Glug, Glug

HUD this week also backed away from the controversial Small Area Fair Market Rent plan to adjust Section 8 rents by zip code, suspending implementation for at least two years.

New York’s top multifamily lenders also happen to lend to owners on NYC Public Advocate Tish Jame’s Worst Landlords List. She issued a list of bank names on Tuesday. Most of the banks that commented insisted that they only lend on existing rent rolls and that they demand escrows for repairs when dealing with troubled properties.

Claims that preferences for local residents when renting new subsidized housing discriminate against minorities have expanded to the suburbs, with the latest lawsuit filed against the Town of Bedford in Westchester.

Asking rents in New York City have increased 33% since 2010, according to a StreetEasy analysis, although the growth rate has slowed since 2012. Asking rents on the bottom 20% of the market grew about 3% in the last year while rents in the top tier stagnated, the report said. Rents on high end units in San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles, meanwhile, grew at an even faster rate than in New York.

A study by OneTitle identified 541 vacant buildings in New York City, or, as they styled them, redevelopment opportunities. The report is free with registration at onetitle.com.

If you have a super paying even partial rent in a stabilized unit, don’t expect to get the unit back if you fire him or he quits, a recent Housing Court decision in Richards v. Barrows confirms. Payment of any part of the rent puts the unit into regulation, the court said.