So here's the thing: increasing housing supply IS the answer.

BUT

Development should be "out" and not "up". Building up only creates new housing at the same fucking price points. We need to encourage more stock in the cheaper areas. Some kind of density tax maybe?

It's not just the idea of development to which people are objecting, but the type of building that is going on, and who pays for and owns it, and who it's being rented and marketed to.

In JC, wealthy real estate investors are building low-quality "luxury" apartment buildings along the shore and in a few key hubs and then using the buildings to extract ever-increasing amounts of cash from a transient class of professionals who commute to NYC from JC for a 5-10 year period in their lives.

You could certainly imagine different funding, different ownership, different occupants, and/or different types of buildings, and I think different people have different preferences in that regard.

I do believe that relying on the transient population will come at a cost to JC. But I guess in this explanation it’s not clear to me how buildings taking advantage of these temporary residents hurts everyone else.

https://www.npr.org/local/305/2020/02/25/809315455/how-european-style-public-housing-could-help-solve-the-affordability-crisis

Ban AirBnBs in Jersey City. Also, ban (or have a massive tax) for homes in JC that's not a primary residence. It also seems like increasing supply won't solve the problem since there's so much dark money looking to hide in NYC area real estate. So banning foreign or anonymous buyers needs to be enacted, otherwise just increasing supply won't do anything.

Yeah they just keep focusing downtown. Neighborhoods like McGinley Sq have been ripe for gentrification but it’s happening way slower than it probably should. I like that the rent is cheap here but I wish there were more to do.

This is the correct answer.

The best way to decrease rent prices is to remove the path train 😂

Curious if you have any resources on feasibility of building smaller multi-family units. I want to say I’ve come across a lot of material showing it’s very difficult to build smaller buildings without losing money.

Well, the current approach has given us a waterfront that is mostly owned by a group of wealthy nonresident investors who dominate our politics, coordinate to increase rents, and expend the absolute minimum they can on repairs, upgrades, infrastructure, neighborhood stores and amenities, buildings outside desirable areas, etc. I think those are some ways the current approach hurts everyone else.

JC has some AirBnB regulations that won referendum vote, and ultimately upheld after appeal. Not sure how theyre enforced currently.

Would probably work really

Lot of factors at play.

Supply per se isn’t the issue as we had a building binge the last decade. More housing the merrier as it takes off overall pricing pressure (up to a point).

As an alternative scenario, consider our sexier twin sister California (comparable politics, congestion, per capita wages and wealth, etc.) where average anything to do with real estate is so much higher due to zoning-induced housing supply constraints.

Higher borrowing rates of late may have frozen buyers out of the market causing rents to spike (folks still need a place to live).

Another factor may be the dearth of building in the city during the last decade + covid making folks consider crossing the River and living here.

I don’t see an alternative to more supply but more even distribution of it would be a good start as land prices dictate unit price or rent. Lower land prices means cheaper housing.

Fulop: JC Make It Yours!

Developers: Ok

You just described suburbanization.

Lots of ideas, few of which would pass political muster because of where we live, but we could start with mandatory huge chunks of any new building being low-income with strict rent control. Any lot left undeveloped after x years gets eminent domain'd and turned into public housing (looking at you, 111 1st St.)

There's no secret answer here. More supply has to be built.

Some complain about developers building x,y,z. Guys, they are private, for-profit, companies, not a government agency working for the social good.

The truth is if we want affordable housing, the government needs to get involved at all levels, and Americans need to buy back into government built housing. This would need local, state, and federal governments expending billions on just building dense, affordable housing themselves.This would necessitate a hefty increase in taxes too. You can't rely on private, for-profit, companies to build affordable housing. It literally does not make sense for them, they aren't a charity. This doesn't even get into the neccesary sweeping policy changes (e.g. essentially banning R-1 zoning nationwide, restricting agencies from buying up new real estate, etc)

And if we really want a change, well, unfortunately, the only countries with affordable housing in desirable areas (e.g. Japan) fundamentally think of housing as a place to live and not an asset. As soon as people stop seeing homes as an asset, prices will deflate in all but the most premium (think Central Park or Beverly Hills) of places.

America would only buy into this after a cataclysmic housing collapse. One that makes 2008 look like a playtest. Otherwise, it would be impossible to convince every owner in the country that they should no longer consider their home to have inherent value. Basically the way we think of cars. Good luck with that.

We live in a capitalist country and our housing is reflective of that. Without signifficant systemic change you can really only change things along the margins.

I'm pro development but if NYC is still under building any new units will quickly get absorbed no matter how much you build.

I think we can wrap up the thread now

Can't speak to the enforcement of the ABNB laws, but they're on the books and pretty strict. Looking at the 07302 and 07310 zip codes for a hypothetical rental a few weeks from now, it looks like there's about 20 total. Before those laws were passed, you used to see scores, if not hundreds, so it seems they're working.

Bingo

The things you suggest are the opposite of what we need, and would contribute to rising rents, higher infrastructure costs, more pollution, and a more unhappy population.

In short: it's moronic.

Density is the solution, not suburbanization.

> Supply per se isn’t the issue as we had a building binge the last decade.

The problem isn't isolated, our neighbor NYC hasn't been building fast enough, and that means we haven't been building fast enough either, to cover our needs AND their needs.

It’s so ironic that the nyc population who priced out the locals are now complaining about being priced out themselves.

just on your last point, unfortunately i don't even think a house value cataclysm would reset the thought process. too many people would see the reset as a temporary state and buy up land 'for cheap'.

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Japans housing is cheap because labor is almost free there, so a house is only worth the building material.

People forget China’s biggest export to the rest of Asia is migrant workers to Japan, who work for almost nothing (and there’s a whole lot of race relations issues with China/Japan only made more complicated by that). And it’s only slightly better than how UAE treats its migrant workers.

It’s also why Japan is always quiet when China escalates tensions in the region. Poking that bear would harm their economy more than it would give them opportunities. Japan would be crushed if it lost all that labor.

The US doesn’t have a cheap source of labor like that.

It's possible. This happened in Japan, where land is much more scarce. But it requires something so destructive that no one would even consider a house to be a safe long term investment in most areas of the country.

Not sure who you mean. You assume everyone here are dt high rise occupants? Or just generally those people are now complaining g about rents?

We had two on our block get sold and turn into owner occupied after the law passed.

This idea doesn't work. But the goal of getting empty lots developed is worthwhile. How do we get there?

One easy way is to base property tax solely on the amount of land owned. So a residential building on a X sized lot pays the same property tax as a X sized parking lot. So there's a financial incentive to do something with your land that's more productive (and to make it more productive quicker).

Increase density through zoning. Increase the amount of staff at the building department.

Perfect outcome.

This is a great reminder that capitalism is not the same thing as a free-market system.

We live in a capitalist country, but hardly any part of our economy operates in a free market. The housing market in particular is heavily distorted by regulation, for better or worse.

We are in a problem of our own making. High housing prices are a symptom of poor policymaking.

They literally do work in huge chunks of the rest of the world.

More supply has to be built, but it also has to be built outside of one particular area.

Hudson County in NJ and some of the other surrounding NJ counties, plus Long Island and some of SW Connecticut have welcomed the urban sprawl from NYC.

However, north of NYC along the Hudson River has pushed back for too long. I grew up in that area, and they can easily handle significant increases in population. It's unreasonable to be within commuting distance of one of the largest cities in the world and think that your community should stay practically rural for over a century. They need to gradually start accepting the sprawl and realizing that the rural was great while it lasted, but it's no longer sustainable that close to the city.

And I'm saying this as somebody that loves the Hudson Valley. It just doesn't make sense that the mid-Hudson valley is still so sparsely populated while there is a massive housing crisis closer to the city that's ready to blow up.

NYC has created over 1 million jobs in the past decade. They've built only 400,000 housing units in that time. Less than 1 housing unit for every 5 jobs created. This is a regional crisis, and JC can only do so much to keep up.

Exactly. People don’t seem to realize that the majority of housing is still owned by individuals.

No one is expecting mom and pop to sell their houses at a discount for the greater good.

Lol no , labor has nothing to do with it .. have you seen housing price appreciation in China in India. In even mid tier cities in India house prices have 10x in past 10 - 15 years and India has ample labor. Labor has nothing to do with this.

Only option is at a federal level to massively increase taxes on rented out apartments/houses to disincentivize people/companies from buying investment properties

Yeah I mean rent in the whole city is rising but I feel like it’s a direct result of the luxury apts downtown. I was referring to dt occupants originally.

What would renters do then?

Buy. Prices would tank and be way cheaper

Do you know how supply and demand works? If the supply wasn't increased downtown these occupants in downtown would be in other neighborhoods driving up housing prices even more. More housing does not increase prices. Less housing does. The people are coming whether you like it or not.

Um… it’s distorted alright…..by builders and Wall Street buying up those sweet sweet politicians.

Here ya go. The answer. https://www.npr.org/local/305/2020/02/25/809315455/how-european-style-public-housing-could-help-solve-the-affordability-crisis

Developing more doesn't seem to be helping tbqh. I see so many new developments up and down hudson and bergen county, and literally every single one is a luxury condo/apartment building where a 1 bed is 2600+ if not more. I don't give a shit about your pool, half stocked gym, or "amenities room" with a pool table I'll never use. Stop trying to pad out the building with stupid shit to justify absurd rent!

Not really the point I was making. But honestly I can use the same logic, the reason there is more housing is because there is more people looking for housing. The rent is rising (wherever) because people are willing to pay it.

An answer is rail. Build quality rail then people can live in the more rural counties like Warren and Sussex and still commute easily. Build housing of course.

Yes absolutely, and the tax abatements for most of the big buildings currently under construction in JSQ and downtown puts the tax burden on the middle class families that live in single / multi family dwellings.

Ding ding

That’s not easy for immigrants, for example.

I think focusing on the prices of the new units doesn’t tell the whole picture.

China and India are government backed property investment schemes. It’s just a grift to get foreign dollars in and domestic money to stay there.

Here’s one of thousands of videos of people exploring China’s construction bubble and the cardboard (literally) towers: https://youtu.be/XopSDJq6w8E

You can find tons of videos of urban explorers going through these. Just be warned you’ll subsequently be bombarded with ads about foreign real estate after watching one or two.

You just said what I said and used different words.

This, but better public transportation in general. Most people prefer to live within 1h from their workplace.

If you improve transportation, many more areas are within 1h of Manhattan. This effectively increases the supply of viable housing for millions of commuters.

Better public transportation.

Building more housing isn't enough, you need to build housing that people demand. The top criteria for many people is commute time.

If you improve public transportation such that every neighborhood currently 1h away from Manhattan is now 30min away, you just massively increased the supply of demanded housing.

Imagine being able to reach Manhattan reliably in under 30 minutes from West Side/Bayonne. That effectively increases supply and will take pricing pressure off downtown.

There is no one-size-fix-all solution

There are some absolutely clueless and vitriolic folks active in this subreddit. It makes me want to unsubscribe.

The ONLY viable way to decrease rents is to aggressively increase the supply. It is basic supply and demand. No one builds 40-year old “cheaper” buildings. Those come around when newer buildings come online and create competition (aka lower rent) for the older product.

Clowns in this subreddit knock downtown development but they should be looking for ways to have 20x the development if they really want rents to drop. If you want the young professionals not to be “transient” and actually stick around to raise their families, resi projects should encourage 3-4 bedrooms (instead of actively discouraging them) and all the money / taxes they are spending in JC (that you’re complaining about) should be directed to viable schools to accommodate them.

A few years ago, it was estimated that 40% of the buildings that exist in Manhattan would be illegal to build under current zoning rules.

That is the kind of market distortion that contributes most significantly to the housing crunch.

The biggest opponents of zoning reform in NJ & NY are left-wing activists, not developers and Wall Street.

I like this idea. I think even with less demand to work in the office, clearly, people still want to be near the city. Has there been any serious proposals for a north-south path line?

Which under construction buildings downtown have tax abatements? The city stopped issuing new abatements downtown years ago.

Also, an abatement doesn’t mean that zero money is paid to the city. Abated properties make a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) to the city.

Better transit doesn’t matter if the zoning doesn’t change.

Many NJ suburbs still have huge minimum lot sizes, setback requirements, and other limitations on density that that make it so that the only things that get built are McMansions and expensive townhouses.

I agree with other comments about government involvement in expanding supply as a holistic long-term solution.
In the short-term, it's a big city. Greenville, the Heights, Lafayette, Bayview--there are still affordable places to be had. They won't have all the amenities that DT has right now, but still safe neighborhoods with their own character and charm.

Not sure how that makes better transit not helpful? Obviously if you have both it will be ideal but there are many reasonably dense places with bad commute times.

>The US doesn’t have a cheap source of labor like that

Mexico would like a word.

Not even close.

Labor laws and employment laws still apply, and especially in blue states are reasonably well enforced.

Nope.

Rent control is nearly universally reviled by economists across the political spectrum. Practically every place that has enacted strict rent control measures also has long waiting lists for housing because price controls exacerbate shortages.

The eminent domain idea doesn’t work because the US constitution (see the 5th and 14th amendments) requires state and local governments to pay just compensation to the owner of the land that is taken. That money has to come from somewhere. Good luck getting people to shoulder another huge property tax increase to pay for that. That would be political suicide for any politician who proposes such a plan.

So let me try to tie it together.

1. The reason the rent is rising is because there is an influx of people looking for housing. Cue our supply-demand illustration.

2. That demand is in part because of the accommodations made to downtown jersey city.

I watched dt become gentrified. No one from nyc was rushing to move to the hood in dt jersey city. There were shootings every week. Developers saw the potential in the less than ideal environment and built luxury apts and promoted brownstones on the strength of the nyc commute, skyline and probably financial incentives from the mayor.

They were able to charge a comparable rate to lesser quality apts in nyc which lured the population like the gold rush.

This is where my first comment stems from. The people that moved here during the early gentrification stage played a role in kicking out the locals because they established a demand that incentivized developers to keep building and expanding.

I was implying that the same process is happening again which I thought was ironic for them to complain about.

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It is discouraging, but when you pay attention to these threads you’ll notice that it’s usually the same handful of people continually spouting BS no matter how many times their false claims are debunked.

These people employ the same cheap rhetorical tricks as Trump supporters. And it works because they are appealing to people’s emotions. And it is much harder to debunk lies than it is to make fact-free statements that are meant to rile people up.

>NYC has created over 1 million jobs in the past decade. They've built only 400,000 housing units in that time. Less than 1 housing unit for every 5 jobs created.

Your math aint mathing... 1 million jobs, 400K housing units means 1 housing unit for every 2.5 jobs created. So, half as bad as you posited. And, considering that the average NYC household consists of 2.63 people (source), your stats are not as damning as you seem to believe. There is no question that NYC is not building enough housing, but one has to also dive into this a bit more carefully to understand how that is the case considering that the numbers being cited don't make that argument persuasively. What is happening is that the household size figure is distorted by some larger families and households in lower economic rungs, as well as by ethnic groups and such. CUNY publishes a very interesting breakdown and analysis of housing stats in NYC. In any case, most of the new construction being built is targeted at groups that often live alone, or with another person (couples with no kids) and so the 400K units being mentioned are probably housing a number closer to something like 800K people, leaving the rest to be absorbed by neighboring towns.

@marketurbanism writes a lot about this on Twitter.

The short answer is that zoning and building codes in the US make it especially uneconomical to build small apartment buildings the way they are built in most other parts of the developed world.

One big thing is that it’s practically impossible to build an apartment building with just a single staircase if it has more than 2 or 3 units. Our egress requirements create lots of wasted space, which raises costs. Keep in mind that despite onerous safety requirements like these in US building codes, our buildings are statistically less safe than those in western Europe where most of these restrictions don’t exist at all.

Here’s an interesting article to read on that issue.

What I’m trying to say is that the investment isn’t worth it if towns adjacent to transit don’t increase density further.

Westfield is relatively dense as far as suburbs go. But what’s the point of spending money to improve transit there if they don’t allow a meaningful amount of new housing to be built? Otherwise, the investment only benefits a limited number of people.

We go through this every time this pops up. You're wrong. You're very wrong. You're incredibly fucking wrong. Stop being so dumb and wrong. 1) Many economists in this country are conservative. They espouse that shit because they are perfectly happy and content with coming up with a conclusion and then putting out bullshit to make it work. 2) Economics as a whole is mostly bullshit espoused by people who just want free cocktails and tell people who will give them what they want to hear. 3) It literally works all over the world, you fucking idiot. Go look at what was posted elsewhere in the replies here about how it works all throughout Europe, in that article's case, Austria.

And yes, people in this country are very fucking stupid and would not want to pay a small tax increase in order to ensure that we could have good public housing (which would in turn ease the financial burden for many more and actually allow people to live in an area where they work and not pay 50%+ of their take-home for rent, which would bring up a new group of middle class people, etc. etc. etc). You're correct in that just about no politician would actually try and make peoples' lives better.

You got to that conclusion the completely wrong way, but you at least got one thing right.

This is great thanks

Closing on a condo. My mortgage isn’t much more than rent.

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More crime. Only realistic way to bring down the rents.

The problem with this is that JC has built more new supply than any other city. We are the poster boy for new development. Instead it made the city nicer and somehow more desirable?

I was looking this up just now but what the fuck happened to all the bus lines? I was trying to figure out how to get to Lowe’s on 440. It seems there are only 4 lines from JSQ? Did they give ‘em up for VIA?

I’m thinking about the buildings right near the Holland Tunnel. Do those not have tax abatements? I understand it isn’t zero money, but isn’t it still a substantial amount?

I used to live on Greenville and Westside but that commute is horrible. They need to fix that if they want people people to live over there.

This is so logical and reasonable when you explain it. Unfortunately I don’t see NJT or anyone else doing anything to help

This is exactly why communities will never allow it. Why would someone build a train station in their town to drive up rents and allow the riffraff easy access.

How do?

I thought it was clear they were describing developing neighborhoods that get looked over by the city government and therefore developers, e.g. west side, mcginley sq, etc.

Like 75 Park Lane and The Beach? They don't have tax abatements as far as I can tell.

I don't think any of the new buildings in the "soho west" area do either. The first Cast Iron Lofts building did get a 5 year abatement, but that was done 6+ years ago before the city stopped giving out new abatements downtown.

You can see a list of abated properties and PILOT payments vs. what taxes would have been in the city's budget. Click the latest "user friendly" budget on the page here and go to page 7. They don't list the address for every property though, which is annoying.

I thought it was obvious they were talking about developing other parts of JC rather than just strictly downtown.

Yeah I worked on a new affordable development recently and even that didn't get an abatement.

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The sad fact is that, no matter what JC does, it can't fix a regional housing shortage. JC can't fix the problem, only nibble at the edges a bit.

Does JSQ not exist? It took a while for development to move outside of DT, because DT was a bunch of parking lots that were easy to develop.

I mean this is a good idea that I entirely support, but wouldn't that just mean that Bayonne or whatever gentrifies instead of (or more likely in addition to) Jersey City?

gotta repeal the faircloth amendment before any public housing can be built at scale. The only time anything big gets built in this country is when the federal government pays for it.

I mean this is exactly the argument used in San Francisco to keep supply constrained and home prices high in a few select areas.

Improving any neighborhood makes it more expensive. But overall prices will fall if there are more livable neighborhoods. In this case, other parts of JC will be cheaper if Bayonne is seen as comparably attractive as DT.

yeah maybe though I have a hard time imagining bayonne would ever be more desireable than JC even with better connectivity. But I think the point is doubly true for the real suburbs, what's the point of making their commutes easier if there isn't more housing there? Like if the goal is housing affordability without displacement, improving transport alone just shifts the displacement elsewhere

A drastic increase on property tax for people and corporations owning more than two residential properties that have no permanent resident. You want to run a hotel out of your residential property then you pay a hotel tax like actual hotels. Also too many people owning housing as assets that they keep empty. They are incentivized to treat residential property like the stock market right now and it’s pricing out regular people who just want to have a roof over their head without going into financial ruin.

More supply just goes to the same people and corporations that own everything else and make renting and owning too expensive for most people.

The part of JC doesn't matter in this sense. The strategy in downtown or elsewhere in JC like Heights or Westside should be the same: increase density. That's how you relieve pressure on rent.

And since we happen to have an underbuilding NYC right next to us, we have to build A LOT because it's difficult to build enough as New Yorkers just keep coming over and filling it up. The answer is build, build, build. Build up.

Not sure I’m following, I think OP has a valid point. If only one or three neighborhoods are seen as desirable within JC (basically downtown, Heights, Newport) then the other areas are going to be neglected. They need to build out in order to avoid all the investment and development from getting concentrated in these small handful of locations as opposed to the rest of town, which consists of many many other neighborhoods.

>The biggest opponents of zoning reform in NJ & NY are left-wing activists

Don't think this is true at all. I've seen a lot more "Left-wing" activists calling for zoning reform such as removing parking requirements, increase in height, etc.

That's all correct except they need to build up and not out. JC doesn't have any farmland to suburbanize.

It’s really confusing. I think the private bus company does the 31(?) bus which is the 440 shopper. The private bus routes don’t track on the NJ Transit app, making them useless because I don’t know when they come or what the schedule is.

I guess I’ve been waiting for the wave of gentrification to crest up the hill from downtown and south from JSQ for it to converge on west side, but it hasn’t really happened yet.

It doesn’t make sense how they let go of the AC lines but didn’t replace it. The society hill, 440, Montgomery / Westside, actual 440 line and numerous others. Then they don’t want us to drive cars? The fuck outta here.

This isn't rocket science at all. It just takes the political will to defy NIMBYs and allow density in areas served by transit. Expanding transit is also great, but requires tremendous amounts of money, which is always a problem. And heaven forbid it takes parking or driving street space from cars!

Many of you have seen this pic of Kensington Ave I've posted before, the poster child of JC density issues with R1 zoning. 2 identical lots, 56 prewar homes in nonconforming buildings on the left, 8 zoning conforming homes on the right.

https://preview.redd.it/9rkcq7783rqa1.png?width=799&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=164e95eee67c336dfd4196058aaa4d52b34b76c4

And we cannot do it alone, the suburbs must densify to relieve the pressure. The town I grew up in on Long Island is 35 minutes from Penn station, has two rail stops, a cute walkable Downtown, and zero multifamily development. That is Anti-Urbanism.

THIS

very important. JC is still affordable the areas are just less desirable atm. hopefully that changes.

thanks for this post that sparks real discussion on solutions to important issues in JC . hopefully folks are reading some of the thoughts across the board on this topic

Right, I’ve always wondered why the bus stop signs mention a Montgomery/West Side bus but I’ve never really seen one running. Does that one make a straight shot down Montgomery to downtown? That’d be so convenient.

West Side to Downtown pass the old hospital.

Right, I’m not quite sure why OP is downvoted so heavily. If you only build up, rents are going to remain high and get higher in the desirable areas. The underdeveloped areas will remain cheaper, but less connected to the rest of town due to shitty mass transit options. There’s a middleground somewhere here

Anyone not wanting to help with something that is the primary thing their organization is in charge of.... should be fired. NJ Transit not wanting to help with transit projects? Replace them. PA not wanting to help with PATH expansion? Fire 'em. Replace them with a new organization, especially one that's accountable to elected officials.

That would be so convenient. I usually take the number 80 bus, but the fact it goes north to Journal Square before heading downtown makes it take a lot longer than it should.

Who is firing who in your scenario? Not sure if I’m following

The public should be replacing an agency that isn't performing. So if, for example, the PA won't do anything to help expand PATH, then the NJ governor should work to dissolve the organization and replace it with a new one, a new one that has accountability.

It's like complaining that your grocer always has spoiled meat. You use a different grocer.

We should be killing organizations that won't do their job. Unfortunately, we will just keep having our elected officials take kickbacks and do nothing.

I can’t tell if you think being nicer and more desirable is a good or bad thing?

Regardless of whether you’re being sarcastic, it is asinine how many JC posters think JC getting nicer and more desirable is a bad thing. It should be the paramount goal of any city to get nicer and more desirable.

Pretty much why it's always been smoke being blown with how realtors for ages have been swearing up and down how "Greenville is going to be the next Williamsburg" and all that other nonsense when so many parts of the city are just a complete unnecessary science project to get to very simple point A-B places with how junk the public transit can be.

I hate to be so cynical but I just don't see much ever really changing despite how the state of public transit doesn't need to be so shit.