New York: N.Y.C. Tries Saving Housing Imperiled by Investors, The New York Times Deal Book, January 22, 2010
New York City has launched a new plan to rescue moderate-rent apartment buildings that were swept up by private equity firms during the financial boom, then left to deteriorate as they drifted toward foreclosure when the new owners were unable to repay their loans, The New York Times’s Cara Buckley reported.
Under the program, the city’s housing agencies will have $750 million to lend over five years, to enable new, responsible owners to buy and repair buildings that are in the most financial and physical distress.
San Francisco: SF City Attorney Sues Landlord For Endangering Safety of Tenants, San Francisco Sentinel, January 21, 2010
City Attorney Dennis Herrera today filed suit against the property owners of 850 Geary Street, an apartment building whose tenants have been forced to endure an egregious pattern of housing, building, health and safety code violations for nearly five years. According to the complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court this morning, more than a dozen Notices of Violation and Orders of Abatement have been filed against the building owners by the San Francisco Building Inspection and Health Departments since 2005 — and all have gone virtually unheeded.
Chicago: “Landlord’s Defamation Suit Against Tenant Over Moldy Apartment Tweet Dismissed,” by Sam Bayard, Citizen Media Law Project, January 21, 2010
Andrew Wang of Chicago Breaking News reports that an Illinois judge has dismissed Horizon Realty Group‘s defamation lawsuit against Amanda Bonnen. Surely you remember this gem from last summer? The landlord that sued its tenant for tweeting to all of 20 followers that her apartment was moldy; the management company that made—and then backpedalled on—one of the greatest statements (foot-in-mouth-wise) of all time: “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.” Ah, good times indeed.
San Francisco: “North Beach: parking, owners, tenants all unwelcome,” by Anne Marie Hibble, SF Gate On the Block, January 21, 2010
San Francisco, home to so many renters, is also famously kind to its renters. The laws put in place to protect tenants in this city are numerous, often engendering rage in the landlords thwarted by such legislation.
Not all laws, however, serve tenants. The Ellis Act, for example, is a California law which allows landlords to serve eviction notices to tenants when they (the landlords) decide to go out of business much in the way an employer would lay off employees if she or he were to close shop. The tricky thing with going out of business is that in a place like San Francisco, the owner is unlikely to just sit on an empty property. More likely, the owner plans to sell the building for more money (and less headaches) than the current tenants offer.
San Francisco: “More Lembi buildings sell,” by J.K. Dineen, San Francisco Business Times, January 18, 2010
Washington, D.C.-based Klingbeil Capital Management has paid about $10 million to acquire three San Francisco apartment buildings that were part of the Lembi Group’s rapidly disintegrating multi-family empire.
Klingbeil Capital Management purchased the 41-unit 646 Corbett St. in the Twin Peaks neighborhood for $6 million, and the 35-unit 620 Eddy St. in the Tenderloin for $2.6 million. The price on the third property, the 19-unit 1082 Post St., was not disclosed, although it had been marketed for $1.85 million.
New York: “Problems Mount at a Bronx Building Bought in a Bubble”, by Sam Dolnick, The New York Times, January 18, 2010
It was in the community room on the ground floor of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the West Bronx that a young D.J. and his turntables helped to invent hip-hop, the music that spawned a global culture.
A generation later, eyes again turned to the hulking brick tower overlooking the Harlem River when tenants, politicians and housing advocates fought to keep the building in a state-run rent-protection program and out of the hands of real estate investors.
They lost the battle, and the building was sold in 2008. Now, more than a year later, housing code violations have piled up, and tenants are seething at the new landlords. Advocates and analysts say that the building’s problems could be a harbinger of a housing crisis in the city’s low-income neighborhoods, especially in the Bronx.
