Apartment City

Photo: Robert Clark Even though annual rent growth over the last year in New York City has been at its slowest pace in recent years, many renters are still finding themselves priced out of the market. Rents are rising twice as fast as wages, hitting the city’s low-income earners the hardest, according to a report released today by the listing site StreetEasy . Asking rents went up by 33 percent city -wide from 2010 to 2017, or nearly 4 percent annually. Over the same period, median wages only increased 13 percent since 2010, or just under 2 percent annually. Wage inequity is neither a new phenomenon or something confined to just New York City. “But what surprised us was the extent to which it has exacerbated problems around rent affordability despite New York City’s strong economic growth and efforts to spur more housing construction,” Grant Long, senior economist for StreetEasy, tells BuzzBuzzNews . The growth seen in asking rents also outpaced the growth in costs of other goods l...

By Vince Golle Signs are mounting that rising home values are starting to close the door for more Americans, threatening to temper the momentum in residential real estate . Purchases of previously owned houses unexpectedly fell in July to an 11-month low and sales of new homes were the weakest this year, reports showed this week. While the median time on the market for existing properties was 30 days in July compared with 36 days a year ago, indicating resilient demand , the number of listings remains lean and problematic.  Limited inventory has been a nagging theme for the housing market and is the primary reason why home prices continue to climb and outpace wage growth . While borrowing costs remain low by historical standards, affordability is its weakest of the expansion. The number of Americans who view home-purchase conditions as “good” has fallen to a six-year low, according to the University of Michigan’s latest consumer sentiment survey . To be sure, more still say the bu...

Darrow Montgomery When  Matthew Pfaff was looking for a rent- controlled apartment in D.C. last year, he thought he could find one within his budget and in a convenient location—without much ado. But more than a year and a half later, Pfaff is reflecting on how much of a headache that process became. After applying for a one-bedroom unit at the historic South Cathedral Mansions apartment building in Woodley Park, property management staff repeatedly delayed his move-in date and made conflicting statements about what his rent would be, according to a lawsuit Pfaff ’s attorney Aaron Arce Stark filed in D.C. Superior Court this summer. The Silver Spring resident is suing for damages he allegedly suffered because he had to go month-to-month on his existing lease at a higher rate, hired movers, and sold some furniture. “I didn’t want to move every year to stay in an affordable unit,” says Pfaff, who remains in the same apartment he was living in when he applied. “I’m not entirely sure...