India Uncut
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Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Get out of my house
This may sound familiar to residents of Mumbai:
Only in New York? Um, no. Read the full piece about how a new market has popped up, of facilitators who negotiate payments from the landlords to the tenants of rent-regulated apartments to get them to leave. (Link via Cafe Hayek.)
Whatever your position, apartment dwellers here are basically divided into two categories: the fortunate and the damned. The fortunate are those in rent-regulated apartments -- generally people lucky enough to live in rental buildings with at least six units that were constructed before 1974. The damned is everyone else. You can spend $3,200 a month on a mediocre one-bedroom with a view of an alley if it's in a decent neighborhood. It's an ongoing struggle: for tenants, the endless quest for a better deal; for landlords, the endless quest to whisk the fortunate out of their apartments and add names to the list of the damned.
"In every other city landlords want to keep people in their homes as long as possible," chuckles Richard Aidekman, who owns 10 apartment buildings here. "Only in New York is the goal to get them out."
Only in New York? Um, no. Read the full piece about how a new market has popped up, of facilitators who negotiate payments from the landlords to the tenants of rent-regulated apartments to get them to leave. (Link via Cafe Hayek.)
