Providing housing for the poor reduces crime, increased labor force participation, increases education rates, and a bunch of other benefits.
No one seems to get up in arms that a new fighter jet costs $80M, for comparison, while providing much less social utility
Several reasons. 1) the policies put in place by NYC politicians cause the cost of the construction of apartments to be sky high. 2) the subsidied apartments are only necessary because of decisions made by politicians to limit building and make the building taking place very expensive. 3) the regulations are so ridiculous thst the politicians had to have a voter referendum to exempt the subsidized housing from certain regulations. 4) i have always thought that comparing anything to national defense childish. I like living in US under a democraticly elected government governed by the constitution. There are always other countries where they want to take us over or destroy us. Just look at Ukraine or any of the countries on this list .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts. If it costs tens of millions to have fighter jets that help keep us safe and our soldiers alive i am all for it. I wish I could put an end to war and countries would not invade each other for power, religion or whatever but that's just not reality. It costs a tremendous amount of money to keep the country safe. Like a trillion dollars a year.
I asked google: "average cost per unit of a single bedroom apartment in a concrete building in a large US city"
I got in response: "The cost to build a 1-bedroom unit in a concrete high-rise in a major US city varies wildly, but expect construction costs from $250,000 to over $500,000 per unit, with Manhattan/SF costing much more ($450+/sq ft) than other major markets ($300-$350/sq ft), translating to roughly $200,000 - $350,000+ for a typical 600-800 sq ft unit, depending on finishes and height (e.g., 10-20 stories).. "
I still think that's on the low side especially due to land costs and other costs associated with constriction in a high regulatory, high cost of labor environment, but that's something.
I don't know about these in particular, but construction has gotten really expensive. That's about in line for building apartment units at cost (before any profit margin) in a lot of big cities.
And the fact that it’s only usually a less than 49% percentage of total units that are that low…and I’m being very generous with the per building average.
I have no problem with the city providing ultra low rents that strip out the profit of a land lord as long as the buildings are solvent. At sub 500 dollars are the tenants able to pay for the required staff and upkeep…or are we just paying their rent for them.
these buildings do not pay for themselves. There are many layers of subsidy that make it possible to have rents as cheap as sub $500 in NYC where the per unit construction costs can easily exceed $500k
It’s been a while since I’ve looked at a development proforma for an nyc deal. $500k is a guesstimate. Could easily be (and likely is) higher.
Im an asset manager who specializes in LIHTC with properties all around the USA. Though my portfolio is switching to be entirely within NYC over the coming year.
Feel free to google this stuff on your own though.
I mean Google is telling me many things. $250-400 per square foot, another project was $1.2 million for 5 units, costs seem all over the place. There’s another luxury 12 units that came out $7.5 million, so I really answer I guess is “it varies”.
Assuming these apartments are extremely subsidized based on rent anyway.
I’ll quote you the per unit cost from a recent proforma once I get home. Currently doing Christmas things. But yeah I agree, not a lot of good data on Google
Yeah there’s a million variables. Building height for apartments can actually be a big factor too in costs, so it can be difficult to say what an apartment costs on average when the building it’s in can change that math. Believe it or not, high rises can be outrageously expensive to build in a price per sq foot sense (like $800-1100 per square ft for a high quality build if it’s a great big tower).
I feel like a lot of people are surprised to hear that building as high as possible isn’t always economic, but imagine how the project changes once you start getting $100 per hour crane operators and equipment rentals involved. Big projects these days also end up taking exponentially longer for a variety of reasons.
In case you’re wondering about the info source, my uncle’s a builder in queens and Manhattan and my first job was working for him.
The "it costs 500k per unit!" people also forget that if the city actually built a system for constantly building and then maintaining public housing, building costs would likely fall.
Look at the units offered. The low rents are subsidized by the the folks paying higher rent and the bulk of the units in the building are to be rented at 2k+ for a studio. Basically everyone in that building paying higher for the few at 500 and other price ranges.
I'm not an expert of anykind, but many major (expensive) cities do have ~$500 per month equivalent rents adjusted for income level and currency disparity (I'm thinking Seoul and Osaka, regions I'm familiar with through family). They're sparse, just a room with a shower and minimal kitchenette, but they're clean and are not located in middle or nowhere or known slums.
I wouldn't be surprised if NYC can swing something similar in relatively out-of-way places - IMHO biggest barrier would be the middle managements that gets involved in stuff like this. I had a chance watch interactions with some of the nonprofit & NYCHA types with a friend of mine and holy cow, the ones I saw acted like medieval nobility throwing leftovers at the poor. It would be hilarious if the actual mayor of NYC did that, I was sitting there wondering who these people thought they were.
Japan has an entirely different housing market where both the tolerance for small living spaces is more acceptable and old housing has a significant desirability penalty. As in many other ways, Japan is a poor point of comparison due to a myriad of cultural factors.
I for example would find a small space (but not 20 sqm) acceptable but a kitchenette entirely inadequate.
I think an average NYC resident's tolerance for small living space is a LOT higher than you might be thinking, factoring in privacy, their own shower, and in many cases ability to do your own laundry and cook that comes with the examples I'm thinking of (and lived in briefly) for $500~$700 a month.
As always, affordable mandates reduce overall housing stock and drive up median rents. Affordable housing rules are the worst way to induce an increase in overall construction and ultimate reduction in median rents.
In case you think this is some right wing talking point, here is Paul Krugman, famed liberal economist, explaining exactly this.
My luck with these is shit lol. It’s always one of two problems; either:
My income is in the dead zone between the qualified income ranges (make just a little bit too much to qualify for one price bracket, but a bit too little for the next one up); or
I qualify, but my commute to work would be 75-105 minutes, which isn’t worth it for me.
I also find it extremely frustrating how many of these buildings only have affordable units for people making six figures as an individual. Why are we subsidizing people making more than me? I don’t make bank, but enough to live reasonably comfortably in a decent area near plenty of transit. It feels silly that, at my income (~$72k), I don’t make enough to qualify for affordable housing.
That would be illegal housing discrimination. A judge recently ruled that these projects cannot favor people from the local area either because it simply continues existing patterns of segregation.
doctor_who7827 said "native New Yorkers" though and not "native LES-ers" or "nature UWS-ers." Considering how diverse NYC naturally is, your comparison isn't really applicable.
Disgusting how some people get to pay sub $500 while normal people need to pay $2,000+.
If someone can't afford to pay the rent at market rate, they can't afford to live in NYC. The solution is for them to move out of the city, creating space for new people to move in.
Yes. It means that now someone who can only afford 500 in rent can live in the city (which in itself is a good thing), but now the guy who would have had that apartment for say 2500 will have to get one for 2600, etc. It artificially increases demand also
Given where the development is and everything that had to happens for the building to be built, I think it would have been unlikely for a market-rate development to come to market.
An ideal situation would be the city itself builds and owns enough housing, which is priced only for maintenance and fees and not for making profit, so much that landlords are forced to compete with that market.
I don't know if it is realistic given the track history of NY housing bureaucracy and whatever but this has been done elsewhere to great success already.
Actual ideal perfect situation would be what I described AND to start taxing land much more heavily since its limited by default and forcing landlords to either pay those taxes or else forgo their properties for developers which can extract more from the land and build more housing.
If the real estate market is sooo valuable according to those who control it then they should pay more taxes on their apparently valuable assets 🤷♂️
Have you read into NYCHA? I mean it’s run down and all but gosh do you know how much of tax dollars are poured in to fix it every year and still how crappy it is?
NYCHA projects were never intended to be self sufficient, which is what that person is referring to.
They have relied on heavy public subsidies that have disappeared over the years, particularly federal funding. Yes, it's horribly mismanaged but as much of our tax dollars go into it, it really isn't enough.
I think people just see a big number and think "wow that's so bad!" as if the housing has provided nothing for people.
It just makes sense to build more housing without profit in mind if the goal is to fix the housing crisis. The original NYCHA developments are horribly planned and are grossly inefficient with their land. We can do so much better nowadays.
Without researching it too deeply in places which were successful, I do not think it should be expected for any housing projects to break close to even, unless the goal is to have people actually buy the units instead of renting and paying a mortgage, which would be better to guarantee long term stability for families. A big failure of NYCHA developments that people are most familiar with is making them all rented instead of purchasable.
That is why I said I do not know how realistic this scenario it. It is still possible because it has been done to great success in other countries.
I am also saying all this in a non-capitalist perspective, fyi, meaning I am speaking about the priority of housing for all over any actual profit, because non-luxury housing should not be a market.
Yea for the 5 people that get it. It's not gonna do much for the rest of us. Actually might hamper growth as landlords and developers get nightmares of being forced to rent at Wayyyy below market rate.
For context $500 a month is lower rent than they charge in Detroit or Alabama
Well we are lol. Imagine how much more developers we'll get if we removed all these limitations. Just pure raw, building apartments to meet our surging demand.
Folks like you will never understand. There are 182 studios in that development. Of which 14 is priced under $500 for the lucky ones. With bulk priced higher at 2k+. Instead of renting all the studios at $1588 the break even point of all the studios and rent they bring in, you make majority folks folks pay 2k+ - 500 over break even point so higher rent for them to subsidize 14 folks
Basically everyone in that building is paying higher rent for the few to be able to rent at 500 which basically sum up rent regulated housing....you making others pay higher rent so you can benefit
You just terrible at math and fail to see the forest cept few trees. Those few sub 500 units basically raised the rent of everyone else in the building and you think this is how we drive down rent? LOL
This is for people at 30% of the median income, so for effectively poverty level housing. Blind/disabled as well.
This development has a LOT of affordable units all the way up to 150% of median income. Most units are for 100-120% of median.
The total project will be 2,500. Pretty amazing when you think about it.
It's a numbers game....
Building requires certain percentage of higher income households to subsidize poor to near busted.
More units a building has easier it is to spread that pain around while also creating more units for poor people.
That’s why I think this a is a good balance of public/private investment into affordable housing.
Kind of interesting looking at the unit breakdown. Someone making up to $32k a year will get a studio for $485/month. BUT someone who makes $72k a year will have to pay just over $2k/month for exact same unit. Breakdown is here.
But better question is who the hell would want to pay $2k for a studio in that location? You can also get a $4244 3 bed if you make up to $218k/year as a 3 person family. But again... who?
Area is flanked by Citi Field parking lots on one side and surrounded by highways on all three other sides. Literal opposite of a walking paradise. You can get to 7 train, but you gotta go through a bunch of parkin lots. Flushing Meadows park is right there, but 30 minute walk minimum because you gotta dodge all the car infrastructure.
The city has a history of doing this. Which is dumping housing projects in terrible locations and filling them with poor people. Origin story of Mott Haven, East New York, waterfront Lower East Side, and Far Rockaways.
Reason public housing got defunded in the 90s is that even progressives agreed high concentration of poverty was bad for both cities and people who lived in such slums.
Worst case scenario, with addition of Casino, this becomes a shitshow that makes Atlantic City blush. Best case is there is an actual vision here and this part of the city transforms into something really unique.
I really want to be an optimist about it.
This doesn’t look like public housing though; will be managed by Related.
Land price was likely low (I have to check) which makes it viable from a financing perspective.
Oh this is 100% the case.
I'm just wondering, fast forward 20+ years, and you have the Mets stadium and a casino and these infamous housing slums with high crime and where all the kids have chronic asthma because highways are right in your face.
Lessons learned from 30+ years ago are completely forgotten.
Developers built a shit ton of new construction in north part of East NY. It was intended to be market housing for good chunk of it. Total flop. Entire buildings got leased out by city to dump Section 8 recipients there. I feel all the new construction in Mott Haven will face the same fate. Another colossal flop. I honestly can't picture anyone wanting to pay thousands a month to live in that slice of queens either.
Again, if planned and built carefully, you could have something really cool there. I'm just not seeing it right now. Feels like another indirect plan to dispose of poor people and make sure they stay poor.
After the differential in housing costs and taxes, I wonder how much take home pat the person making $72k a year is pulling down vs. the person making $32k?
$72k after tax = ~ $54k
$32k after tax = ~ $26k
$54k - $24k in rent = $30k
$26k - $5,820 in rent = $20,180
Lmao. That is an absolutely hellish situation for that person making a fairly modest income, all things considered.
/r/theydidthemath
Thanks for that. Honestly kind of unfair to the person making 72k
I was bored and curious, lol.
It does kind of suck, but I'd rather live off the $30k than the $20k. Someone making $26k net does really need all the help they can get. That said I wouldn't be comfortable locking into $2k rent at $52k net personally.
They are going to build it out, with a path and walkways straight to Flushing main street as well as shuttle buses, however that is probably a year or two away. There will be infrastructure here and it will be fully built out but you just have to wait it out, in the meantime your rent is locked in and even that person paying 4244 for a 3 bedroom their rent wont go higher than 50-100$ more in 5 years time by the time its all done. picture of the plan: 1 2
Source: My family was the first tenant of an extremely run down lottery area that is now thriving and is the hot new spot to live 13 years later, everyone wants to live there now that its built out. The benefit of these lotteries is the price lock in, the rent my family pays has not increased passed 150$ in 13 years, the non-lottery 3 bedroom price in 5 years I assure you will be no where near 4200$.
Thank you for sharing those renderings! Hope it ends up turning out like that.
Hard disagree. To me, this is a top 5 place to live in all of NYC. One, you can go to Met games basically whenever you feel like it. Two, you are near the Skyview mall with all that shopping. Downtown Flushing has bars. Great food options in the area. In addition to the 7 train you also have LIRR so you can be in midtown fast. The area is also safe.
I do like your optimism!
15-20 minute super-crummy walk to a frigging shopping mall is not a selling point for me. You can have that experience in most of America for half the price and 3 times more space.
But it takes all kinds! I am not saying you are wrong in any way whatsoever.
I mean that's like the third option. Met games is #1. If you aren't a Met fan, I guess it's not as good, but this is NYC and there are many Met fans.
20 mins to penn station is pretty good too.
City moves or whatever places eff tons of voucher holders, homeless/shelter and other social placements in these lottery apartments. If units cannot be rented via lottery for whatever reason (such as people who qualify not being interested), three guesses who city will place in those apartments.
Should have priced all the studios at $1600 and call it a day and ignore the different pricing schemes and forgo the 39 units that pay under 1k
Well 421a expired and got replaced with 485x program. This project is what you get trying to achieve maximum property tax abatement compliance. But there is more to it for this one. Casino thing muddles up the waters quite a bit.
Need to build at least 4 million of these
The casino and events are subsidizing these apartments
and are about to make it all back after they target the most vulnerable people looking for a quick buck to make rent
People in a $500 apartment in NYC aren't victims and if they choose to blow all their money on casinos that's on them
If people of a specific class, demographic, or region are more likely to make decisions which lead to negative outcomes, then there's a part of the system which makes them victims.
Can't ban everything that's bad (tm)
You absolutely can; the question is the social cost of the ban vs the social cost of not banning it. Right now we are at a point with gambling where the social cost of not banning it is clearly higher. We have a generation of mal adapted zoomers with internet brain addicted to rainbet and casinos cover the last half of the gambling gambit.
Furthermore; kids don’t go to casinos and time will bear out that these are just bad for everyone
What's your suggestion? Ban casinos?
I'm just disagreeing with the "that's on them" mentality especially in relation to things like gambling.
Maybe we can harvest all the energy of the sun and directed towards continually saving an infinitely-expanding number of people from all of their bad decisions and accountability
I get the joke ur making but is this not literally what education and proper parenting is for, lol. Otherwise not sure what you're doing besides strawmanning sorry.
Correct - this is what parenting and good life decisions is for, and thus "it's on them"
I was making an exaggerated obvious straw man - to highlight that it's on them.
Okay but we can spend our lifetimes lamenting some people's gambling habits.
That's neither here nor there on this public housing project. It's such a derailment.
wot
Yes
That’s called economic activity.
Governments need people to spend money.
I need to save money, but that’s technically selfish, it’s better for society if we all spend more.
It’s basically a bluff.
Because a gambling corp is the same thing as a small local business like a restaurant or store right?
It doesn’t matter what it’s spent on, just needs to be money circulating.
Even stolen money circulating is better for society than money sitting in a bank account.
Money in the bank is money nobody can earn, and makes the money in circulation harder to obtain.
It absolutely does matter.
And this is only comparing like to like businesses. Gambling takes far more disposable income from the community and very little is circulated back in return.
Edit: nice block you coward ha, doesn't take many braincells to understand the negative impact gambling has on the local economy.
Note the bias you’re overlooking: small business association is saying small businesses are better.
Just like big tobacco says no link between cigarettes and cancer.
Can’t call just one out for bullshit “research” and ignore the other.
Bad take.
Assuming these were $500k each to make taking out the rent payment it would cost the city $105,000,000,000 each year to service the debt… roughly the total city budget
Why would you assume it costs 500k to make one of these? Lol
Because Chicago spends around $750,000 for each one
How Chicago can lower the cost of building affordable housing
In DC it's way more.
These publicly funded homes for the poor cost $1.2 million each to build
LMAO. Jesus Christ I knew Chicago and DC would be disasters but that is shocking even for those two disastrous cities.
Fun fact. If Mamdani's 200,000 units of permanently affordable housing came in at $1.2m a piece, it would amount to nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars.
DC recently spent $1.3M per unit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/06/06/these-publicly-funded-homes-poor-cost-12-million-each-develop/
While we should make it easier and faster and cheaper to build, focusing on the pure cost of construction is a mistake. We should be thinking of these as investments in our communities. Providing housing for the poor reduces crime, increased labor force participation, increases education rates, and a bunch of other benefits.
No one seems to get up in arms that a new fighter jet costs $80M, for comparison, while providing much less social utility
How does this logical, non-controversial comment get downvoted?
Several reasons. 1) the policies put in place by NYC politicians cause the cost of the construction of apartments to be sky high. 2) the subsidied apartments are only necessary because of decisions made by politicians to limit building and make the building taking place very expensive. 3) the regulations are so ridiculous thst the politicians had to have a voter referendum to exempt the subsidized housing from certain regulations. 4) i have always thought that comparing anything to national defense childish. I like living in US under a democraticly elected government governed by the constitution. There are always other countries where they want to take us over or destroy us. Just look at Ukraine or any of the countries on this list .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts. If it costs tens of millions to have fighter jets that help keep us safe and our soldiers alive i am all for it. I wish I could put an end to war and countries would not invade each other for power, religion or whatever but that's just not reality. It costs a tremendous amount of money to keep the country safe. Like a trillion dollars a year.
Illinoispolicy.org is widely considered conservative propaganda.
I would appreciate a more reliable source to back this claim.
Chicago has a $750,000+ per unit cost for public housing.
How Chicago can lower the cost of building affordable housing
Another example in DC where public housing costs more than a million per unit.
These publicly funded homes for the poor cost $1.2 million each to build
So all building costs across the country should be estimated by Chicago’s corrupt practices?
Are you under the impression New York isn't corrupt?
San Francisco is $1 million per unit
LA is $600k per unit.
What evidence do you have that NYC is much cheaper than all these other major metro cities in the US.
To prove your point, you link two obscure publications that require a subscription to read. Lol
Bro just admit that you're arguing in bad faith.
I could provide you 20 sources and you'd dismiss all of them.
So you have any evidence of publicly built or subsidized housing costing less?
He linked you to the Chicago Sun Times and WaPo...that's conservative propaganda?
Initially they linked Illinoispolicy.org.
They edited their comment to remove that link.
Yeah I provided better sources because I didn't want that to derail the conversation.
Well that’s if it’s market rate, if the city does it it would probably be double.
We’re not talking market rate, you were talking the cost to build per unit.
What do you call privately built housing vs city built?
Doesn’t matter what I call it. What matters is what it costs to build.
I asked why you assumed it costs 500k per unit to build and you didn’t answer my question.
Because that’s what it costs!
Thanks for the insight
I asked google: "average cost per unit of a single bedroom apartment in a concrete building in a large US city"
I got in response: "The cost to build a 1-bedroom unit in a concrete high-rise in a major US city varies wildly, but expect construction costs from $250,000 to over $500,000 per unit, with Manhattan/SF costing much more ($450+/sq ft) than other major markets ($300-$350/sq ft), translating to roughly $200,000 - $350,000+ for a typical 600-800 sq ft unit, depending on finishes and height (e.g., 10-20 stories).. "
I still think that's on the low side especially due to land costs and other costs associated with constriction in a high regulatory, high cost of labor environment, but that's something.
I don't know about these in particular, but construction has gotten really expensive. That's about in line for building apartment units at cost (before any profit margin) in a lot of big cities.
Who is going to pay for them?
Your mom, next question.
And none for anyone not born or raised I. nYC please!
Sweet Mary, mother of God
The <500 rents this headline refers to are studios, not 1br
This comment should be higher.
And the fact that it’s only usually a less than 49% percentage of total units that are that low…and I’m being very generous with the per building average.
I have no problem with the city providing ultra low rents that strip out the profit of a land lord as long as the buildings are solvent. At sub 500 dollars are the tenants able to pay for the required staff and upkeep…or are we just paying their rent for them.
these buildings do not pay for themselves. There are many layers of subsidy that make it possible to have rents as cheap as sub $500 in NYC where the per unit construction costs can easily exceed $500k
Can you shoot over a source on that, cause 500k per unit sounds like a made up number, but I’m open to being absolutely wrong.
Single families homes in NYC sometimes don’t cost 500k to purchase, condos can cost 500k to purchase, but that’s not the cost to build, you feel me?
Single family homes that cost <$500k in NYC either have some severe problem or have to pay taxes+repairs more than the value of the house.
DC spends 1.2 million per public housing unit and Chicago spends 700k. Not sure why 500k is unbelievable in NYC. It's probably higher.
$500k is an entirely reasonable number for per unit costs on one bedrooms in midrise, concrete buildings.
It’s been a while since I’ve looked at a development proforma for an nyc deal. $500k is a guesstimate. Could easily be (and likely is) higher.
Im an asset manager who specializes in LIHTC with properties all around the USA. Though my portfolio is switching to be entirely within NYC over the coming year.
Feel free to google this stuff on your own though.
I mean Google is telling me many things. $250-400 per square foot, another project was $1.2 million for 5 units, costs seem all over the place. There’s another luxury 12 units that came out $7.5 million, so I really answer I guess is “it varies”.
Assuming these apartments are extremely subsidized based on rent anyway.
I’ll quote you the per unit cost from a recent proforma once I get home. Currently doing Christmas things. But yeah I agree, not a lot of good data on Google
Yeah there’s a million variables. Building height for apartments can actually be a big factor too in costs, so it can be difficult to say what an apartment costs on average when the building it’s in can change that math. Believe it or not, high rises can be outrageously expensive to build in a price per sq foot sense (like $800-1100 per square ft for a high quality build if it’s a great big tower).
I feel like a lot of people are surprised to hear that building as high as possible isn’t always economic, but imagine how the project changes once you start getting $100 per hour crane operators and equipment rentals involved. Big projects these days also end up taking exponentially longer for a variety of reasons.
In case you’re wondering about the info source, my uncle’s a builder in queens and Manhattan and my first job was working for him.
The "it costs 500k per unit!" people also forget that if the city actually built a system for constantly building and then maintaining public housing, building costs would likely fall.
I don’t disagree. I’m just literally giving you the perspective of someone who actually works in the industry you’re talking about
You can assume like $375-$500 per sq ft in nyc for like a mid quality, medium rise apartment build.
Plus the land costs.
Wait until you read about how over 30% of rent payments owed across NYCHA buildings go unpaid.
You’re already paying their rent my friend.
Look at the units offered. The low rents are subsidized by the the folks paying higher rent and the bulk of the units in the building are to be rented at 2k+ for a studio. Basically everyone in that building paying higher for the few at 500 and other price ranges.
May I point you to the NYCHA? It's one of the worst housing developments in the western world.
The building is a JV of Related, Sterling Equities and NYCEDC. It was ground up built for affordable housing.
Am going with because there isn't much demand for true luxury housing way out in Willets Point.
Other than that apparently people do have high hopes for the area.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BKDhaMVWsmc
I'm not an expert of anykind, but many major (expensive) cities do have ~$500 per month equivalent rents adjusted for income level and currency disparity (I'm thinking Seoul and Osaka, regions I'm familiar with through family). They're sparse, just a room with a shower and minimal kitchenette, but they're clean and are not located in middle or nowhere or known slums.
I wouldn't be surprised if NYC can swing something similar in relatively out-of-way places - IMHO biggest barrier would be the middle managements that gets involved in stuff like this. I had a chance watch interactions with some of the nonprofit & NYCHA types with a friend of mine and holy cow, the ones I saw acted like medieval nobility throwing leftovers at the poor. It would be hilarious if the actual mayor of NYC did that, I was sitting there wondering who these people thought they were.
Japan has an entirely different housing market where both the tolerance for small living spaces is more acceptable and old housing has a significant desirability penalty. As in many other ways, Japan is a poor point of comparison due to a myriad of cultural factors.
I for example would find a small space (but not 20 sqm) acceptable but a kitchenette entirely inadequate.
I think an average NYC resident's tolerance for small living space is a LOT higher than you might be thinking, factoring in privacy, their own shower, and in many cases ability to do your own laundry and cook that comes with the examples I'm thinking of (and lived in briefly) for $500~$700 a month.
The fact that is a state sponsored housing lottery is hilarious.
Maybe we can a medical bill lottery
Step 1: NYC creates a scarce good that is severely underpriced and randomly gives them out (many such cases)
Step 2: Random person wins an apartment
Step 3: Winner subleases apartment on the black market for much much higher than they pay in rent.
Step 4: Profit.
How to find those subleases
I just need to try to become a little more poor than I already am and I might actually qualify.
As always, affordable mandates reduce overall housing stock and drive up median rents. Affordable housing rules are the worst way to induce an increase in overall construction and ultimate reduction in median rents.
In case you think this is some right wing talking point, here is Paul Krugman, famed liberal economist, explaining exactly this.
Perfect! I’ll surely score one by the time I’m ready to die.
What a joke. The rest of us can pound sand while we subsidize the lucky few who “wins” the lottery
Anything for the middle class ever..?
Thank you!
been applying for years now. NADA
These are run by crooks and you gotta know someone on the inside. The ones that actually applied and got in by "lottery" are very few
or they give you an apt that cost 5k a month smh
My luck with these is shit lol. It’s always one of two problems; either:
I also find it extremely frustrating how many of these buildings only have affordable units for people making six figures as an individual. Why are we subsidizing people making more than me? I don’t make bank, but enough to live reasonably comfortably in a decent area near plenty of transit. It feels silly that, at my income (~$72k), I don’t make enough to qualify for affordable housing.
Lottery should be limited to native New Yorkers
Full agree
It is, current NYC residents receive preference.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nychousinglottery/comments/1psqozy/please_stop_applying_to_the_housing_lottery_if/
https://www.brickunderground.com/rent/realty-bites-who-can-apply-nyc-affordable-housing-lottery
That would be illegal housing discrimination. A judge recently ruled that these projects cannot favor people from the local area either because it simply continues existing patterns of segregation.
Now people wanting to stay in their own neighborhood is segregation? What a mess.
Because if it was a mostly white neighborhood like the UES you’d be giving preference to mostly white people.
doctor_who7827 said "native New Yorkers" though and not "native LES-ers" or "nature UWS-ers." Considering how diverse NYC naturally is, your comparison isn't really applicable.
Federal fair housing law protects against discrimination based on where you were born.
a net loss for society as the developer saved more in tax abatements than units created
they should really at the minimum be [minimum wage * 2000]/40 a month.
Right by Citi Field
The percentage of the lower priced units are low + the size of those units are also usually tiny/studio or junior 1 beds.
people are on these lotteries for years sometimes even decades… they need to speed up the process for existing buildings instead of creating new ones
Disgusting how some people get to pay sub $500 while normal people need to pay $2,000+.
If someone can't afford to pay the rent at market rate, they can't afford to live in NYC. The solution is for them to move out of the city, creating space for new people to move in.
More of this!!!
This is how you drive rents down
Question—wouldn’t this artificially restrict supply, making literally everyone else’s rent situation worse?
Yes. It means that now someone who can only afford 500 in rent can live in the city (which in itself is a good thing), but now the guy who would have had that apartment for say 2500 will have to get one for 2600, etc. It artificially increases demand also
Given where the development is and everything that had to happens for the building to be built, I think it would have been unlikely for a market-rate development to come to market.
An ideal situation would be the city itself builds and owns enough housing, which is priced only for maintenance and fees and not for making profit, so much that landlords are forced to compete with that market.
I don't know if it is realistic given the track history of NY housing bureaucracy and whatever but this has been done elsewhere to great success already.
Actual ideal perfect situation would be what I described AND to start taxing land much more heavily since its limited by default and forcing landlords to either pay those taxes or else forgo their properties for developers which can extract more from the land and build more housing.
If the real estate market is sooo valuable according to those who control it then they should pay more taxes on their apparently valuable assets 🤷♂️
Have you read into NYCHA? I mean it’s run down and all but gosh do you know how much of tax dollars are poured in to fix it every year and still how crappy it is?
NYCHA projects were never intended to be self sufficient, which is what that person is referring to.
They have relied on heavy public subsidies that have disappeared over the years, particularly federal funding. Yes, it's horribly mismanaged but as much of our tax dollars go into it, it really isn't enough.
I think people just see a big number and think "wow that's so bad!" as if the housing has provided nothing for people.
It just makes sense to build more housing without profit in mind if the goal is to fix the housing crisis. The original NYCHA developments are horribly planned and are grossly inefficient with their land. We can do so much better nowadays.
Without researching it too deeply in places which were successful, I do not think it should be expected for any housing projects to break close to even, unless the goal is to have people actually buy the units instead of renting and paying a mortgage, which would be better to guarantee long term stability for families. A big failure of NYCHA developments that people are most familiar with is making them all rented instead of purchasable.
That is why I said I do not know how realistic this scenario it. It is still possible because it has been done to great success in other countries.
I am also saying all this in a non-capitalist perspective, fyi, meaning I am speaking about the priority of housing for all over any actual profit, because non-luxury housing should not be a market.
Yes, that is exactly what this does. And economists from conservative to liberal have pointed this out time, and time, and time, and time again.
Lol no it isn't. It's literally a lottery
This literally is driving rents up.
Lottery systems are the worst possible solution here. A tiny number of lucky winners get a windfall, and everyone else pays more.
You forgot that they are also more likely to continue to vote for rent increasing programs like these.
Yea for the 5 people that get it. It's not gonna do much for the rest of us. Actually might hamper growth as landlords and developers get nightmares of being forced to rent at Wayyyy below market rate.
For context $500 a month is lower rent than they charge in Detroit or Alabama
Nightmares?? These developers choose to do this in exchange for tax breaks. No one is forcing anyone into this arrangement.
Well we are lol. Imagine how much more developers we'll get if we removed all these limitations. Just pure raw, building apartments to meet our surging demand.
To qualify for the 500/month rent, you need to be at 30% of median income. 20k-30k per year. It’s a small subset of the total available apartments.
Most of the units are for people in the 80-120% of median range, with rents from 1,546-4,244 for studio to 3BR.
I’m guessing the land purchase was below market and the remediation was subsidized, allowing lenders to lend against construction at those numbers.
“nightmares”🤣🤣🤣
Folks like you will never understand. There are 182 studios in that development. Of which 14 is priced under $500 for the lucky ones. With bulk priced higher at 2k+. Instead of renting all the studios at $1588 the break even point of all the studios and rent they bring in, you make majority folks folks pay 2k+ - 500 over break even point so higher rent for them to subsidize 14 folks
Basically everyone in that building is paying higher rent for the few to be able to rent at 500 which basically sum up rent regulated housing....you making others pay higher rent so you can benefit
🥱🥱🥱
You just terrible at math and fail to see the forest cept few trees. Those few sub 500 units basically raised the rent of everyone else in the building and you think this is how we drive down rent? LOL
Way the eff out in Willet's Point. Hard pass...
Lottery Details -Housing Connect
Shitty location but thank you for posting which one it is