rent heartache.

Unfortunately, your landlord can raise the rent, on a stabilized apartment, as much as 4.5% now. For two year leases, they can raise it even more (this part, I've never understood??)

I was able to successfully negotiate with our landlord, even though we are in a rent stabilized place. Our rent only went up a few dollars, instead of the $50ish it was supposed to go up.

Perhaps your landlord would be willing to listen to an offer?

Subject: Re: rent heartache.

brooklynleather wrote: the sketchy thing is, if i sign a 2 year lease my "deal" is that it goes up $80. does that make sense to anyone? i am so confused.

Let's say your landlord raises your rent 4%, which would be $50 on a $1250 apartment. If he raises it another 4% the next year, that would be an additional $52, for a total of $102. If you take $80 increase for two years, you end up paying about $4 on average more per month, but you rent would be $22 cheaper heading into your 3rd year. HOW CONFUSED ARE YOU NOW

It makes sense for the 2 year-lease to have a slighlt higher increase because that increase is amertized over two years as opposed to an additional increase in year 3. From your situation, it doesn't seem like you're saving money. In fact, my calculations show that you'll have paid an addtional $3.60 at the end of year 3 by opting for the 2-year lease.

The only way you would be paying LESS by signing a 2-year lease is if they charge you some amount less than $79.85 as the rent increase during the lease period.

Now, to break it down, I took your rent increase of $50 and projected your rent to be $1110 right now (year 1). If you have a $50 rent increase from year 1 to year 2, that's 4.5%, now keeping with 4.5% for the increase from year 2 to year 3, you will then be paying $52.20 + $1160 = $1212.20 each month in year 3 as opposed to $1190 each month for years 2 and 3 if you sign a 2-year lease. So, the only benefit you get right now is paying the same rent over the two years as opposed to having to re-adjust your budget to fork over another $52 a year from now.

Hope that helps.

sign the 2 year lease.

last year we took the 1 year lease b/c the increase was 2.9% vs. 6.8% or something for a 2 year. this time around we took the 2 year lease b/c it was respectively 4.0% vs. 7% or something like that --- who knows, i did a lot of math and all i know is that our "3+" bedroom floor through is what 1-bedrooms are going for... and in terms of the landlord, when i talked to him about $$$ in the past, he told me that with the direction the neighborhood is going, "you're lucky your not paying that same rent to live in bushwick". :roll: too bad he is kind of right. prospect park vs. bushwick, i'll take the (in my case) $119 rent increase for 2 years and still end up better than market, way better. sucks that a $119 rent hike is indeed "awesome".

$50 more is like a big night out once a month

Point taken, but I would love to know where in NYC $50 constitutes "a big night out."

I've always negotiated (stabilized and not) rent increases with my landlord because (and this is hearsay - I cannot back it up) I'd always heard something like 20 pct of all renters were either late payers or not paying at all. So if you are a timely payer - you are gold to the landlord. At the same time, $80/month for 2 years is $1920... I bet it would cost your landlord a good chunk of that money or possibly more to hold your apt open for a month and advertise for a new renter. IE...the ball is in your court, to a certain extent. Good luck!

good news (for tenants) for next year:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/nyregion/27rent.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The board voted 5 to 4 to allow increases of 5.75 percent on two-year leases and 3 percent on one-year leases. The rent board did not make a separate adjustment for tenants who pay their own heating bills, as they had the previous four years.

The increases, which are smaller than those approved last year, are for leases renewed between Oct. 1, 2007, and Sept. 30, 2008.

Subject: Re: goodbye prospect heights

brooklynleather wrote:
i have a better chance of sustaining myself/keeping my prospect heights apt. if i didnt have 500 dollars worth of health insurance to pay every month.

any suggestions?

You may want to look into an HSA plan rather than a standard health insurance plan. It's not right for everyone but it may be able to save you a couple bucks. Some info is here: http://www.perfectny.com/PDFs/broker_forms/HSA 06.pdf

Freelancers Union (freelancersunion.org) seems to have plans that are a lot less expensive than $500! I never heard of this before (nasro-co-op.com/health/state/ny/index.shtml) but it looks interesting. You can get group rates by joining an organization like that (maybe a credit union or other organization you know). I did it for years. Insurance was still crazy expensive, but not as bad as $500 a month--ouch! --E.

Also check out NYS Health Plus.