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New York's Most Expensive And Opulent Condos And Co-Ops Are... Empty
While in Manhattan overall, the number of non-primary residences is 29%; in some neighborhoods, favored by investors, such as Midtown, the share of nonprimary residences ranged as high as 44%. As The NY Times reports, however, the figures may be grossly underestimated, since the agency did not include apartment buildings that receive 421a tax exemptions, leaving out more recently built condos that are widely known to have high concentrations of foreign buyers, including One57 and 15 Central Park West. As one executive noted, "All you have to do is buy an apartment as a limited liability company and they can’t find you... It seems just ludicrous."
Executive Plaza - at 150 West 51st Street - has the highest percentage of non-primary residences of any building in New York at 74.4%!!
As The NY Times notes, the issue of occupancy in New York City has become a hot-button topic in recent months, with much made of foreigners who buy expensive apartments to use for just a few weeks a year. Some argue that they drive up prices, while others bemoan the fact that these buyers do not pay personal income taxes. A bill has been introduced in Albany that would impose an annual pied-à-terre tax on properties worth $5 million or more.
While the budget office research sheds light on ownership across the city, as The NY Post concludes, the true number of part-time owners is difficult to pin down. That is because buildings that do not receive the particular tax abatement the budget office examined were excluded. Many of these unconsidered buildings are recipients of a more lucrative tax break known as the 421a tax exemption.
“The I.B.O. data doesn’t include townhouses or 421a buildings, so there are a lot of misses, but of the condos and co-ops that are captured, the number of nonprimary residents is high,” said Andrew A. Beveridge, the president of Social Explorer, a firm that tracks census data and demographic information, and the chairman of the sociology department at Queens College.
To fill in the data gaps and to better inform the discussion about potentially taxing pieds-à-terre, the New York City Department of Finance has spent the past month examining the ownership status of units with the 421a tax exemption.
So far, it has been a tall order. “It is complicated, since there is no requirement that you have to be a permanent resident to be eligible for the 421a tax exemption,” said Theodore Oberman, the director of commercial exemptions for the Department of Finance. “So it isn’t something we typically capture.”
To overcome this hurdle, the agency is reviewing apartment ownership by looking at owners’ Social Security numbers along with their New York City personal income tax records. So far, it appears that in Manhattan, around 36 percent of apartment owners in 421a buildings are nonprimary residents and a slightly smaller percentage are primary residents. However, results are inconclusive because the remainder could not be identified.
The most likely scenario for the ownership veil is that the home was purchased through a limited liability company, or L.L.C., which does not require Social Security numbers. “All you have to do is buy an apartment as a limited liability company and they can’t find you,” Mr. Miller said. “It seems just ludicrous.”
As for the data that has been uncovered, “it reflects the increasing level of income inequality in the city, that you can buy a relatively expensive condo and not have to occupy it all the time,” Mr. Beveridge said. “Housing has a strange spending curve. If you are poor, you spend a high proportion of your money on housing. Then as you get up into the middle class, people pay off their mortgages and you don’t see as much spending on housing. Then as you get really wealthy, the rich spend a lot on housing, but they do it by having a lot of homes.”
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Won't someone please think of the poor Chinese & Russian oligarch's children!!!
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Can I get off this ride, now?
I'm starting to feel nauseous.
Money laundering to support U.S. real estate values and bank balance sheets? Say it isn't so....
Question, when it is time to sell will all the foreigners work together and not sell to support asset prices??
Since my stupid rock washing ass can not afford to buy an apartment building, I will keep putting shiny stuff in buckets and not worry about other asset classes and their associated counter party risks.
Did you wash rocks in Prince Williams sound
after the Exxon Valdez mess..
Big Smith, Little Smith
Eleanor, Knight Islands
rock washing 101...
It's all de Blasio's fault. Just turn your back on him and that'll fix everything.
/sarc
No, MP I missed that party but a bunch of my buddies made a killing at it while it lasted. I am washing gold from gravel (when it is not frozen). I do own an old US Navy LCM-6,"Julie Anne", that worked on the cleanup hauling oiled sorbent pads and the such.
Yet the Fedheads/Krugman/LIESman/Hilsenrath crowd want MOAR of this!
Greta Van Susteren apologizes to France: 'Obama blew it'
http://tinyurl.com/lsesnqq
From Greta:
A day of head-scratching has turned to anger as Americans wonder why their leaders snubbed today’s massive unity rallyin Paris. Where were Obama, Biden and Holder?
Well, Eric is busy selling guns to drug lords, Biden is busy doing what he does best, bore people, and Barry was busy explaining to Mooshell where he was last night.
I'd be embarrassed as shit if Obama, Biden and Holder represented our country to France...ummm, oh shit.
Regarding Barry, no - this just in — he's busy taking advantage of this crime committed by three people (assuming they were freelancers, rather than agents of government(s) ) to craft yet another *endless war against a noun* ("extremism" this time rather than "terror", in order to better target US citizens within the US):
Obama Declares War On ‘Extremism’ – Are You An ‘Extremist’ According To His Definition?
…In the wake of the horrible terror attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in France, Barack Obama is speaking very boldly about the need to win the war against “extremists”, and he has announced plans to host a major global summit on “extremism” next month…
…This list will really give you a good idea of what Barack Obama means when he uses the word “extremist”. Each of these 72 items is linked, so if you would like to go see the original source document for yourself, just click on the link. As you can see, this list potentially includes most of the country…
How did Victoria Noodleman the ass-istant SecState summarize the attitude towards Europe?
Oh yeah, it was "F*CK the EU”.
.
Leftists run New York. With the ideal leftist tax rate of roughly 105% of income (someone else's income, of course) who in their right mind would live in NY? Rational people: FLEE WHILE YOU CAN. Leftists: Please stay - somebody has to pay for all of the NY government waste and fraud.
Sure logicalman. You can change it any time you want. It's only a choice between fear and love
Bill Hicks sends his love. He's waiting for you at his compound in Austin where he likes to have family BBQ's with celebrities and shoot his .50 cal
All part of the plan to obliterate the middle class.
Truth is that the middle class as we know it is a product of the 50 years after WWII.
Prior to that you had a huge working class and a very small 'owner' class. The working class rented their housing - home wonership was unusual outside farms and small communities. Workers in cities RENTED. GO back and look at the 1940 census - lots of economic info is reocorded in it.
The rentier class was losing their grip in the last half of the 20th century and went full out in efforts to re-establish the old order. Looks like they're succeeding. Load up the workers with more and more debt. College, the one way to move up the ladder in the past, is now a trap- designed to load people up with debt. A hughe number of people that managed to buy houses have now lost them and are once again back renting (and STILL in debt).
It's all about pursuit of cheaper and cheaper lobor - driving prices down. You ship jobs overseas or bring in cheap labor (legally or illegally) if you can't relocate the jobs. Of course it doesn't matter how cheap things are if nobody is working and can't afford to buy them. But that's not the overall game plan. Serfs didn't buy ANYTHING. They worked their whole lives for their lords and masters, bound to the land, defacto slaves. Same thing in the mid to late 19th century - coal miners or whoever lived in company housing and bought food and all else at comoany stores, forever in debt to their employer, unable to ever leave.
Honestly, the post WWII middle class came about because a certain group of people lost their stranglehold on the global economy for a short while. Instead of Wall Street supported business, private small business flourished for 30 years. Then the certain group gained control again and they started to tighten the noose around the middle class.
@cynicalskeptic
+1 on your post.
I find it funny that libertarians always rant and rave about the "strong middle class" of the post WWII era yet it was progressive policies that allowed the biggest middle class in world history to flourish.
Yes, just look at how the "middle class" has flourished in progressive Russia and Cuba. LOL!
Complete morons. Free market capitalism, founded in morality, is what made the U.S. the wealthiest country in the world in under two centuries. Even the "poor" in the U.S. are wealthy compared to the middle class in progressive countries like Russia and Cuba.
The poor are growing in the U.S BECAUSE of progressive (read Dear Leader Obama, et al) government policies.
Russia and cuba aren't progressive, they're loopy dictatorships.
This destruction of the midle-class started in the 80's with increasing job insecurity and house price rises outstripping wage rises.
For America's future look to the UK. 1/3 of all medical professionals are foreign born and trained. 80% of nurses recruited since 2010 foreign born and trained. Net immigration of 18-38 year olds is over 600,000 pa, ie over 3% of the full time workforce pa.
The UK politicians stock response to criticism of this policy is to suggest UK born youngesters work harder at school. Nothing is said of the far lower qualifications needed to enter medical professional training in the countries from which this labour is being recruited.
Fecundity is the touchstone economic measure that can't be manipulated, it can only go unreported. UK fecundity is 1.86, 12% below replaceent. 50% of births have no father named on the birth certificate. women born in the UK, regardeless of heritage, with a partner are 75% of the relevant demographic but account for only 25% of births.
The policy isn't a driving down of wages, it's killing off independent working and middle class families, ie genocide.
China's one child policy. Why ?
Policy led declining fecundity in western europe. Why ?
My conclusion is an overarching global policy to reduce world population due to a belief amongst the elite that we never get off this planet. Hence resources are finite and green sustainable production is the only course open to keep the human race going.
I don't agree with this conclusion. Yes Seti hasn't found any evidence of alien civillisations. It's likely we are alone, the only intelligent life in this Galaxy and probably in the Universe. What we currently know of physics suggests faster than light travel is impossible. But physics has only touched the surface of understanding. Why spend billions seeking greater knowledge of quantum physics if it's a dead end. It's far too early to conclude we can't spread out from earth.
So I'm with Elon Musk. Build sustainable green economies but reach out as well. Force the pace of science but keep amoral consciousness free Ai in the lab and disconnected. And start having an open adult conversation.
Interestingly a leading UK physicist stated much the same in a popular science program. Within a week of broadcast he was on live TV re-canting although he didn't address the reasons for his original conclusion.
Not got the hang of this yet.
So let's remove all the restrictions on free-market capitalism. You really think any small business owner stands a chance against already established mega-corps that can buy and sell their products at 1/10 of your prices? Free Market Capitalism can't work anymore. This thing called globalization happened.
Something about those who control the present control the past, and those who control the past, control the future.
Much like the article in the destruction of the 160 year old courthouse documents in the link below.
https://stumblingintheshadowsofgiants.wordpress.com/2013/12/21/160-year-...
Or if one does even the most rudimentary of searches, one can find how many libraries are discarding books to dumpsters.
http://www.wmur.com/news/thousands-of-unh-library-books-found-in-dumpste...
My point being most people won't even KNOW about what happened in the past because families have been splintered, the stories that elders could or can tell are ignored or simply buried.
In regards to the company system, the company scrip was most infernally clever part of that, for company scrip was only good there an no where else. If the employees were paid in other lawful money, they at least might have a token chance of escaping.
One also might notice how debtors prisons are making a come back.
Might need to dust off my copy of Oliver Twist yet.
The internet can provide more information - it can also provide far LESS. Things like Google Books can cut both ways. More information is available but it can be controlled far easier as well.
It's MUCH easier to rewrite history when there's only ONE version online.
Once you've gotten rid of all the old hard copies, who's to even say the online version got 'edited'?
Orwell didn't even come close......
I grew up in an isolated town in the California high desert.
Back in the 70's my dad and I made our monthly dump run. Dump was about twenty miles from the house further into the desert. An old black man 'ran' the dump. He'd be there keeping the pit burning, scavenging, and dirrecting where he'd like the load to be dropped.
We went out there early one Saturday and found the guy sitting on a chair, staring into the pit. We asked why he wasn't burning. He said he couldn't do it.
During the night at least a dozen trucks had come and dumped books. Library and school books from locations two hundred miles around. Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, piles and piles of books.
The black guy told us that he couldn't read but that he knew books had real value.
Dad and I dumped our shit to the side and spent the next five hours scavenging books. We had autobiographies, science, history, complete encyclopedias, mathematics and the complete Zane Grey series in perfect hardback.
Had them stacked for a year until we converted the garage into a den...complete with exxtensive bookshelves. He still has them.
When something I read online doesn't seem right, I go back to the books he has to double check. Print can't be changed by back-spacing.
Thanks for saving books. I agree it is a great loss when a book is burned.
I volunteer at a library book sale. We are given 30,000 books per month. Yes, per month. People move, people die, people get tired of books, libraries close, we get the books. For a number of years, after the sale, anything that didn't sell (admittedly it had a chance at $5/bag) got pulped. Then I saw my chance (with the organization's bureaucracy). It took a lot of finessing, which I am lousy at, but it worked:
Now, we have "free book night" after the sale and anyone can take as many books as they want for free. Hundreds of people show up and take truckloads of books, every month. A lot of them get resold - good!!! I hope someone affords a tastier dinner that way. It really doesn't affect our sales figures (not that I care). Any leftovers are given to St. Vincent de Paul (they have a chain of bookstores in Oregon and they pick up donations as far away as CA, where I am).
My neighbor saved a pickup truck *(long bed) load of books from teh Oxford press that were about to be disposed.
We went on Amazon, and found that all of these brand new and very nice looking books had 0 value. I picked through and got a few interesting titles.
The rest went into his woodstove last winter.
his family aren't readers.
maslow and all that.
Cynic-Good comment , thanks.
However, labour has gradually changed in the Western world for the better beginning, dramatically, after the great European plague of 1347-1350. So many serfs had died that labour became scarce such that the serfs could claim more pay, compensation from the rentier class and their quality of life was greatly improved. And, as well, there was less people such that the the same amount of arable land led to relative 'resource riches'.
This phenomeon expanded till making its apogee with the 'middle class' you allude to in the western world in the fifties, sixties until the 'Empire Struck Back' as you so aptly described, above.
Plenty of empty apartments in China too.....
Is this a world-widetrend? Soon you'll have the wealthiest 1% owning 99% of the world's housing too..... But then isn't that what a rentier class is?
Go long IYR, DJUSRE. Go short SRS. Listen to yout Rabbi.
Mostly used as tax shelter vehicles amongst other purposes.
A tax ONLY on $5m or more?
One can either respect and guarantee private property rights in the fullest or not do so. It's that simple. Either you believe in property rights or you don't. And would you want to live under an administration that didn't??
Everyone has the right to use his own property in any way he sees fit, be it speculation, used a "few weeeks a year" or investment - or just to store his furniture. Who knows? And who can say...?
How about if said property was obtained fraudulently?
You OK with that?
You mean squatting?
Certainly better than no one living in there....
I thought this was a libertarian leaning blog... Who gives a shit what someone else is spending their money on? Rich assholes from some other countries are buying houses/condos that they only live in a few weeks per year. Big surprise.
.
Well, no offense, but you probably thought wrong. But hey, it happens all the time.
You see, the problem with categorizing something as "[label] leaning" is that terms like [label] can have rather volatile and situationally nebulous definitions.This property makes terms like [label]ist and [label]ian ideally suited for use as intentional detours around thinking.
Imagine if one were to take a representative sample of people considered (either by themselves or by others) to be [label], and asked each to define, in detail, the meaning of [label] and describe what it means to be a [label]ist. I'm fairly certain that the results would reveal wide, and sometimes diametric, divergences on matters considered significant to key issues associated with [label]ianism.
It is far easier to herd public opinion by portraying events, issues, and entities as belonging to or being associated with [label]. It provides a convenient detour around thinking, reinforces stereotypes, and helps to obscure common ground and/or areas of cooperation between [label] people, [different label] people, and non-[label] people. The [label] classification system is a central element of the divide-and-conquer method.
In all fairness, the intentional lack of precision of terms like [label] renders it difficult, if not impossible, to determine the merit of any statement which uses [label] as a significant premise.
Excellent post... I think it should be used automatically in retort to the endless republicrat spammers and their ad hominem attacks on rational discourse at this site.
Perhaps the Tylers can reject labelist posts ... they are after all not an exercise in free speech but an exercise in suppressing it.
Such censorship would also have the benefit of shortening the reading time ... its gettting to the point that meaningless babblists are driving readers away from Zerohedge.
This is really weird I only hit post once
Duplicate
Dup
Dup
Holy cow that's a lot of duplicate posts
I thought this was a libertarian leaning blog... Who gives a shit what someone else is spending their money on? Rich assholes from some other countries are buying houses/condos that they only live in a few weeks per year. Big surprise.
I thought this was a libertarian leaning blog... Who gives a shit what someone else is spending their money on? Rich assholes from some other countries are buying houses/condos that they only live in a few weeks per year. Big surprise.
I thought this was a libertarian leaning blog... Who gives a shit what someone else is spending their money on? Rich assholes from some other countries are buying houses/condos that they only live in a few weeks per year. Big surprise.
I thought this was a libertarian leaning blog... Who gives a shit what someone else is spending their money on? Rich assholes from some other countries are buying houses/condos that they only live in a few weeks per year. Big surprise.
I thought this was a libertarian leaning blog... Who gives a shit what someone else is spending their money on? Rich assholes from some other countries are buying houses/condos that they only live in a few weeks per year. Big surprise.
I thought this was a libertarian leaning blog... Who gives a shit what someone else is spending their money on? Rich assholes from some other countries are buying houses/condos that they only live in a few weeks per year. Big surprise.
I thought this was a libertarian leaning blog... Who gives a shit what someone else is spending their money on? Rich assholes from some other countries are buying houses/condos that they only live in a few weeks per year. Big surprise.
I thought this was a libertarian leaning blog... Who gives a shit what someone else is spending their money on? Rich assholes from some other countries are buying houses/condos that they only live in a few weeks per year. Big surprise.
I thought this was a libertarian leaning blog... Who gives a shit what someone else is spending their money on? Rich assholes from some other countries are buying houses/condos that they only live in a few weeks per year. Big surprise.
I thought this was a libertarian leaning blog... Who gives a shit what someone else is spending their money on? Rich assholes from some other countries are buying houses/condos that they only live in a few weeks per year. Big surprise.
I don't quite get it yet. What kind of leaning blog is this now? Tell me one more time......
Someone's 'Enter' key is stuck.
Or their asshole is gaping open.
I think his computer stutters
Duplicate post
Yeah! What a spam circus!
It's a tale of two economies...
Zip Code. Municipality. Mortgage Delinquency percentage.
Zip 10001 Manhattan: 8% delinquent.
Zip 10026 Manhattan: 9% delinquent.
Zip 10030 Manhattan: 10% delinquent.
Zip 10035 Manhattan: 20% delinquent.
Zip 10036 Manhattan: 15% delinquent.
Zip 10454 Bronx NYC: 25% delinquent.
Zip 10456 Bronx NYC: 40% delinquent.
Zip 10459 Bronx NYC: 14% delinquent.
It's even worse across the river in NJ. From Fairview all the way to the So. Jersey Shore.
Worse inland from NYC. -Newark, Elizabeth, etc. = OUCH.
See for yourselves what is going on around you. Zillow interactive:
http://www.zillow.com/visuals/negative-equity/#13/40.7653/-74.0113
At some point the Government has to step in and declare the occupant the owner.
Certainly if were talking a decrepit state oownership needs to be established as "abandoned."
Lots of vacant/expensive "vacation" homes where I live too.
I wonder how many of these 'homeowners' are also delinquent on thier property taxes?
"I wonder how many of these 'homeowners' are also delinquent on thier property taxes? "
The Bank cannot foreclose or it not only has to officially realize the losses on it's books but also accept responsibility for the property taxes on an ongoing basis.
It's one thing to write off a non-performing loan, and quite another to make property tax payments on a depreciating asset.
IF the property is not kept up it is also possible for the municipality to levy fines for decreptitude and/or claim abondonment/blight and utilize eminent domain to seize the property.
The property tax issue is one that particularly burns me up. Many mortgages have the property tax payment wrapped in the monthly payment and sent from the bank quarterly.
I am 100% certain that there are many people living in homes that have not paid the mortgage or property taxes for years.
-Sending their children to the local school district although they are effectively squatting.
Collateralization of loans in a debt-based fiat system is a serious design flaw.
Taxation of collateralized property exacerbates municipal financial stress precisely at the moment that the local financing authorities are in the most trouble. Taxation of labor and collateralized property amplifies the effects of economic stresses even further. People lose jobs, mortgages and property taxes go unpaid. The government bureaucracy struggles to find revenue through whatever means it can to avoid cutting back it's own benefits and resorts to business and commercial tax levies, criminalizes/penalizes behavior diverting the constabulary from peace-keeping to revenue collections and harrassment.
The whole system is such a mess...
i read the whole nyt piece. pointless, meandering, meaningless, drivel.
You just described everything in the NYT. It is full of unreadable dreck.
People around me believe the home they bought for $125k 15 years ago is somehow worth $450k now. 15 years ago the average worker could afford $125k, the average worker can't afford $450k. If there isn't a buyer who can afford what your asking, your house isn't going to sell.
Somehow this fact escapes most people.
It seems that most people wouldn't know a fact if it jumped up and bet 'em on the arse.
+1 adr
excellent post
Today the average worker can't afford a $125k house, let alone the inflated $450k la la land price. That's why lots of thirty somethings still live at home with mommy and play Call of Duty all day in their underwear in-between shifts at their $9 an hour job.
Exactly, there's no point for the 20 and 30-somethings to bust their asses when most of it is going to be confiscated to pay on debt and national promises incurred even before they were born.
Mr. Market is a Motherfucker when you finally HAVE to sell.
Can you explain this to the central bankers and politicians who believe the only way to economic growth is inflation. Can you explain to them about supply and demand and the price discovery mechanism
Ghost city coming to your town.
Hyperinflation typically wipes out the value of RE. So these 'rich' RE owners are likely on the path of not being so rich anymore.
Isn't RE a hedge against inflation?
So they Buy a Condo and pay property taxes, but don't use services. They don't pay income tax, but they are seldom in the City, so there is no real loss.
Doesn't that make it cheaper for everyone else?
It's a good thing.
New York city is like Satans anus.
1) You can't park anywhere so you have to take mass-transit with the diseased commoners on sub-ways and buses that smell like urine.
2) Even if you do have a car all the roads are narrow and loaded with traffic which makes driving almost a pointless exercise in futility.
3) You pay 3500+$ for a 650sq.ft apartment.... or millions for a 750sq.ft "condo".
I don't understand why anyone who considers themselves "rich" would want to live in New York city in the first place. . .
The entire point of being rich is to have a big house with a garage for your 650,000$ car.... if your 650,000$ car spends its entire life in a 1000$ a month parking garage and you never get to drive it/ look at it / sit in it. . . wtf is the point????
Its like rich people are just stupid and sacrifice all luxury (the entire fucking point of being rich) just to make more money they have no use for and to compete with others to prevent them from getting rich, YOU FUCKING MADE IT NOW GET OUT!!! GO RETIRE AND BE HUMAN YOU FUCKING ROBOT RICHIE RICH BASTARDS lol
The madness of society that is maddening to watch!
Im glad these places are vacant, it shows that atleast SOME PEOPLE out there have some common sense.
If I had 100,000,000$ and you told me these places were for sale for the prices they were asking I would laugh in your face and point to my 670,000$ mansion 40 minutes away with a super car and a professional model sitting on the hood next to a mountain of cocaine and a pool with a slide.... a slide into a pool of jello and professional women wrestlers..... mmmm jello.....
The only reason for initiatives like FATCA, and going after Swiss bank accounts is so that the US can have the ultimate monopoly on running tax havens (Delaware, Nevada corps, etc) and money laundering (NYC real estate via directorless offshore LLCs, EB-5 investor class visas mostly used by mainland Chinese citizens, etc). Crush the offshore jurisdictions and let everyone know, we won't subject your money to scrutiny as long as you park it in the US.
I don't understand why anyone would want to live in NY or any other big city. Time to flee and go over the wall. I lived in upstate new york for four years and that was too much for me. Residents are treated like shit, it's kind of a co-dependent thing. For four years the NY drones told me how backward Kansas is, when asked if any has been there the answer was always NO.
Upvote. The propaganda memes are strong in the hive.
So if I show up and the owner has "ahem, left the door wide open" can I secure it with a new lock?
The rich know these aren't good deals.
Somehow some old brick veneer apartment blocks with tiny windows and no balconies, as in that photo, doesn't quite rate as 'opulent' for me.
I can kind of understand why they may be empty.