From the August issue: In a bad economy, the plight of the unemployed gets most of the
attention. But as the ranks of New York City’s jobless increase, and
more people downsize apartments or take on roommates to deal with the
economic downturn, they also send their landlords’ utility and
maintenance costs skyrocketing in rental buildings.
“Where you get lots of move-ins and move-outs, you worry about
damage at the building,” said David Picket, president of the Gotham
Organization, which operates more than 1.7 million square feet of
residential and retail real estate in New York and other parts of the
Northeast.
“Even in a good market, it’s a fine line,” he said. “When you boost
rents up, which forces certain people to leave, you create certain
costs for yourself that you don’t have if people stay in place.”
In a bad market, however, those costs don’t come with the added benefit of higher rental income.
