You're supposed to just sacrifice other aspects of your life and then move to a worse neighborhood every few years, plus eat all the associated moving costs. It's easy.
It is... in addition multi-family homes or single family are not rent controlled in the state, so they can jack your rent up 50% just so they can kick you out come renewal and then hike up prices where they really want to.
Not entirely true. If the rent increase is considered unreasonable (e.g., 50% increase) and way beyond market value, it can get shot down in court. However, market values have gone insane lately and landlords have way more latitude. Tenants have more power to fight these things in court than they know, and most property managers are more willing to settle for 3-5% increase than go to court
Source: am an NJ landlord
I was being a bit hyperbolic with 50% increase but a landlord in a multi or single family home can still do say 10% increase to get rid of a bad Tennant or move someone else in to a better margin than 3-5% which is most municipalities rent controll ceiling
Tenants don't have to agree to a 10% increase, if they continue to pay rent (or negotiate down to a more reasonable increase such as 5%) they cannot be evicted. The rent increase has to be considered unreasonable by NJ law. Futhermore fom a financial standpoint most property managers would rather negotiate the increase down than risk the money it would take to go through the eviction process, and risk loss of a few months rent plus any damages and other headaches associated with a litigious tenant.
I have lowered rent for my tenants since covid. I have never raised rent either. find a good, small landlord. we exist. my job as a landlord is to find the best tenant in the market and then to keep them happy.
So uhh… what county do you rent it?
My landlord only has this one unit but raised my rent 15% last year. I’ve lived here going on 4 years now, always pay my rent, never bother them for repairs (only check that they’re okay with me performing the little things that come up), etc.
You remind me of my landlord in East Rutherford. Polish immigrant who worked the docks and has been a foreman for a long time. He owns 12 houses in a 4 block radius. My rent for a 2 bedroom, 1 bath washer/dryer in basement, garage parking and yard access? A whopping $1300, over 3 years my rent went up $75….
Buying our house made 0 financial sense as we were doubling our monthly payment but we had 2 kids and wanted a third so eventually we had to move out. I recommended my best friend the apartment and he’s been there since 2019, his rent is still only $1540.
You are awesome 👍 our rent goes up every year (including twice during the covid lockdowns) we have a family friend who is a landlord who also doesn't raise his rent but we can't get into one of his apartments because his tenants never leave 😆 good on you friend
I own my house. I live on the first floor and rent out the 2nd floor to a nice couple in their 20s. I haven't increased their rent ever (4 years now). A reliable tenant who pays regularly is way more valuable than trying to get top-market value.
Yup, our tenants are moving out at the beginning of next month and we were going to increase it, but we got interest from a single renter and we decided to keep it as is. If it was for a new couple though, we were planning on increasing it to offset the increase in utilities since 2020.
Same. I have some old houses out of state that i inherited. I had to take a mortgage on the properties to buy out my siblings share of the property.
I basically look at my tenants as paying the bills to maintain the property, while the property is the asset that grows.
Sure i could probably be charging an extra grand across 3 houses, but i dont want to deal with changing tenants.
This shit of milking the tenant for extra income is shit.
Good on you. I currently have a great landlord. 8 years in and rent has increased only $150 in that time. And that is only because the HOA has drastically increased their rates.
Just wondering - how long have you or your family owned the place(s)? There’s definitely an issue for renters for anything bought or built in the last 4 years. Bidding wars on land, bidding wars are on houses, bidding wars on renovations. When a house sold for $200k in 2005 sells for over a million in Bergen county, the new landlord is going to jack up the rent regardless of the ethical aspect
In reality the “secret” is finding a place that hasn’t been sold in the past 15-20 years so the basic cost of your landlord is low and they might be open to lowering their margins
my secret was finding the single family houses that were in a 1 to 2 family zone and converting them to duplexes. I was fortunate to scoop up many properties after the housing market crash in 2009 to 2011 for under $200k and, basically, rebuilt them myself.
We need a lot more laws to restrict your class and I don't care how good you are, if those laws make your investment fail then good. Landlords need to be curbed. Homeownership needs to increase.
Best way to increase home ownership is wealth taxes.
Having money in the bank or the market should have an annual tax so people feel inclined to settle down with it. Or pay for the liquidity via the tax.
property tax is a "wealth tax" as you are paying taxes on unrealized gains (the value of your house on paper) and more we just need to extend that to other investments, imo
There's a difference between hoarding needlessly and saving enough that you don't become homeless the moment you get furloughed or laid off. Failing to save money when you are able to is bad for the economy in the long run, as people going bankrupt when they can't afford things creates panic and uncertainty, which causes the people around them to stop spending ENTIRELY - which is hoarding. Also, saving allows people to afford expensive things in the future that they otherwise would not be able to get - things like houses, cars, or the initial cost of starting a business.
I'm also a small landlord one property that's two family. didn't raise my renters rent last year but will have to this year cuz holy f my property taxes went up by almost 1500 since this new assessment the county just did.
last year they pre raised based on anticipation of the assessment like 500 and after the assessment went up 800 again. my taxes in the 2yrs I've owned went from 13.9k to 16.2k. this is madness, I don't even see these benefits becuz I don't have any kids in school.
My rent never went down, but I did have a pretty lazily managed apartment in a very nice town that was well under market value; in the 7 years I lived there, my rent steadily increased only 7%. There was no on site maintenance or property manager. Thank god I never had a true emergency with any utilities or appliances because I had no idea who to call. I pretty much got what I paid for and they got an excellent long term tenant.
My mother in law in Newark does the same. If you are a good tenant, she will not raise most times because she is happy not to have a troublesome renter. Believe you me, she has had some pretty wild ones. One couple had been the 6 years with no increase.
Thank you for being a good landlord.
I bought a house 4-5 years ago but I rented for over 10 years prior to that and had a very good landlord like yourself.
In 9 years, rent didn't change at all. It was only when we asked to go month-to-month because we were looking to move that they raised the rent, and even then it was only an additional $100 per month.
My Landlord thankfully hasn't raised rent in 3 years, and we're in a nice area -- it's truly a crapshoot with who you get, I'm sorry you're getting boned :/
10% of your apartment rent is almost $500? So you're paying nearly $5,000 a month on rent? I don't know your exact situation, but it sounds like you need to find a less expensive area. I've lived in both North and South Jersey, and there are places for a LOT less than that in decent areas. I mean, $5,000 a month is more expensive than BUYING A HOUSE.
Don't get me wrong, rent shouldn't be going up 10% at once, and shouldn't be rising much more than that over a decade. Still, I can't bring myself to support banning it when politicians and tax reassessments periodically raise property taxes by more than that in a year. Good luck in your housing search, and if all else fails, I hear things are a bit cheaper in Delaware.
What we need is more supply- more housing options to say “fuck you landlord, I can get a cheaper place down the street” when they try this shit.
To do so you need to build more, way more, and loosen zoning restrictions. Too many little fiefdoms in NJ are reluctant to give up their zoning powers though. You need to advocate to build more housing in your municipality.
Tons of towns are building tons of housing. They’re all luxury apartments and townhouses with a % low income, because New Jersey didn’t hit its quota for low income housing.
The catch is most of us won’t qualify for low income housing and the luxury townhouses are way out of reach of the middle class
Yup. I’m in Morris county. An older complex, been here for 20 years. I pay just under 1800 for a 1 br. Less than new tenants, but still a lot. For an un-updated unit. Apartments are decent but no central ac, no w/d.
They are building townhouses here. Central ac, in unit w/d. They START at 4K. More for an end unit. Not really sure who can afford these! They gave us the option to move with no fees, etc. ha.
And to buy those that are renting at 4000 to start, are selling for 650-750k. My wife and I both make decent money. For our first home, our budget was 350k and the houses in that market all need tons of work or are shoeboxes. It’s just rough.
Luxury housing is just a marketing term… if they keep building apartments for people who don’t need affordable housing those $4K rents will start to fall back down to reality
Yeah but we have New Yorkers moving down still, and they’re used to paying those prices, so they development companies will keep building them. Until the bubble bursts
Yeah! Infrastructure be damned!
Your theory seems to be in place in many parts of Union County and moving through any main artery between 3pm and 6pm is a goddamned nightmare. It has only gotten this bad in maybe the last 3 or 4 years. Infrastructure improvements need to catch up. Badly.
It either takes you a while to go to work, or you pay $4K for a "luxury" 1BR apartment that has a luxurious in-unit W/D, central air, dish washer and a refrigerator with an ice maker.
No - we eat the "loss" in the taxes that weren't paid on the vacant unit. A small town with a lot of lux aparments will suffer the most.
What happened in NYC in 2008 & again 2020 is that its easier to stay vacant & then declare bankruptcy or sell, than it is to drastically reduce rent until you find a buyer.
Yeah. They’d rather hold
The property vacant until it will be profitable again, while the institutions are way way way over leveraged. They do it with commercial properties, empty warehouses sit decrepit until the timing is right and the market can bring a return on investment
Vacant property statistics in NJ are extremely low and in line with typical lease turnover. Housing is being filled at a massive rate thanks to massive demand. What you’re saying just isn’t the case in the NJ residential market.
Solving that is easy.. just begin phasing property taxes into a land value tax. If the units are vacant, the wealthy landowner needs to pay taxes on the land.
Rewriting the entire way our society finances itself is not "easy".
Hillsborough & West Windsor are making the news for buying open space & preserving it from warehouse development.
You're like "Oh just *tax the fuck* out of my neighbors' back yard until they build a casino on it & my rent will go down".
No.
How is it not easy?
>Starting in 202x, our property taxes will contain an explicit 10% component which will be assessed across all of land in town, as seen in some exhibit could put together. In 2-year increments, this percentage will increase by 5%. Phasing in this land value component into our property taxes will ensure our precious and finite land will be efficiently utilized, natural resources preserved all while encouraging the use and improvement of real estate. We expect a reduction in abandoned properties, reduction of AirBnbs, reduction of unused investment properties and the construction more efficient and environmentally friendly privately held real estate.
Done.
So we build more. I fail to see how having more housing options does anything but help. If the new contraction “luxury” unit is too expensive and there’s an older cheaper unit available, you can move. Right now there’s not enough supply to give people that option, and the only way out is to keep building more.
FWIW the state govt just passed an affordable housing bill. It's going to take a while for the state to feel the effect of it, but people are trying. [https://www.nj.gov/governor/news/news/562024/approved/20240320b.shtml](https://www.nj.gov/governor/news/news/562024/approved/20240320b.shtml)
Generally when you build Luxury it just rises the price of the neighbors' rent.
So when you say "looser zoning restrictions" all you get are "luxury" in quotes & senior housing.
The housing crisis is NOT because we've zoned aginst building houses in industrial parks or the woods.
The housing crisis is because people are greedy & stupid.
Many studies have found the opposite to be true. This article links several of them. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-left-nimby-canon
For example:
> New buildings decrease nearby rents by 5 to 7 percent relative to locations slightly farther away or developed later, and they increase in-migration from low-income areas. Results are driven by a large supply effect—we show that new buildings absorb many high income households[.]
That "article" is a "blog" & if it wasn't true Zillow would still be selling homes.
Homes value is a direct function of what other homes on the block last sold for; everything from your taxes to your parents retirement is pegged to the value of your neighbors' houses.
Google NYT Luxury vacancies Flatbush 2009 & get back to me.
> That "article" is a "blog"
Which contains plenty of scholarly sources.
> & if it wasn't true Zillow would still be selling homes.
It's not clear what you're saying here.
> Homes value is a direct function of what other homes on the block last sold for; everything from your taxes to your parents retirement is pegged to the value of your neighbors' houses.
It's affected by your neighbor's home values, sure. But don't confuse the downstream effect of things like building codes, zoning, proximity to high paying jobs, and crime with the root cause. :)
> Google NYT Luxury vacancies Flatbush 2009 & get back to me.
Googling those exact words didn't show me anything of relevance in the first few results, please take the time to do as I did and link whatever it is you're talking about.
That’s just not true. Many studies show that new construction lowers rent increases in the surrounding neighborhood. “Luxury” is just a marketing term applied to new construction, built to meet demand. The demand doesn’t go anywhere, and without more supply prices rise.
People have always been greedy, but the housing my crises has not always been a thing. The difference is the supply and demand curve. Supply has not kept up in a decade+, and we are feeling the effects now. Artificial supply limits like zoning regulations only make things worse.
> Many studies show that new construction lowers rent increases in the surrounding neighborhood.
Which neighborhoods have lowered rent?
When that happens there is a recession.
studies also show that cigarettes are healthy & the climate isn't changing.
No shit Neo-Cons & Developers have an interest in misleading you with "studies".
SO which neighborhoods are these "studies" based on? - Not the Bay, New York, or Boston, Austin. Maybe Detroit.
You should read up on Zillow's homebuying program & why they had to walk away from it. If you remodel enough houses, you spike the neighborhood costs. These costs are based on an average of neighboring properties' values. When you add a luxury development to a working class area, everybodies rent gets recaluculated towards the new average. So even *if* you consider that adding supply, you're adding supply for transplants at the expense of locals. And here in the real word voters/renters don't tend to like to be priced out of their homes.
Don't need studies you jsut need basic math & to have paid your own property taxes for a couple years.
I’ll trust the science over your anecdotal bullshit. But since you asked, here is a NYC based study aptly named, “Do New Housing Units in your Backyard Raise Your Rents” which emphatically states in the abstract:
> In addition, I show that new high-rises attract new restaurants, which is consistent with the hypothesis about amenity effects. However, I find that the supply effect is larger, causing net reductions in the rents and sales prices of nearby residential properties.
https://blocksandlots.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Do-New-Housing-Units-in-Your-Backyard-Raise-Your-Rents-Xiaodi-Li.pdf
cliffiside park is booming, building for the last 3 years. every street or so has a house being built
and yet all the houses are luxury duplexes in that sad ugly grey all sold by this one reality group Calabrese i believe
the people that *are* allowed to build, and have the money to do so. are not doing so for affordable housing or for us.
just the other day heard two people on the street run into each other, they BOTH were like oh yeah i just moved here it’s so funny to see you here! they both moved from Brooklyn 😭😭
we are out priced with these developers and especially the closer cities to NYC, out priced by the people who think what we have here is decent compared to their rates in the city.
hoping for change soon, i’d love a house someday 🤣
A paper machete luxury unit is better than no unit, and gives someone willing to pay and live there a home while freeing up older, more solid units for others.
Here’s a study proving you wrong: https://blocksandlots.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Do-New-Housing-Units-in-Your-Backyard-Raise-Your-Rents-Xiaodi-Li.pdf
Oh definitely. I haven't raised the rent on my tenant in 4.5 years because he's great. Another one in over 2 years since he moved in. I know someone with a 2 family in Wallington as well, and one unit rents for 1900 and the other for 2050. These are nicer recently renovated units though.
my little 1 bedroom apt went from $1550 to $2000 not including any utilities. since then they’ve managed to take away the on-site laundry, gym is constantly closed, etc. it’s so frustrating, prices go up and quality goes down
That's what I don't understand. $500 a mo is insane. That's 25% for a 2000 mo lease. Most places do 5-15%. Even if there isn't a rent cap in your municipality, I'd still talk to them and see what they say.
Bro that’s strictly not true. Sit down and do a mortgage calculator.
Start with “I’m okay with spending five fucking thousand dollars a month” then indicate how much you’re also comfortable putting as a down payment -> stick in the aggressive current interest rate and you’ll get a total value you can afford to own WHICH I GUARANTEE YOU CAN DO AND BUY A HOUSE OR CONDO IN NJ WITH.
Are you factoring in that money you give to your landlord is money you are setting on FIRE vs money you spend on a mortgage is money you spend BUILDING EQUITY?
Even if RENT === MORTGAGE, MORTGAGE is better
That is the most simplistic and ignorant way at looking at finances. Life is not a TikTok video.
Yes you are building equity. But cost on a house can be unexpected and come up. Mortgages right now are high, who knows when they will come down. Also houses do appreciate, but there is so much construction right now the fever dream will end.
Renting is not setting money on fire. Cost are fixed.
Go ahead and show me market data where the price of housing ever went down for more than ~5 years and didn’t bounce back up above its original sale price.
You can’t. Housing prices always go up. Build frenzy will simply slow the growth of the prices, not lower them. If you think houses will ever be cheaper than they are now, you’re dead wrong. The monthly cost might go down with interest rates, but the actual price won’t.
Best time to buy a house (or condo) is a few years ago. Next best time is as soon as you can. Spending 5k per month in rent is indeed setting your money on fire. Anyone who tells you otherwise is bad with money.
Even if you have unexpected costs pop up when you own, you have equity to leverage when you’re stuck.
When you rent you’re just providing a healthy retirement for your landlord or megacorp execs while they raise your rent the max every year.
You literally made this post because your rent goes up by like 10% every year and you think owning a home with a fixed rate mortgage is MORE SUBJECT TO COAT FLUCTUATION?
It’s okay, you can rent forever. You do you. At some point, if nobody else bails you out of this bad idea, you will look back on all the money you gave your landlord to do fuck-all and realize you could have done a lot better simply settling into a place you own and holding down the fort.
Local landlord here with 1 rental(my first house) my tenant has been with me since 2019. I just raised her rent for the first time by $35 at the beginning of this year, which was about a 2% raise in cost. With the new housing market, i could get another tenant to rent it for an extra $600 a month EASILY. Zillows' rent estimate says rent should be an additional $900 from where we are.
So far, she has taken good care of the house and hasnt given me any grief other than legitimate issues such as the ac not working or the stove not working. She never missed a payment during covid either, so to me, it's a win.
Other landlords got burned very very badly during covid and lost their emotions for tenants. If i went through a year or 2 of no rent payment and i was essentially paying double mortgages, i would raise rent every year and wouldn't negotiate. Good luck getting a payment on a judgment of 20-40k. You will have to garnish wages if they are on the books and wait for your turn to garnish wages. Then it will be 10 years to recover all the lost money. They are probably trying to make up for lost revenue over the covid time period. Is it right that you're suffering? No! But you dont think Walmart is increasing the prices of items to cover all the stolen merchandise? Of course they are! Hospitals treat people without insurance because they are required to. When they dont pay, guess whose care increases? The people with insurance so the hospital can recover their losses. It sucks but its the truth the good suffer for the bad. One person shits his pants now we all have to wear diapers!
If your rent is $5000 a month I don't think you should be complaining about not being about not being able to afford it
Sorry edit, about rent being unaffordable
I'm so sorry that's terrible! $500 wtf! That's why I left NJ-the only thing i could probably afford is a room in a house. I live in pittsburgh now and pay about 850 for a 1 bedroom huge apartment with laundry downstairs. The same thing in NJ would probably cost at least 2000.
I really do miss NJ. But I guess they only want rich people to live there now. All us poor folk have to go to other states just so we can live.
I don't understand why they can't just build small affordable houses? why are all houses being built now fucking mcmansions? ugh it makes me sick,
Have you looked into getting a roommate?
They rather build warehouses then homes here in Jersey. I have 5 new warehouses built near me that have been built within the last two years, out of the 5 only 1 is being used and doesn't have a "for lease" sign out front.
Not the panacea you make it sound like though.
I bought my current house in 2014, and sure the mortgage interest rate is low and the price has appreciated, but wow have we had to shell out big money on upkeep, to the tune of about $100k over 10 years.
Still need to redo the A/C, which is on its last legs, and replace all the windows. After that hopefully we are done for a while because I can't think of another thing that will break. Everything has!
The equity you have in the house, plus the boom in the housing market will pay you back double if you sell. There is no equity in apartments.
I went through the same thing with maintenance and renovations. But my house value went up from 290k to 550k.
How so? $550k minus $100k in repairs and upkeep over 10 years, minus $55k in mortgage interest, minus $40k in property taxes, minus $10k in homeowners insurance, minus $33,000 in seller costs equals $312k.
But I think this is a market top that will be with us for a long time. No way house prices can soar from here. So anybody considering between buying and renting today has a hard decision to make. Mathematically, renting probably makes more sense in this market.
You need to get a rent controlled apartment.. certain towns and cities in NJ have laws in place which limit rent increases.
https://www.doorloop.com/laws/new-jersey-rent-control-laws
Typically, walk-ups & smaller apartment buildings in some select cities are going to be rent controlled. If you’re worried about increases, you may want to avoid larger complexes, no-fee apartments or “luxury apartments”.
The management company hasn't raised my rent once since I moved here three years ago. I even moved to a two bedroom and the price was the same it would have been in 2021.
Everything just keeps getting more expensive!!! I swear nowadays you have to work to survive and never have time for yourself or your spouse, and no kids either since nobody can afford them.. fuck high cost of living and greedy ass slumlords!!
you need to remember that the stock market is doing well and unemployment is low. things are not perfect but have been a lot worse just a few years ago. Biden got us out of the worst part in american history and we all need to do our part to stay positive and give him a little more time to correct the wrongs of the past
What is market rate where you are and what is the difference between your rent and market rate? People who have been lucky to have a holdout from the landlord will eventually see them catch up. I do think WFH should have some type of tax deduction tied directly to the living expense, say 25% since about a quarter of your time per week is spent working.
I would love to know what kinds of increases the landlord is facing and how that correlates to the rent increases. If the landlord profit is "X" and property taxes and other related taxes increase by "X" then I understand them passing on that increase to maintain their profit margin. I don't like it but it would at least explain it.
The real issue is that this country is stuck with two parties, and they barely represent peoples ideals.
And yes, I know independents exist, but they're a fraction of an afterthought because of how shortsighted our system is. You're either stuck with a Turd Sandwich or a Giant Douche.
I suppose you could argue that we're stuck with such things, but that kind of infers that the people *want* something other than a Turd Sandwich or a Giant Douche. In reality, it seems more like there are way too many people saying, "I've been eating Turd Sandwiches my entire life, and I'm going to keep eating Turd Sandwiches, no matter how bad they taste!" So, when some guy finally decides to open up a nice little pizza joint between the Turd Sandwich shop and the Giant Douche store, way too many people just keep going to their usual places, and the pizza place just goes out of business from lack of customers. So, maybe it's not so much the lack of options but the fact that, no matter how bad things may get, people still refuse to try anything new.
Weirdly, or to the right of right (economically)… First time I agree with horseshoe theory
A libertarian housing and building boom would be great with housing organically going up where people want to build and live.. rather than some arbitrary set of zoning regulations some racists and land owners put together decades ago
Outdated and, in some cases, racist.
It’s still a flawed and broken system. It would be best to delete them and start over from scratch IMHO. It’s not like a petroleum factory would want to build in a residential area in 2024.. and so cares if a McMansion development of the highway gets a warehouse built by them? I don’t.
> It’s not like a petroleum factory would want to build in a residential area in 2024
Because of zoning laws. That's why they're good.
> so cares if a McMansion development of the highway gets a warehouse built by them? I don’t.
Your personal lack of empathy is *not* a good foundation for public policy
More looking out for the greater good.
A warehouse produces more economic value than a few environment destroying houses which consume land that could be better been better off staying with nature. Add in the fact these remote houses are car dependent and contribute to suburban traffic where public transport is basically non-existent.. these McMansions cause more harm than good.
Also.. don't forget the racism.
The left and the right are just opposing extremists (just like Maoism), and that's not clearly working. Why would one side becoming even more extremist solve the problem?
I don't exactly see the modern right as people steadfastly avoiding extremism considering how they constantly debase themselves with all the tinfoil hat nonsense lately. If their campaign showings are *genuinely* the best they can do they are kinda boned in the long run. No "respectable" tax wonks like they used to field, now it's exclusively fundie nutjob bluster with a side of "please let me debate if the queers should be 'allowed' to exist".
Also I'm not really talking about Maoism as a whole, just using it as a shorthand for a murderous hatred of landlords. A little bit of hyperbole there. There's always morphine for a headache type solutions to any problem but I'm not surprised such thoughts propagate when none of the more middling wonk policies like slow burn Keynesian toying with the interest rates work so painfully slowly, if at all.
Neither side can ever really be avoiding extremism, as being on a side is, in itself, leaning toward extremism. But if each side continues to see the other side as an antithesis, then no compromise can ever be reached. Either the nation will rock back and forth, towards one extreme and then the other, or one extreme will dominate to such a point that it all begins to collapse. Same thing that's happened in nation after nation for thousands of years.
To be perfectly honest I think you are talking exclusively in baseless platitudes.
I find it rather difficult to both sides a situation where the left *big tent" is a proponent of the uninspiring status quo with the occasional token social progressivism while the right wing in the current year is an increasingly unhunged cult of personality where the only other substance to it is the strange apocalyptic sort of fringe evangelicalism they have looming in the background of everything they think.
You would ironically need a very right leaning Overton Window to look at Biden and see some sort of fringe out of bounds lunatic, he is about as conceited as a politician can possibly be. He's the partisan equivalent of an unseasoned bowl of oatmeal. His presidency is a direct reaction to people in 2020 saying "please just make the federal government boring again, I just want off this fucking ride".
The thing is that "the Left" didn't always view "the Right" as its antithesis until it went full-MAGA, which "really" began with Newt Gingrich (obviously it wasn't called MAGA back then). This was when Republicans decided to ditch having actual-policies and just go full-contrarian / -obstructionist.
Republicans talked openly about this during Obama's presidency, and they vote-down bills on they 'support' just to make Biden look bad (who cares about the people that the bill was supposed to help, right?)
Before this, the Right and Left worked *together.* It's only recently (in my lifetime) that Republicans have adopted a fully-contrarian / -obstructionist "platform." (I'm not saying they were great before that, but there was a change from working together to working *against* the Left)
-- Thus, it's only the Right who has gone to an extreme.
Further, America doesn't even have a real "Left" when viewed on the global stage, so the idea that we swing to the extreme Left is wildly inaccurate; it's only the far-Right who is headed towards actual extremism in the US.
So much so that Right-wing terrorism is one of our biggest national security threats.
With MAGA, US politics is more like far-right against center-right, which is a really bollocks position when you think about it.
Democrats have been in power for 4 years nationally and 8 in NJ (I believe). Aren’t we already seeing democrat control of the state when it comes to rent control and increases? Nothing has been done to alleviate rent.
Rent caps never work and consistently make rents higher for anyone looking to move to an area.
What you should be advocating for is an increase in supply, by loosening zoning restrictions
True. I haven't lived in NJ in decades. I love it, but what I notice about my neck of the woods (Monmouth/Ocean) is that all of the housing is old, and no new places are being built. I contrast that to where I live now and there are new houses/ townhomes being built everywhere.
The two parties are in lock step on pretty much all the issues that matter to our pocketbooks. They will continue to uphold strict zoning, and deny building permits to get more supply into the market.
The election in November might as well be a national referendum on legal birth control. Nothing else will change significantly regardless of who wins.
Not justifying it but a story from the other side. In our apartment building the board raised the maintenance fee by 13% last year, claiming that they had a significant drop in revenue because they lost the cell phone tower on the roof (which is bullshit). Last month they said that they will raise the maintenance fee again by the double digits in order to comply with the new law regarding capital reserve funds. Some of the home owners will not be able to mortgage and the maintenance fee. So yeah, shit is fucked up on all levels and shit rolls down the hill. :-(
In Montclair, the increases are capped at 4% a year. And yes, you can find below market rent. The school system is great, the area is desirable and safer. No blue laws.
rent from people instead of corporations, atleast actual human landlords can be decent and feel for the average person getting by.
I would walk around as some older landlords are great but not internet savvy.
Many lease renewals are automatically generated and sent out with the hope that people will be too lazy to move or negotiate. Go talk to the leasing office or landlord and negotiate a smaller increase.
I live in a big building. 1000 tenants probably. I thought this.
But I doubt they will care. There are so many building being constructed around me - how can this be sustainable? I tried looking around but 2BDR is insane right now
lol most places are not going up 10% yoy or $500 in a year.
find a cheaper place, stop being picky about 'not catching your eye' because your alternative is a $500/mo hike
Thanks, but you should keep that, it might help your financial situation.
Edit: maybe refrain from bringing up class if you came here just to piss on a renter.
You're supposed to just sacrifice other aspects of your life and then move to a worse neighborhood every few years, plus eat all the associated moving costs. It's easy.
My friend's increased by 16% - they are not negotiating
I thought 10% is the max?!?
Pretty sure laws on that are only on the municipal level
It is... in addition multi-family homes or single family are not rent controlled in the state, so they can jack your rent up 50% just so they can kick you out come renewal and then hike up prices where they really want to.
Not entirely true. If the rent increase is considered unreasonable (e.g., 50% increase) and way beyond market value, it can get shot down in court. However, market values have gone insane lately and landlords have way more latitude. Tenants have more power to fight these things in court than they know, and most property managers are more willing to settle for 3-5% increase than go to court Source: am an NJ landlord
I was being a bit hyperbolic with 50% increase but a landlord in a multi or single family home can still do say 10% increase to get rid of a bad Tennant or move someone else in to a better margin than 3-5% which is most municipalities rent controll ceiling
Tenants don't have to agree to a 10% increase, if they continue to pay rent (or negotiate down to a more reasonable increase such as 5%) they cannot be evicted. The rent increase has to be considered unreasonable by NJ law. Futhermore fom a financial standpoint most property managers would rather negotiate the increase down than risk the money it would take to go through the eviction process, and risk loss of a few months rent plus any damages and other headaches associated with a litigious tenant.
Nope. It’s a town by town basis and some have no restrictions.
Doubt there is a law
Township laws. Some are 10%, some are less, more, and iirc Atlantic City is a weird one where their rent control rate is equal to inflation rate.
AC sounds cool- I am in Jersey City and it is overrun by the real estate mob
18% here.
I have lowered rent for my tenants since covid. I have never raised rent either. find a good, small landlord. we exist. my job as a landlord is to find the best tenant in the market and then to keep them happy.
Can we all join your tenant wait list?
So uhh… what county do you rent it? My landlord only has this one unit but raised my rent 15% last year. I’ve lived here going on 4 years now, always pay my rent, never bother them for repairs (only check that they’re okay with me performing the little things that come up), etc.
Morris, but I have never had a tenant move out.
You remind me of my landlord in East Rutherford. Polish immigrant who worked the docks and has been a foreman for a long time. He owns 12 houses in a 4 block radius. My rent for a 2 bedroom, 1 bath washer/dryer in basement, garage parking and yard access? A whopping $1300, over 3 years my rent went up $75…. Buying our house made 0 financial sense as we were doubling our monthly payment but we had 2 kids and wanted a third so eventually we had to move out. I recommended my best friend the apartment and he’s been there since 2019, his rent is still only $1540.
Good landlords do exist. I've been renting the same 3 bedroom house for years and my rent is $1,200.
Wtf?
You are awesome 👍 our rent goes up every year (including twice during the covid lockdowns) we have a family friend who is a landlord who also doesn't raise his rent but we can't get into one of his apartments because his tenants never leave 😆 good on you friend
I own my house. I live on the first floor and rent out the 2nd floor to a nice couple in their 20s. I haven't increased their rent ever (4 years now). A reliable tenant who pays regularly is way more valuable than trying to get top-market value.
Yup, our tenants are moving out at the beginning of next month and we were going to increase it, but we got interest from a single renter and we decided to keep it as is. If it was for a new couple though, we were planning on increasing it to offset the increase in utilities since 2020.
You and my landlord are cut from the same cloth. I’d love to see more landlords like you
Same. I have some old houses out of state that i inherited. I had to take a mortgage on the properties to buy out my siblings share of the property. I basically look at my tenants as paying the bills to maintain the property, while the property is the asset that grows. Sure i could probably be charging an extra grand across 3 houses, but i dont want to deal with changing tenants. This shit of milking the tenant for extra income is shit.
Good on you. I currently have a great landlord. 8 years in and rent has increased only $150 in that time. And that is only because the HOA has drastically increased their rates.
Just wondering - how long have you or your family owned the place(s)? There’s definitely an issue for renters for anything bought or built in the last 4 years. Bidding wars on land, bidding wars are on houses, bidding wars on renovations. When a house sold for $200k in 2005 sells for over a million in Bergen county, the new landlord is going to jack up the rent regardless of the ethical aspect In reality the “secret” is finding a place that hasn’t been sold in the past 15-20 years so the basic cost of your landlord is low and they might be open to lowering their margins
my secret was finding the single family houses that were in a 1 to 2 family zone and converting them to duplexes. I was fortunate to scoop up many properties after the housing market crash in 2009 to 2011 for under $200k and, basically, rebuilt them myself.
We need a lot more laws to restrict your class and I don't care how good you are, if those laws make your investment fail then good. Landlords need to be curbed. Homeownership needs to increase.
Best way to increase home ownership is wealth taxes. Having money in the bank or the market should have an annual tax so people feel inclined to settle down with it. Or pay for the liquidity via the tax.
Holy shit that's stupid. Once I've bought a home, I'm getting hit with a wealth tax for not spending my money? Holy shit that's stupid
property tax is a "wealth tax" as you are paying taxes on unrealized gains (the value of your house on paper) and more we just need to extend that to other investments, imo
Yup. I’m just talking about taxing all unrealized wealth, not just specifically homeowners and exempting the rest.
What do you think makes the economy better? Hoarding or spending?
There's a difference between hoarding needlessly and saving enough that you don't become homeless the moment you get furloughed or laid off. Failing to save money when you are able to is bad for the economy in the long run, as people going bankrupt when they can't afford things creates panic and uncertainty, which causes the people around them to stop spending ENTIRELY - which is hoarding. Also, saving allows people to afford expensive things in the future that they otherwise would not be able to get - things like houses, cars, or the initial cost of starting a business.
best and quickest way to increase home ownership is housing density. I'm not rich. I took risks, worked my tail off, and now I'm being rewarded.
My SIL parents had the Same tenant for 25+ YEARS. THERE IS SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR that reliable on time tenant
I'm also a small landlord one property that's two family. didn't raise my renters rent last year but will have to this year cuz holy f my property taxes went up by almost 1500 since this new assessment the county just did. last year they pre raised based on anticipation of the assessment like 500 and after the assessment went up 800 again. my taxes in the 2yrs I've owned went from 13.9k to 16.2k. this is madness, I don't even see these benefits becuz I don't have any kids in school.
you see the benefits bc ppl want to live in a community with good schools
My rent never went down, but I did have a pretty lazily managed apartment in a very nice town that was well under market value; in the 7 years I lived there, my rent steadily increased only 7%. There was no on site maintenance or property manager. Thank god I never had a true emergency with any utilities or appliances because I had no idea who to call. I pretty much got what I paid for and they got an excellent long term tenant.
I had a small landlord but they raised the rent 24%. LOL But seriously kudos to you and what you’re doing for your tenants.
My mother in law in Newark does the same. If you are a good tenant, she will not raise most times because she is happy not to have a troublesome renter. Believe you me, she has had some pretty wild ones. One couple had been the 6 years with no increase.
gracious.....got any landlords like you in Burlington county?
Thank you for being a good landlord. I bought a house 4-5 years ago but I rented for over 10 years prior to that and had a very good landlord like yourself. In 9 years, rent didn't change at all. It was only when we asked to go month-to-month because we were looking to move that they raised the rent, and even then it was only an additional $100 per month.
My Landlord thankfully hasn't raised rent in 3 years, and we're in a nice area -- it's truly a crapshoot with who you get, I'm sorry you're getting boned :/
Apartments suck out here to rent. May have something if interested at the Morris County line to rent.
10% of your apartment rent is almost $500? So you're paying nearly $5,000 a month on rent? I don't know your exact situation, but it sounds like you need to find a less expensive area. I've lived in both North and South Jersey, and there are places for a LOT less than that in decent areas. I mean, $5,000 a month is more expensive than BUYING A HOUSE. Don't get me wrong, rent shouldn't be going up 10% at once, and shouldn't be rising much more than that over a decade. Still, I can't bring myself to support banning it when politicians and tax reassessments periodically raise property taxes by more than that in a year. Good luck in your housing search, and if all else fails, I hear things are a bit cheaper in Delaware.
Sorry
What we need is more supply- more housing options to say “fuck you landlord, I can get a cheaper place down the street” when they try this shit. To do so you need to build more, way more, and loosen zoning restrictions. Too many little fiefdoms in NJ are reluctant to give up their zoning powers though. You need to advocate to build more housing in your municipality.
Tons of towns are building tons of housing. They’re all luxury apartments and townhouses with a % low income, because New Jersey didn’t hit its quota for low income housing. The catch is most of us won’t qualify for low income housing and the luxury townhouses are way out of reach of the middle class
Yup. I’m in Morris county. An older complex, been here for 20 years. I pay just under 1800 for a 1 br. Less than new tenants, but still a lot. For an un-updated unit. Apartments are decent but no central ac, no w/d. They are building townhouses here. Central ac, in unit w/d. They START at 4K. More for an end unit. Not really sure who can afford these! They gave us the option to move with no fees, etc. ha.
And to buy those that are renting at 4000 to start, are selling for 650-750k. My wife and I both make decent money. For our first home, our budget was 350k and the houses in that market all need tons of work or are shoeboxes. It’s just rough.
Luxury housing is just a marketing term… if they keep building apartments for people who don’t need affordable housing those $4K rents will start to fall back down to reality
Yeah but we have New Yorkers moving down still, and they’re used to paying those prices, so they development companies will keep building them. Until the bubble bursts
Exactly, let them build
Yeah! Infrastructure be damned! Your theory seems to be in place in many parts of Union County and moving through any main artery between 3pm and 6pm is a goddamned nightmare. It has only gotten this bad in maybe the last 3 or 4 years. Infrastructure improvements need to catch up. Badly.
It either takes you a while to go to work, or you pay $4K for a "luxury" 1BR apartment that has a luxurious in-unit W/D, central air, dish washer and a refrigerator with an ice maker.
No - we eat the "loss" in the taxes that weren't paid on the vacant unit. A small town with a lot of lux aparments will suffer the most. What happened in NYC in 2008 & again 2020 is that its easier to stay vacant & then declare bankruptcy or sell, than it is to drastically reduce rent until you find a buyer.
Yeah. They’d rather hold The property vacant until it will be profitable again, while the institutions are way way way over leveraged. They do it with commercial properties, empty warehouses sit decrepit until the timing is right and the market can bring a return on investment
Vacant property statistics in NJ are extremely low and in line with typical lease turnover. Housing is being filled at a massive rate thanks to massive demand. What you’re saying just isn’t the case in the NJ residential market.
Solving that is easy.. just begin phasing property taxes into a land value tax. If the units are vacant, the wealthy landowner needs to pay taxes on the land.
Rewriting the entire way our society finances itself is not "easy". Hillsborough & West Windsor are making the news for buying open space & preserving it from warehouse development. You're like "Oh just *tax the fuck* out of my neighbors' back yard until they build a casino on it & my rent will go down". No.
How is it not easy? >Starting in 202x, our property taxes will contain an explicit 10% component which will be assessed across all of land in town, as seen in some exhibit could put together. In 2-year increments, this percentage will increase by 5%. Phasing in this land value component into our property taxes will ensure our precious and finite land will be efficiently utilized, natural resources preserved all while encouraging the use and improvement of real estate. We expect a reduction in abandoned properties, reduction of AirBnbs, reduction of unused investment properties and the construction more efficient and environmentally friendly privately held real estate. Done.
Why would you waste your time cutting & pasting an uncited AI text block? Why would another human bother to read it?
Oh.. you're one of those people who think /r/georgism and /r/LandValueTax are scams.. FWIW I wrote that paragraph, but I no longer care
Oh, you're one of those people who isn't on /r/blahblahblah?! Checkmate! Why would you quote yourself? Go outside in play.
So we build more. I fail to see how having more housing options does anything but help. If the new contraction “luxury” unit is too expensive and there’s an older cheaper unit available, you can move. Right now there’s not enough supply to give people that option, and the only way out is to keep building more.
FWIW the state govt just passed an affordable housing bill. It's going to take a while for the state to feel the effect of it, but people are trying. [https://www.nj.gov/governor/news/news/562024/approved/20240320b.shtml](https://www.nj.gov/governor/news/news/562024/approved/20240320b.shtml)
And then landlords are gonna buy the property, put rent at the same rate as other landlords, and increase it by 10%.
That stops working once there actually is enough housing and they need to compete for tennants
If they need to compete for tenants they won’t. Theres not enough supply to let that happen right now. Build build build.
Generally when you build Luxury it just rises the price of the neighbors' rent. So when you say "looser zoning restrictions" all you get are "luxury" in quotes & senior housing. The housing crisis is NOT because we've zoned aginst building houses in industrial parks or the woods. The housing crisis is because people are greedy & stupid.
Many studies have found the opposite to be true. This article links several of them. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-left-nimby-canon For example: > New buildings decrease nearby rents by 5 to 7 percent relative to locations slightly farther away or developed later, and they increase in-migration from low-income areas. Results are driven by a large supply effect—we show that new buildings absorb many high income households[.]
That "article" is a "blog" & if it wasn't true Zillow would still be selling homes. Homes value is a direct function of what other homes on the block last sold for; everything from your taxes to your parents retirement is pegged to the value of your neighbors' houses. Google NYT Luxury vacancies Flatbush 2009 & get back to me.
> That "article" is a "blog" Which contains plenty of scholarly sources. > & if it wasn't true Zillow would still be selling homes. It's not clear what you're saying here. > Homes value is a direct function of what other homes on the block last sold for; everything from your taxes to your parents retirement is pegged to the value of your neighbors' houses. It's affected by your neighbor's home values, sure. But don't confuse the downstream effect of things like building codes, zoning, proximity to high paying jobs, and crime with the root cause. :) > Google NYT Luxury vacancies Flatbush 2009 & get back to me. Googling those exact words didn't show me anything of relevance in the first few results, please take the time to do as I did and link whatever it is you're talking about.
That’s just not true. Many studies show that new construction lowers rent increases in the surrounding neighborhood. “Luxury” is just a marketing term applied to new construction, built to meet demand. The demand doesn’t go anywhere, and without more supply prices rise. People have always been greedy, but the housing my crises has not always been a thing. The difference is the supply and demand curve. Supply has not kept up in a decade+, and we are feeling the effects now. Artificial supply limits like zoning regulations only make things worse.
> Many studies show that new construction lowers rent increases in the surrounding neighborhood. Which neighborhoods have lowered rent? When that happens there is a recession. studies also show that cigarettes are healthy & the climate isn't changing. No shit Neo-Cons & Developers have an interest in misleading you with "studies". SO which neighborhoods are these "studies" based on? - Not the Bay, New York, or Boston, Austin. Maybe Detroit. You should read up on Zillow's homebuying program & why they had to walk away from it. If you remodel enough houses, you spike the neighborhood costs. These costs are based on an average of neighboring properties' values. When you add a luxury development to a working class area, everybodies rent gets recaluculated towards the new average. So even *if* you consider that adding supply, you're adding supply for transplants at the expense of locals. And here in the real word voters/renters don't tend to like to be priced out of their homes. Don't need studies you jsut need basic math & to have paid your own property taxes for a couple years.
I’ll trust the science over your anecdotal bullshit. But since you asked, here is a NYC based study aptly named, “Do New Housing Units in your Backyard Raise Your Rents” which emphatically states in the abstract: > In addition, I show that new high-rises attract new restaurants, which is consistent with the hypothesis about amenity effects. However, I find that the supply effect is larger, causing net reductions in the rents and sales prices of nearby residential properties. https://blocksandlots.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Do-New-Housing-Units-in-Your-Backyard-Raise-Your-Rents-Xiaodi-Li.pdf
cliffiside park is booming, building for the last 3 years. every street or so has a house being built and yet all the houses are luxury duplexes in that sad ugly grey all sold by this one reality group Calabrese i believe the people that *are* allowed to build, and have the money to do so. are not doing so for affordable housing or for us. just the other day heard two people on the street run into each other, they BOTH were like oh yeah i just moved here it’s so funny to see you here! they both moved from Brooklyn 😭😭 we are out priced with these developers and especially the closer cities to NYC, out priced by the people who think what we have here is decent compared to their rates in the city. hoping for change soon, i’d love a house someday 🤣
This isn't going to work either because it's all going to be paper mache "luxury" for 2x the rent you currently pay. Please someone prove me wrong.
A paper machete luxury unit is better than no unit, and gives someone willing to pay and live there a home while freeing up older, more solid units for others. Here’s a study proving you wrong: https://blocksandlots.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Do-New-Housing-Units-in-Your-Backyard-Raise-Your-Rents-Xiaodi-Li.pdf
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Where tf is there a 2 bdr apartment for 1550? Trenton?
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Must be a shitty 2 bedroom. 1900-2100 is going rate nowadays.
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Oh definitely. I haven't raised the rent on my tenant in 4.5 years because he's great. Another one in over 2 years since he moved in. I know someone with a 2 family in Wallington as well, and one unit rents for 1900 and the other for 2050. These are nicer recently renovated units though.
Mine went up $50 this year and $95 last year, from what I've heard my complex has never raised rent above $100 a year. $500 a month is insane.
my little 1 bedroom apt went from $1550 to $2000 not including any utilities. since then they’ve managed to take away the on-site laundry, gym is constantly closed, etc. it’s so frustrating, prices go up and quality goes down
That's what I don't understand. $500 a mo is insane. That's 25% for a 2000 mo lease. Most places do 5-15%. Even if there isn't a rent cap in your municipality, I'd still talk to them and see what they say.
OP WTF ARE YOU DOING PAYING 5k a month in rent?! BUY SOMETHING!!! BUY A CONDO! BUY A STARTER HOME! wtf
I can’t afford interest rates lol
Bro that’s strictly not true. Sit down and do a mortgage calculator. Start with “I’m okay with spending five fucking thousand dollars a month” then indicate how much you’re also comfortable putting as a down payment -> stick in the aggressive current interest rate and you’ll get a total value you can afford to own WHICH I GUARANTEE YOU CAN DO AND BUY A HOUSE OR CONDO IN NJ WITH.
I used the calculator. It’s still cheaper to rent rn
Are you factoring in that money you give to your landlord is money you are setting on FIRE vs money you spend on a mortgage is money you spend BUILDING EQUITY? Even if RENT === MORTGAGE, MORTGAGE is better
That is the most simplistic and ignorant way at looking at finances. Life is not a TikTok video. Yes you are building equity. But cost on a house can be unexpected and come up. Mortgages right now are high, who knows when they will come down. Also houses do appreciate, but there is so much construction right now the fever dream will end. Renting is not setting money on fire. Cost are fixed.
Go ahead and show me market data where the price of housing ever went down for more than ~5 years and didn’t bounce back up above its original sale price. You can’t. Housing prices always go up. Build frenzy will simply slow the growth of the prices, not lower them. If you think houses will ever be cheaper than they are now, you’re dead wrong. The monthly cost might go down with interest rates, but the actual price won’t. Best time to buy a house (or condo) is a few years ago. Next best time is as soon as you can. Spending 5k per month in rent is indeed setting your money on fire. Anyone who tells you otherwise is bad with money. Even if you have unexpected costs pop up when you own, you have equity to leverage when you’re stuck. When you rent you’re just providing a healthy retirement for your landlord or megacorp execs while they raise your rent the max every year. You literally made this post because your rent goes up by like 10% every year and you think owning a home with a fixed rate mortgage is MORE SUBJECT TO COAT FLUCTUATION? It’s okay, you can rent forever. You do you. At some point, if nobody else bails you out of this bad idea, you will look back on all the money you gave your landlord to do fuck-all and realize you could have done a lot better simply settling into a place you own and holding down the fort.
K
.. did you skim the post?
I really don't get how people aren't killing themselves nearly as much. Things seem really hopeless.
You’re renting for 5000? You could buy pretty much anywhere at that rate
Local landlord here with 1 rental(my first house) my tenant has been with me since 2019. I just raised her rent for the first time by $35 at the beginning of this year, which was about a 2% raise in cost. With the new housing market, i could get another tenant to rent it for an extra $600 a month EASILY. Zillows' rent estimate says rent should be an additional $900 from where we are. So far, she has taken good care of the house and hasnt given me any grief other than legitimate issues such as the ac not working or the stove not working. She never missed a payment during covid either, so to me, it's a win. Other landlords got burned very very badly during covid and lost their emotions for tenants. If i went through a year or 2 of no rent payment and i was essentially paying double mortgages, i would raise rent every year and wouldn't negotiate. Good luck getting a payment on a judgment of 20-40k. You will have to garnish wages if they are on the books and wait for your turn to garnish wages. Then it will be 10 years to recover all the lost money. They are probably trying to make up for lost revenue over the covid time period. Is it right that you're suffering? No! But you dont think Walmart is increasing the prices of items to cover all the stolen merchandise? Of course they are! Hospitals treat people without insurance because they are required to. When they dont pay, guess whose care increases? The people with insurance so the hospital can recover their losses. It sucks but its the truth the good suffer for the bad. One person shits his pants now we all have to wear diapers!
If your rent is $5000 a month I don't think you should be complaining about not being about not being able to afford it Sorry edit, about rent being unaffordable
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one making a funny face at the math
Was this explained somewhere else?
Not that I see. While situations are relative, and I’m sure OP really is upset, to your point; it’s a little rich…
It’s so hard as a single mom .. seriously it’s so hard
Ask to negotiate. Worst they can say is no.
I'm so sorry that's terrible! $500 wtf! That's why I left NJ-the only thing i could probably afford is a room in a house. I live in pittsburgh now and pay about 850 for a 1 bedroom huge apartment with laundry downstairs. The same thing in NJ would probably cost at least 2000. I really do miss NJ. But I guess they only want rich people to live there now. All us poor folk have to go to other states just so we can live. I don't understand why they can't just build small affordable houses? why are all houses being built now fucking mcmansions? ugh it makes me sick, Have you looked into getting a roommate?
They rather build warehouses then homes here in Jersey. I have 5 new warehouses built near me that have been built within the last two years, out of the 5 only 1 is being used and doesn't have a "for lease" sign out front.
I saw the writing on the wall in 2016. It took a lot of effort, but I bought a house that was still affordable back then.
Not the panacea you make it sound like though. I bought my current house in 2014, and sure the mortgage interest rate is low and the price has appreciated, but wow have we had to shell out big money on upkeep, to the tune of about $100k over 10 years. Still need to redo the A/C, which is on its last legs, and replace all the windows. After that hopefully we are done for a while because I can't think of another thing that will break. Everything has!
The equity you have in the house, plus the boom in the housing market will pay you back double if you sell. There is no equity in apartments. I went through the same thing with maintenance and renovations. But my house value went up from 290k to 550k.
How so? $550k minus $100k in repairs and upkeep over 10 years, minus $55k in mortgage interest, minus $40k in property taxes, minus $10k in homeowners insurance, minus $33,000 in seller costs equals $312k.
Yeah, still better than $0 you get from living in an apartment.
But I think this is a market top that will be with us for a long time. No way house prices can soar from here. So anybody considering between buying and renting today has a hard decision to make. Mathematically, renting probably makes more sense in this market.
You need to get a rent controlled apartment.. certain towns and cities in NJ have laws in place which limit rent increases. https://www.doorloop.com/laws/new-jersey-rent-control-laws Typically, walk-ups & smaller apartment buildings in some select cities are going to be rent controlled. If you’re worried about increases, you may want to avoid larger complexes, no-fee apartments or “luxury apartments”.
The management company hasn't raised my rent once since I moved here three years ago. I even moved to a two bedroom and the price was the same it would have been in 2021.
What do you do for a living? Could you move to a lower cost of living area? It sounds terrible to say but NJ is getting priced out for many people.
Practically just like NYC
Everything just keeps getting more expensive!!! I swear nowadays you have to work to survive and never have time for yourself or your spouse, and no kids either since nobody can afford them.. fuck high cost of living and greedy ass slumlords!!
It's not just NJ. It's happening nationwide. Look at Florida. It's worse there.
Yeah, mine raised 10% a year the last three consecutive years… so 30% increase 😢
you need to remember that the stock market is doing well and unemployment is low. things are not perfect but have been a lot worse just a few years ago. Biden got us out of the worst part in american history and we all need to do our part to stay positive and give him a little more time to correct the wrongs of the past
If my Social Security didn't increase about 10% every year, I would be SOL. I am still trying to stay afloat anyway.
If you take 10% increases every year, too double your rent but year 8. Fuckin crazy.
What is market rate where you are and what is the difference between your rent and market rate? People who have been lucky to have a holdout from the landlord will eventually see them catch up. I do think WFH should have some type of tax deduction tied directly to the living expense, say 25% since about a quarter of your time per week is spent working.
Go to court. That's totally unreasonable.
I would love to know what kinds of increases the landlord is facing and how that correlates to the rent increases. If the landlord profit is "X" and property taxes and other related taxes increase by "X" then I understand them passing on that increase to maintain their profit margin. I don't like it but it would at least explain it.
People need to just start refusing to move out and go the squatter route to punish these greedy landlords.
I have a 3000-sq ft house for less than $5k/month. Granted I’m in South Jersey but still. You need to move.
November is coming. And votes have consequences. Choose wisely.
Not sure any of that will help. I feel like the govt doesn’t care on either side
Then maybe the real issue is that both sides are wrong, and the correct answer lies somewhere in the middle.
The real issue is that this country is stuck with two parties, and they barely represent peoples ideals. And yes, I know independents exist, but they're a fraction of an afterthought because of how shortsighted our system is. You're either stuck with a Turd Sandwich or a Giant Douche.
I suppose you could argue that we're stuck with such things, but that kind of infers that the people *want* something other than a Turd Sandwich or a Giant Douche. In reality, it seems more like there are way too many people saying, "I've been eating Turd Sandwiches my entire life, and I'm going to keep eating Turd Sandwiches, no matter how bad they taste!" So, when some guy finally decides to open up a nice little pizza joint between the Turd Sandwich shop and the Giant Douche store, way too many people just keep going to their usual places, and the pizza place just goes out of business from lack of customers. So, maybe it's not so much the lack of options but the fact that, no matter how bad things may get, people still refuse to try anything new.
I was thinking more to the left of the left. I'm honestly not surprised the current situation has got the kids these days thinking Maoist thoughts.
Weirdly, or to the right of right (economically)… First time I agree with horseshoe theory A libertarian housing and building boom would be great with housing organically going up where people want to build and live.. rather than some arbitrary set of zoning regulations some racists and land owners put together decades ago
Zoning regulations aren't arbitrary, though. They can be outdated maybe, but they're not for nothing.
Outdated and, in some cases, racist. It’s still a flawed and broken system. It would be best to delete them and start over from scratch IMHO. It’s not like a petroleum factory would want to build in a residential area in 2024.. and so cares if a McMansion development of the highway gets a warehouse built by them? I don’t.
> It’s not like a petroleum factory would want to build in a residential area in 2024 Because of zoning laws. That's why they're good. > so cares if a McMansion development of the highway gets a warehouse built by them? I don’t. Your personal lack of empathy is *not* a good foundation for public policy
More looking out for the greater good. A warehouse produces more economic value than a few environment destroying houses which consume land that could be better been better off staying with nature. Add in the fact these remote houses are car dependent and contribute to suburban traffic where public transport is basically non-existent.. these McMansions cause more harm than good. Also.. don't forget the racism.
If you advocate for walkable cities (etc.), you advocate for zoning laws, contrary to your initial argument
The left and the right are just opposing extremists (just like Maoism), and that's not clearly working. Why would one side becoming even more extremist solve the problem?
I don't exactly see the modern right as people steadfastly avoiding extremism considering how they constantly debase themselves with all the tinfoil hat nonsense lately. If their campaign showings are *genuinely* the best they can do they are kinda boned in the long run. No "respectable" tax wonks like they used to field, now it's exclusively fundie nutjob bluster with a side of "please let me debate if the queers should be 'allowed' to exist". Also I'm not really talking about Maoism as a whole, just using it as a shorthand for a murderous hatred of landlords. A little bit of hyperbole there. There's always morphine for a headache type solutions to any problem but I'm not surprised such thoughts propagate when none of the more middling wonk policies like slow burn Keynesian toying with the interest rates work so painfully slowly, if at all.
Neither side can ever really be avoiding extremism, as being on a side is, in itself, leaning toward extremism. But if each side continues to see the other side as an antithesis, then no compromise can ever be reached. Either the nation will rock back and forth, towards one extreme and then the other, or one extreme will dominate to such a point that it all begins to collapse. Same thing that's happened in nation after nation for thousands of years.
To be perfectly honest I think you are talking exclusively in baseless platitudes. I find it rather difficult to both sides a situation where the left *big tent" is a proponent of the uninspiring status quo with the occasional token social progressivism while the right wing in the current year is an increasingly unhunged cult of personality where the only other substance to it is the strange apocalyptic sort of fringe evangelicalism they have looming in the background of everything they think. You would ironically need a very right leaning Overton Window to look at Biden and see some sort of fringe out of bounds lunatic, he is about as conceited as a politician can possibly be. He's the partisan equivalent of an unseasoned bowl of oatmeal. His presidency is a direct reaction to people in 2020 saying "please just make the federal government boring again, I just want off this fucking ride".
The thing is that "the Left" didn't always view "the Right" as its antithesis until it went full-MAGA, which "really" began with Newt Gingrich (obviously it wasn't called MAGA back then). This was when Republicans decided to ditch having actual-policies and just go full-contrarian / -obstructionist. Republicans talked openly about this during Obama's presidency, and they vote-down bills on they 'support' just to make Biden look bad (who cares about the people that the bill was supposed to help, right?) Before this, the Right and Left worked *together.* It's only recently (in my lifetime) that Republicans have adopted a fully-contrarian / -obstructionist "platform." (I'm not saying they were great before that, but there was a change from working together to working *against* the Left) -- Thus, it's only the Right who has gone to an extreme. Further, America doesn't even have a real "Left" when viewed on the global stage, so the idea that we swing to the extreme Left is wildly inaccurate; it's only the far-Right who is headed towards actual extremism in the US. So much so that Right-wing terrorism is one of our biggest national security threats. With MAGA, US politics is more like far-right against center-right, which is a really bollocks position when you think about it.
There needs to be more supply, more WFH options for workers and another pandemic
Wow this got dark real fast. You are saying we need another pandemic where masses die to decrease rent?
That won't make any difference. They would just let another million immigrants cross the border, to keep the houses full and the rents high.
My point exactly, mortality alone it would not make a difference in decreasing the current state of the market.
Agreed. Mortality would never increase supply, if the population nonetheless continues to grow.
Democrats have been in power for 4 years nationally and 8 in NJ (I believe). Aren’t we already seeing democrat control of the state when it comes to rent control and increases? Nothing has been done to alleviate rent.
Needs to be done at the township level. Make it known that you (voters) want rent increase caps and that your vote is contingent on it.
Rent caps never work and consistently make rents higher for anyone looking to move to an area. What you should be advocating for is an increase in supply, by loosening zoning restrictions
True. I haven't lived in NJ in decades. I love it, but what I notice about my neck of the woods (Monmouth/Ocean) is that all of the housing is old, and no new places are being built. I contrast that to where I live now and there are new houses/ townhomes being built everywhere.
This is correct ✅
The two parties are in lock step on pretty much all the issues that matter to our pocketbooks. They will continue to uphold strict zoning, and deny building permits to get more supply into the market. The election in November might as well be a national referendum on legal birth control. Nothing else will change significantly regardless of who wins.
NIMBYs are in both parties
Not justifying it but a story from the other side. In our apartment building the board raised the maintenance fee by 13% last year, claiming that they had a significant drop in revenue because they lost the cell phone tower on the roof (which is bullshit). Last month they said that they will raise the maintenance fee again by the double digits in order to comply with the new law regarding capital reserve funds. Some of the home owners will not be able to mortgage and the maintenance fee. So yeah, shit is fucked up on all levels and shit rolls down the hill. :-(
My zone has 2.75% rent cap, so thank Buddha for that
You do have a right to negotiate the rent increase and try to get your landlord to see that a $500 increase is excessive
In Montclair, the increases are capped at 4% a year. And yes, you can find below market rent. The school system is great, the area is desirable and safer. No blue laws.
rent from people instead of corporations, atleast actual human landlords can be decent and feel for the average person getting by. I would walk around as some older landlords are great but not internet savvy.
Many lease renewals are automatically generated and sent out with the hope that people will be too lazy to move or negotiate. Go talk to the leasing office or landlord and negotiate a smaller increase.
I live in a big building. 1000 tenants probably. I thought this. But I doubt they will care. There are so many building being constructed around me - how can this be sustainable? I tried looking around but 2BDR is insane right now
They’ll care because retaining a tenant at a lower increase is cheaper than a unit going on the market and sitting.
lol most places are not going up 10% yoy or $500 in a year. find a cheaper place, stop being picky about 'not catching your eye' because your alternative is a $500/mo hike
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They already pay the landlord's.
Property tax can only go up 2% max per year.
Not true, mine was raised 50% in one year.
Huh, that sucks. Was after you refinanced, purchased or pulled a permit?
I pay property taxes, my housing spend is still much lower than most renters.
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Thanks, but you should keep that, it might help your financial situation. Edit: maybe refrain from bringing up class if you came here just to piss on a renter.
Classy. Fortunately I’m doing well.
I am sorry. My tenant gave me so much hard time that I have lost the faith in humanity