Economics/Class Relations

Are the Landlords Bluffing?

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There’s something compulsively watchable about @NYVacant. The account, run by an association of landlords who oppose the state’s rent-stabilization law, is meant to be a shocking reel of neglected, empty apartments — 20,000 of them across the city, all too costly to repair and too cheap to rent out. To me, the videos still feel like a real-estate fantasy: A two-bedroom in Washington Heights that has a kitchen the size of most studio apartments last rented for $1,100. A prewar, tin-ceilinged Chinatown one-bedroom: $570 a month. The campaign is one piece of a larger fight over just how many of the city’s rent-stabilized apartments are being intentionally left empty right now — and why. Landlords say they’re backed into a financial corner. Tenants accuse them of taking these apartments ransom. The city swears that tenants and landlords have both got it all wrong. So who’s telling the truth? Clio Chang went down the rabbit hole.

—Katie McDonough, senior editor, Curbed

Are the Landlords Bluffing? And why is it so hard to tell?

Photo: @chipnyc, @nyvacant
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Categories: Economics/Class Relations

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