Monday, July 20, 2020

Is New York City Declining?

When serious people want to see New York City’s future, they look first at real estate. Surely one of the most expensive cities in the world, New York currently appears to have lost its panache. Fewer people are coming to New York. More people are leaving. Rental prices are down. Purchase prices for condos and co-ops are generally down. To be sure, some properties are selling-- my agent neighbor told me so the other day-- and yet, we are only at the early stages of New York’s decline. 

One quarter does not a trend make. And yet, considering the problems with rising crime, a grossly incompetent mayor, and a school system that is being absurdly mismanaged, one imagines that the early indications of New York’s decline are correct. Better yet, in a city where 1% of the people pay 40% of the taxes, when a certifiable imbecile like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggests an extra tax on billionaires, the giant sucking sound you hear is the exodus of billionaires and the loss of New York’s tax revenue. The truth is: when you elect people like Comrade de Blasio and AOC, your city is doomed.

Fox Business has the story, beginning with lower rents:

Declining apartment demand attributable to the coronavirus crisis is causing a record number of New York City landlords to cut prices.

Rent prices were discounted across 34.7 percent of properties in the Big Apple during the second quarter, according to new data from real estate website StreetEasy.
The median asking price fell by 6.7 percent, which is about $221 per month or $2,652 per year, due to reduced demand.

Higher-end apartments saw the largest price cuts – as wealthy buyers have flocked to the suburbs since March.

And prices may be headed even lower in the near future.

“Demand will remain low as new hires, interns and students begin jobs and school remotely, and as many New Yorkers escape the city temporarily or permanently,” Nancy Wu, StreetEasy Economist, told FOX Business. “As inventory piles up due to this lack in demand, even more landlords will need to make rent cuts, and rents will likely drop even further.”

People who keep a finger on the pulse of New York City look at the moving companies. They, more than anyone, will know how many locals are planning to move out of the city:

As previously reported by FOX Business, moving companies said they were experiencing an “insane” uptick in demand as residents looked to leave Manhattan during the pandemic.

While some people were headed to suburbs in the near vicinity, others were picking up and heading to states in the south, like Florida and the Carolinas.

So, the movement out of New York is beginning to pick up speed. We will continue to follow the story, religiously. 

One notes, in passing, that one’s own neighborhood is largely unaffected by the rioting, the looting and the spike in crime. If the city continues on a downward spiral, it will not much matter. 

5 comments:

urbane legend said...

All those aspiring actors and actresses; if NYC is declining, where will they go to get there big break?

Stuart Schneiderman said...

Hollywood?

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Garcetti is threatening to shut down Los Angeles. Where will these aspiring thespians go now???

This is a real problem. Someone has to do something. It's a crisis.

urbane legend said...

Never fear. CGI will give us movie characters who can use obscenities as well as any live actor. That's what any crime/action/mystery is these days, obscenities linked by gunfire.

Anonymous said...

The problem is that all the refuges from NYC will move to other, well run areas and vote in the same idiot Dems into office. Red states should have boarder controls to keep the lefty idiots from New York and California out. If you are sane and can prove it you'll be allowed to emigrate, but if you love antifa, support gun control and think the answer to crime is to hug a thug then you have to stay in the hell hole your vote created.