The Daily Dirt: It’s almost Super Tuesday! Here’s what the candidates think about housing

An analysis of New York's top real estate news

From left: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar (Credit: Getty Images)
From left: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar (Credit: Getty Images)

It’s Super Tuesday eve. Here’s how the candidates’ housing plans reflect their differences.

Following Joe Biden’s victory in South Carolina, two of his moderate opponents — Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar — withdrew from the presidential race and endorsed the former vice president. They were among Biden’s biggest threats in appealing to voters as an alternative to democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, who some Democrats view as too extreme to defeat President Donald Trump.

The remaining candidates’ housing plans are symptomatic of their differences, especially when you look at the ideas put forward by Sanders and Biden. Back in September, Sanders unveiled his $2.5 trillion housing plan, which includes a national “just cause” eviction standard that would make it more difficult for landlords to evict tenants — and is often referred to as universal rent control. He also proposed spending roughly $1.5 trillion over 10 years to repair and maintain 7.4 million housing units and dedicating $32 billion over the next five years toward ending homelessness, Georgia Kromrei reports.

Meanwhile, Biden unveiled a plan to invest $640 billion into housing over the next decade. The funds would largely strengthen existing programs (similar to his approach to the country’s healthcare system), including Local Housing Policy Grants and Low-Income Housing Tax credits.

Landlord-tenant disputes were among the top complaints from consumers last year. Will that change?

According to New York Attorney General Letitia James, such conflicts ranked fourth among the top consumer complaints in 2019.

Landlord-tenant disputes — over issues including harassment and the release of security deposits — ranked behind only Internet-related, consumer-services and automobile-related complaints, Mary Diduch reports. The AG’s office received 1,910 complaints last year involving landlord-tenant disputes.

It remains to be seen if such complaints will wane in light of the rent law and additional proposals that have surfaced this year — or escalate as tenants and landlords disagree on the application of new policies. The state’s rent law capped rental application fees at $20 and limited security deposits to one month’s rent. Mayor Bill de Blasio last month proposed requiring landlords to offer an alternative to security deposits.

What we’re thinking about: The coronavirus, mostly. How are you thinking about the outbreak? Is it affecting your travel/business plans? Send a note to kathryn@therealdeal.com.

CLOSING TIME

Residential: The priciest residential closing recorded Monday was for a co-op unit at 61 East 11th Street in Greenwich Village, at $3.8 million.

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Commercial: The most expensive commercial closing of the day was for a commercial building at 45 Ainslie Street in Williamsburg, at $11 million.

BREAKING GROUND

The largest new building filing of the day was for a 67,072-square-foot school at 1302 Edward L. Grant Highway in Highbridge. The School Construction Authority filed the permit application.

NEW TO THE MARKET

The priciest residential listing to hit the market was for a condo unit at 15 Central Park West on the Upper West Side, at $25.8 million. Corcoran Group’s Deborah Kern has the listing. — Research by Mary Diduch

A thing we’ve learned…

In the 2018 film “Sorry To Bother You,” protagonist Cassius Green (played by Lakeith Stanfield) calls Japanese telecom executive “Mr. Yoshi Son” who answers the phone while sitting on the toilet. Huh. I’m sure the name similarity to SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son is purely coincidental. Thank you to Kevin Sun for providing this fun fact.

Elsewhere in New York

— If this isn’t a sign that you should take the new coronavirus seriously, I don’t know what is. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio held a press conference together (!) to discuss the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the state, Gothamist reports. State health officials hope to conduct 1,000 tests for the virus within the week.

— Lobbyists are hopeful that backlash from California’s law that grants gig economy workers “employee” status will keep New York from passing its own version, Politico New York reports. Cuomo said lawmakers are still “all over the place” and the conversation isn’t “mature enough,” meaning it is unlikely that a bill will pass soon.

— NYC saw virtually no snow in February, marking the second-smallest snow total for the month ever recorded in the city, the New York Times reports. Last month was only the sixth time since 1868 that Central Park had no measurable snow in February.