There's a new breed of landlord buying up apartments around the city, and tenant advocates say "predatory equity" firms are bent on turning affordable housing into cash machines.
Tenants say rent-regulated apartments threatened by investment firms
The trend of private equity firms to purchase rent-regulated buildings in working-class neighborhoods could gut the city's stock of affordable housing, according to Benjamin Dulchin, deputy director of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development.
"Almost 10% of the city's rent-regulated housing stock has been purchased by private equity-backed developers in the last four years," said Dulchin.
The danger, he said, is that such firms typically raise financing on Wall Street on terms demanding high and rapid returns. "They know they have to squeeze these buildings and raise rents fast," said Dulchin, "and that pressure leads to harassment of tenants to drive them out."
2 comments:
I dont understand this. All the advocacy groups for 'affordable housing' only talk about massive building projects for 'affordable housing' never preserving 'affordable housing' in current units.
Lets see ... they get plenty of favorable poltical coverage ... they get plenty of favorable press coverage ..... they go after tweeded groups .... ummmm ... does anyone see some smoke?
That is because middle class long term residents live in rent stablized units, not the transient giggly tweeder who is living in a basement.
The first make trouble for politicans (how can you bulldoze a community to satisfy a campaign debt to a donor if grumbly quality of life types are in your way) and the second, well they are manna for the machine.
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