I think the old saw was "drive til you qualify." My impression is that the net distances have stayed the same; houses are sure getting more affordable, but qualifying for that loan is getting a tad tougher.
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You'll be amused to learn that in the latest Naomi Klein article in Rolling Stone, she labels BNY Mellon as evil, evil!
Megan, are you ready to admit that rent-stabilization and control may have, in fact, isolated greater NY from the wild price-swings that have devastated other regions of the country?
In other words, that your 'best-way-to-destroy-a-city' line may be "right" only 50% of the time (and when it is, usually in a direction that is not too hard to fix)?
Not for anything - just trying to make a progressive-libertarian out of you...heh, heh, heh...
No. What has isolated New York from the price swings is that the financial services economy turned down later than the rest of the economy, and the most expensive buildings in New York require downpayments ranging from a minimum of 25% to a maximum of 100% (i.e., "all cash" buildings where you cannot take out a mortgage). There was no such thing as a subprime borrower in a good co-op, because the co-op board would not let anyone buy who looked even remotely likely to default. Moreover, financial services people, because their income tends to be structured into highly variable bonuses, usually pay with cash or small mortgages.
In the areas where single-family homes (and thus subprime loans) were prevalent, out in the boroughs, prices have been falling; it's just being hidden by the fact that the more stable top of the market has been pulling up the averages. And according to my mother, who sells real estate there, prices are now falling devastatingly fast in New York thanks to the decline in FS jobs. In practice, that means that the market is locking up; prices are sticky.
None of these things have anything to do with rent control. I might add that there are several half-completed buildings in my father's neighborhood that seem to be moving awfully slowly; like, not at all.
If what you mean is that there are fewer owners, yes, that is true. But are those renters better off? To be sure, they are not facing foreclosure. On the other hand, I got evicted so my landlord could renovate and sell; it didn't feel much better after I'd put a lot of work into the place. And the renters who aren't and wouldn't have been foreclosed pay a pretty high price: they have to pay thousands of dollars in brokers fees every time they move, they can't improve their place, they have no guarantee of tenure, and they're crammed into tiny places because New York's housing stock expands so very slowly. Only in New York could my 400 square foot first floor cave have attracted admiring glances and demands to know how I'd found such a great place.
OMG, 400! You dog, you.
Was it mostly square or was it literally triangular (don't laugh - I did, when a broker showed me a triangle apartment once, without warning me...).
Since we can assume that co-op boards couldn't assess a financial deal to save the world, their cash-only ritual is the dumb man's alternative to credit risk assessment (even while many co-ops themselves continue to have mortgage debt - go figure that one!).
Assuming the market were not so distorted, would it be possible for prices that owner's pay to so far outstrip the amount that renter's pay in equivalent?
Sure, the two diverge (they certainly did in the late 80s), but could it ever have happened as much as would be implied by the price rises that occurred in other parts of the country, where no "stabilization" occurred in one segment of the market?