Hacker News Reader

Comment by tempsy | Hacker News Reader

What share of apartments in NYC are actually managed by corporate landlords? It actually seems like one of those markets where they are the minority.

View on HN

> As of October 2022, according to New York real estate data tracker JustFix, landlords with ten or fewer units own only 13.2 percent of the city’s total stock and only 1.2 percent of all rent-stabilized apartments. By contrast, the top 5 percent of New York City landlords control nearly 65 percent of units and 87 percent of rent-stabilized ones. Staggeringly, the top 0.3 percent of landlords, whose portfolios exceed one thousand units, hoard almost 44 percent of the city’s rental units, and a whopping 56 percent of those protected by rent-stabilization.

https://thebaffler.com/latest/pity-the-landlord-dulik

I guess I distinguish between large landlords and “corporate landlords”.

When I think of corporate landlords I think of publicly traded apartment managers like Avalon. Those exist in NYC but it’s not the most common type of rental at all.

I wouldn't be so sure. I lived in an old pre-war building that was owned (and changed ownership between) property management/private equity companies.

If anything, the large buildings in nyc call for corporate landowners instead of every day people renting second homes.

That’s not the same as say renting an Avalon apartment. When I think corporate manager I think of the publicly traded rental companies like Avalon and Equity Residential.

Why is this meaningfully different? In both cases you are dealing with a corporation. In both cases that corporation is using whatever software to set rents. The inflection point is between "I can work with my landlord as an individual person" and "there is some fucking management company sitting between me and any sort of thing I need to get done." That inflection point is long before you have 10,000 doors.

the company who owned my apartment, Rose Associates, used the software in TFA. I got the "sorry software says no" response from the leasing agent.

So... I don't think they're as different as you think.

Wouldn't have to be "corporate landlords". Realpage and the others (Yardi, MRI, Entrata, Appfolio) also have single-family modules or software products. It's not all just multi-family.

Hell, I think Realpage actually has several different single-family software titles (they tend to do lots of acquisitions).

This isn't 1982, no one wants to manage this crap on paper, or in some craptastic Excel spreadsheet.

In my experience close to 100% have brokers and large property management companies handling at least the leasing process, so the end result is the same.

It's mostly luxury rental buildings but it's enough to create distortion.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com