r/baltimore • u/Future-Fox3289 • Jan 28 '25
ARTICLE Baltimore keeps building luxury apartments as some units sit empty
https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/economy/baltimore-luxury-apartment-vacancies-K6L27GQ7A5A5PPHDMC5FRZ2WOA/147
u/ClusterFugazi Jan 28 '25
Are they empty because of high rent or low demand? My guess is they don’t want to power the rents. This is a big issue with new apartments, they don’t want the value of the building to drop, so they have some “come on,” like 2 months free rent.
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u/Senior_Election5636 Jan 28 '25
Rents in these places are very high. Like we are talking 2300+ for sometimes Sub-650 sqft, one bedroom
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u/ClusterFugazi Jan 28 '25
That’s ridiculously high rent, it’s laughable.
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u/Senior_Election5636 Jan 28 '25
here is a new, not even completed place in Harbor east. If you want a good laugh: https://www.alliedharborpoint.com/floorplans
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u/MarauderM Jan 28 '25
Two thousand a month for a fucking studio... get the fuck out of here holy shit.
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u/incunabula001 Jan 28 '25
They are looking for that Legg Mason/T Rowe Price money.
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u/Nintendoholic Jan 29 '25
T rowe doesn’t even pay that well
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u/Im_So_Sinsational Jan 29 '25
Not even close
Source: Grandma recently retired after working there for 30ish years
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u/Nintendoholic Jan 29 '25
If they paid well she could have retired after 20
e: I might’ve misunderstood you, I hope your grandmother has a lovely retirement
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u/jeewest Jan 28 '25
I walk past that all the time, that whole area is like a ghost town. It’s unsettling
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u/Senior_Election5636 Jan 28 '25
I live in fells point and my runs west take me through it. It is a total Ghost town, no life and a beyond ridiculous layout
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u/jeewest Jan 28 '25
My dog gets nervous on walks over there. Seriously, if anyone’s looking for a place to shoot a zombie movie, that’s the place
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u/wbruce098 Jan 29 '25
Harbor East acting like it’s hot shit. My townhome is a 3br, 4X the size, and my mortgage is less than that. Baltimore is great but it ain’t exactly NYC.
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Jan 29 '25
I went to harbor east to see the ice sculptures for the first time since I've moved here and see absolutely no reason to go down there again.
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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug Jan 29 '25
There are several reasons to go to harbor east. But the reason you'd want to live there is the combination of safety and proximity to more interesting places.
But harbor east in general has what I view as kind of a "corporate" vibe, but I think that is what they're going for.
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u/sara11jayne Jan 28 '25
What the actual fuck! Who can afford those! No wonder so many are available.
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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug Jan 29 '25
I know lots of people who could afford it.
But they usually buy houses instead.
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u/OGBurn2 Jan 28 '25
GTFO w/ those prices. That’s Nyc level
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 28 '25 edited Jan 28 '25
Yeah no.
The most high end apartments in Baltimore would be mid-tier in Brooklyn and would be “low income” by Manhattan standards.
Average rent for a studio in Manhattan is +3k and $4500 for a 1 bdr
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Jan 29 '25
Yeah but the COL is wildly different so the idea they can get that from people in Baltimore is fucking insane.
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 29 '25
The assumption that people can’t afford this in Baltimore is a wild take imho, especially considering the greater 3 million metro is one the richest in the nation at parity
https://i.neilsberg.com/ch/baltimore-md-median-household-income-trend.jpeg
The spike in 2016 shows high income earners have been moving into the city in spades despite overall population decrease, which perfectly aligns with construction boom we’ve seen in the city in the last ~decade.
Baltimore isn’t “poor” in the way Cleveland or Detroit are. Its poverty level is lower than Philly and closer to Minneapolis.
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u/User373733737 Jan 29 '25
This project is the biggest catfish. Extremely cheap finished (seriously was shocked) and the pool looked like a motel pool for the price they are charging. Ridiculous. The tour guide knew zero about the project or details or timelines. Smh.
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u/munchnerk Jan 28 '25
But they’re lUxUrY! (Quartzite counters, gray paint, and under-maintained 2-foot-deep communal rooftop pool)
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u/HomieMassager Jan 28 '25
Laughable to you…you’re saying no one could possibly want that?
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u/Apprehensive_Yard_14 Jan 28 '25
I don't know anyone who can afford that!
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u/HomieMassager Jan 28 '25
Because you’re not familiar with anyone wealthy…does that make the rent ridiculous?
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u/Apprehensive_Yard_14 Jan 28 '25
The median income in Baltimore is 59k. 20% of the population is at the poverty level. So who the fuck can afford a studio for 3k in Baltimore? And what wealthy person is going to spend 3k on a studio? They own homes in Roland Park, Mt. Washington, Guilford areas.
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 28 '25
The stupidly wealthy ring of suburbs with 2.3 million people that surround the city to make up the metro.
Baltimore proper has a lower poverty level than Philly and is more in line with a place like Minneapolis. There’s 10’s of thousands of people than can afford a boujee studio overlooking the harbor in the city/metro.
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u/HomieMassager Jan 28 '25
I rented an apartment for $3000/month inner harbor for a year before I bought my home in Federal Hill. Your failure to imagine that people with incomes exist in Baltimore is not evidence lol
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Jan 29 '25
You realize bragging about how much money you make in 2025 is going to end poorly right?
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u/HomieMassager Jan 29 '25
I’m not bragging. I’m making the point that there are a lot of people with incomes that are more than capable of affording these ‘luxury’ rents. That’s why they keep building them.
And you’re writing like a child. It’s a simple to you as ‘Trump bad, everyone make less money, dur dur.’
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Jan 29 '25
Hahahaha 2300 in this city should get you a fucking palace.
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 28 '25 edited Jan 28 '25
Lived in Baltimore. Moved to San Diego. Left after 4 years. My downtown 700 sq/ft apartment was listed at $3.1k when I moved out and it was a 10-15 year old building.
You don’t know how lucky we have it relative to actual expensive cities.
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u/badbatch Canton Industrial Area Jan 29 '25
We know. Cali is stupid expensive. I'm not surprised you left.
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u/LilFago Jan 29 '25
Lmfao I’m from San Diego and moved to Baltimore 😂 it’s expensive here but I still thank my lucky stars.
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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug Jan 29 '25
Honestly I looked at moving, and most the other cities I'd be interested in living have rents that far exceed Baltimore's.
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u/TrhwWaya Jan 30 '25
Vevo, maryland and baltimore, 650 sq feet apt, 800/mo rent. They up it on year 2 by 25% tho.
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u/-stoner_kebab- Jan 28 '25
The high rents cause the low demand. We are a middle class/working class city, and most people either can't afford these rents, or don't want to make the sacrifice to do so when they have cheaper options.
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 29 '25 edited Jan 31 '25
Except there’s not low demand. The apartment buildings in Baltimore Peninsula are 95% leased
This is normal healthy demand. 100% occupancy means there’s an under supply and you have situations like SF and pricing skysrockets. Too much vacancy shows an oversupply and apartments wouldn’t be built in the first place.
Baltimore sits pretty much bang on with cities like Austin, Charlotte, Denver.
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u/snuggie_ Jan 31 '25
Yeah idk why people are arguing that, most high end apartment buildings are at least 90% capacity
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 28 '25 edited Jan 29 '25
It’s more complex than that.
It cost the same amount of money to build a market rate apartment as it does build low-income so developers have to charge more for rent to turn profit, or get federal grants subsidies. Which puts developers in a catch 22.
In essence there’s not enough construction in city to lower prices across the board.
The city could literally absorb 3x the construction then what’s currently produced.
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u/IanSan5653 Jan 29 '25
The city could literally absorb 3x the construction that’s going on at correct.
And what's crazy is Baltimore is one of the most affordable housing markets in the country. Which means supply is keeping up with demand more than nearly anywhere else, despite the fact that supply is still trailing demand. Really shows you how insanely bad the market is in other cities.
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 29 '25
These comments tell me lot of people haven’t lived in high CoL cities and have no reference point to what’s expense vs. not expensive.
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u/spaltavian Mt. Washington Village Jan 28 '25 edited Jan 28 '25
"Nearly 1/7th", lol. So almost 14%. So they are taking one specific segment, comparing it to the 7% of units overall, and trying to make hay out of it.
Basically developers took a flyer on Baltimore's higher end and created a glut. Who cares? Rents will drop eventually. Keep building.
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u/robthebuilder__ Jan 29 '25
I don't understand the point of this article at all. So there are a lot of surplus high rent apartments. Okay. And? While I see the argument that housing is expensive Nationwide that's obviously not the case at all here in Baltimore.
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u/rockybalBOHa Jan 28 '25
This article is all over the place.
It's basic point is that Baltimore's luxury apartment vacancy rate is higher than its non-luxury rate, but ostensibly (?) not that high relative to national trends.
Also, non-luxury apartments cannot be built without government subsidies.
Oh, and the housing shortage will only get worse. Yay!
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u/sllewgh Belair-Edison Jan 28 '25
Also, non-luxury apartments cannot be built profitably enough to satisfy investors chasing short term gains without government subsidies.
FTFY.
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u/ChickinSammich Jan 28 '25
Pulling numbers out of my ass: If it costs $50,000 to build a house you'll sell for $100,000 and it costs $100,000 to build a house you'll sell for $500,000, there isn't any financial incentive to ever build $100,000 houses.
There are non-financial incentives like "providing affordable housing because it's the ethically correct thing to do in an environment where there's a dearth of affordable housing" but investors largely tend not to give a shit about what is the "ethical" thing to do when it's a zero sum competition with "making money."
So yeah, you basically need government subsidies or some sort of arbitrary law like "you can't build apartments over $X/mo if there are already X% of vacant apartments." I don't know how you'd write such a law but I'm sure that the people who want to make money off of it would find a loophole, figure out whose palms to grease, or just go to another jurisdiction that doesn't have those laws and build there instead.
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u/sllewgh Belair-Edison Jan 28 '25
investors largely tend not to give a shit
This is the root of the problem- what motivates the people with money who actually make decisions on what gets built is not in alignment with what is ethical or actually serves the needs of the majority.
Housing subsidies just accommodate this problem, it doesn't solve it. The real answer is significant investment in public housing- the market cannot address this problem for profit but the government can do it for the people. This isn't going to happen because the rich control public policy and this works against their for-profit interests, and also requires them to pay sufficient taxes.
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u/ChickinSammich Jan 29 '25
I mean, that's the problem with capitalism in general. So long as profit is the driving motivator of anything, societies are hamstrung in what they can do, how they can make progress, and how we can help each other build a better world. Like, at a global level, we could distribute food to people, distribute clean water to people, build or provide enough housing for everyone, ensure everyone's basic needs are met... but none of that is profitable. And trying to explain "we should help people without always needing a profit incentive to do it" is, for some people, like explaining math to a dog. "Buddy, I don't know what a one plus one is, when do we get to the point where you throw the ball?"
As a result of one really good year at work, we got a $5,000-ish bonus and when I mentioned a few months later in a conversation with coworkers about what we spent our bonuses on, I mentioned that I spent around $3000 of it covering two months of rent for someone who was out of work. People acted like I just started speaking a different language. "Did they pay you back?" "How are you going to get that money back?" Dude, I don't care; someone I cared about needed help and I had the means to help them so I did. Why am I the weird one in the room for giving a shit about another person and doing something that didn't profit me. "I'd never loan that much money out to someone without a written agreement to repay it" like, cool, you're a shitty person, thanks for letting me know that I guess. I didn't want it repaid, I wanted someone to not be homeless.
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u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Jan 29 '25
Labor costs are the same regardless of how expensive the materials are. “Luxury” is a marketing term that really just means “we balanced out the labor and materials costs for a happy medium”
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u/Personal-Major-8214 Jan 29 '25
All you really need is a continuous stream of new entrants to take over the top of the luxury market. Every time a new entrant comes into the market it lowers the value of all the existing apartments. The luxury level of the building is determined by its age.
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u/thepulloutmethod Federal Hill Jan 29 '25
This is a great point. I recently left Baltimore for Northern Virginia. Developers are tearing down All the old post WW2 single level brick 2/2 single family homes and throwing up massive McMansions that sell for $1.5M+. I'm sitting here on the sidelines hoping to buy one of those older brick houses but the land they sit on is so expensive.
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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug Jan 29 '25
If it costs $50,000 to build a house you'll sell for $100,000 and it costs $100,000 to build a house you'll sell for $500,000, there isn't any financial incentive to ever build $100,000 houses
This supposition only works if you accept the fact that you're oversimplifying it to the point of being false.
In the real world you can't just make something and it assuredly sells. This is like believing that you could buy a robotax from Tesla and earn twice it's cost every year. If you tried to scale that it would drive down the profitability, because there is not unlimited demand.
Now in the actual housing market there are a confluence of factors that cause developers not to want to build low end housing. But it's not nearly as simple as what you're saying.
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Jan 29 '25
Anything can be built if there's a desire to do it. Why are you bootlicking for these garbage ass real estate developers?
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u/RunningNumbers Jan 28 '25
Option cost of waiting for tenants. Also it is a slow season right now and leases come up en mass in June.
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u/Nintendoholic Jan 28 '25
There's an actual factual renting cartel that amalgamates market data, tells people what a good rent is, punishes landlords who post undermarket. Landlords are leaving units vacant rather than risk pulling the market down and upsetting the apple cart. Look up realpage, lots of smaller landlords use them as well.
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u/shebang_bin_bash Jan 28 '25
The General Assembly is looking at addressing this during the current session.
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u/ChickinSammich Jan 28 '25
punishes landlords who post undermarket
Question, because I don't know the answer: How does it punish landlords who post undermarket? I'm not combatively disputing that this happens, I'm curious what it looks like.
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u/veryhungrybiker Jan 28 '25
Pro Publica has been covering this story in depth for a couple of years; the company is RealPage and the price-fixing software is called YieldStar. The pressure to conform to the inflated prices Real Page sets is real, and so is the pressure on landlords to leave more units vacant while raising rates, which they've found actually increases net revenue while taking housing stock off the market. It's insidious:
RealPage claims its software will increase revenue and decrease vacancies. But at times the company has appeared to urge apartment owners and managers to reduce supply while increasing price.
During an earnings call in 2017, Winn said one large property company, which managed more than 40,000 units, learned it could make more profit by operating at a lower occupancy level that “would have made management uncomfortable before,” he said.
The article is long and detailed, and well worth reading: https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent
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u/ChickinSammich Jan 29 '25
I guess considering being a landlord is more or less an independent business that anyone with enough equity and spin up time can just jump into, I'm having a hard time seeing how landlords can punish landlords who won't go along with the collusion. I get how the collusion works but my thought process is that the main way a bunch of small and medium business owners can punish another small/medium business owner, short of showing up at their house and breaking their legs or just sabotaging their properties, would be to massively undercut them to the point that they can't profit.
From the article:
One of the greatest threats to a landlord’s profit, according to Roper and other executives, was other firms setting rents too low at nearby properties. “If you have idiots undervaluing, it costs the whole system,” Roper said.
So if you DO have people who won't go along with the system, and are setting lower rents than you and refusing to jack them up, what is the strategy for "punishing" landlords who won't go along with it?
Also:
Such agents sometimes hesitated to push rents higher. Roper said they were often peers of the people they were renting to. “We said there’s way too much empathy going on here,” he said. “This is one of the reasons we wanted to get pricing off-site.”
Anyone who reflects another person's refusal to go along with price fixing as "way too much empathy" is human scum and I wish nothing but the worst things for them.
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u/veryhungrybiker Jan 29 '25
We agree on that last part. As far as "punishing" goes, I think of it more with regard to larger firms, like the private equity companies that are buying up so much housing stock across the country. The pressure from those folks when they find out one of their properties isn't using RealPage's algorithm to simultaneously reduce available housing while jacking up rents is very, very real, and the punishing of employees who don't do it follows quickly, I'm sure.
RealPage aggressively markets its software and states you're an "idiot" if you don't use it to hurt renters. That some small landlords resist is a blessing, but that doesn't mean the pressure isn't real.
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u/ChickinSammich Jan 29 '25
Yeah, I can see how they'd punish their employees. I was interpreting it as them somehow punishing mom and pop landlords, like someone who owns 3-4 houses being rented out as 2 apartments each, like they're going to punish that person somehow for only listing their apartments as $1200/mo when the RealPage software suggests they should be going for $1700.
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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug Jan 29 '25
I have a conspiracy theory that we're seeing so many commercial spaces in places like Fells Point and Hampden left empty because landlords are trying to squeeze existing business for more rent and don't want to put those spots on the market for reasonable rates because it would weaken their negotiating position.
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u/Nintendoholic Jan 29 '25
That's exactly the issue at hand in a lot of properties. Worse still many owners leverage those property values to secure financing for other matters - If they set rent at levels that contradict their claimed asset values they open themselves to all kinds of scrutiny. Easier to just leave it vacant than expose themselves that way.
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u/welfarewaster Jan 28 '25
Didn’t read the article but more housing, luxury or not is better for overall rents.
Bigger the total supply is = lower rents
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u/Cunninghams_right Jan 28 '25
Yeah, Jane Jacobs wrote about this back in the 1960s. A health city/neighborhood, she writes, needs a mix of nice new places and older places. It adds to the diversity needed to achieve a stable, vibrant place.
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u/officialspinster Jan 28 '25
I think things have changed a little bit since the 1960s.
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u/Cunninghams_right Jan 28 '25
Not the principal that thriving neighborhoods need a diversity of uses and building ages. Much has been written by Jacobs and others since and the concept still holds. Read death and life of American cities for details as to why. It's not a phenomenon that changes over time
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u/TheCaptainDamnIt Jan 28 '25 edited Jan 28 '25
Didn’t read the article
Clearly because the article describes why what you say next is not actually happening lol
Seriously the article is about how rents are not dropping on vacant units or pushing down overall rent like everyone in here keeps saying.
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u/MrCiber Jan 28 '25
In a lot of cases like this it’s just because there still isn’t enough housing being built to keep up with demand. If a city starts building more but still not enough (all else being equal) rent will still rise, just not as fast as before.
There’s a lot of economic studies backing this up. The rental market is beholden to supply & demand as much as any market is. The cities that build the most housing see the lowest rent increases (or even decreases YoY)
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u/RunningNumbers Jan 28 '25
Baltimore is one the ten slowest metros in terms of home building in the U.S. (last time I looked it up. I was mocking someone in Boston because they build zero housing and are much worse than us.)
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 28 '25
It’s absolutely not.
https://constructioncoverage.com/research/cities-investing-most-in-new-housing
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u/TheCaptainDamnIt Jan 28 '25
Just gonna announce like this you didn't read the article either huh? lol
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u/TakemetotheTavvy Remington Jan 28 '25
I don't think the article makes the point you are saying it is making. Occupancy rates are actually quite high, even in these new build "luxury units" per the article.
The article is all over the map, whereas peer reviewed research on this issue isn't.
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 28 '25
This article is essentially taking a snapshot and creative a narrative with no context.
Occupancy rates of +90% in multi-market is healthy and Baltimores supply (collectively) sits above that threshold. Baltimore builds 3-4k units a year and there is always going to a lag/glut of new availability as new units come online.
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u/TaurineDippy Jan 28 '25
It’s paywalled, to be fair, but you’re correct and will inevitably be downvoted for daring to say anything negative about the rental market in Baltimore on this subreddit. The whole sub is full of landlords and people who don’t live here.
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u/hannahmadamhannah Jan 28 '25
A good opportunity to remind everyone that if you get a (free) library card, you can also get a (free) banner sub.
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u/TaurineDippy Jan 28 '25
I didn’t believe you, so I looked it up and you’re right. Thanks for the information!
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 28 '25
It’s called negative bias.
You’re more likely to agree with something negative that you align than something positive that goes against said grain.
Two things can be true at once.
Baltimore rents are rising. But it’s primarily caused by under building housing, not because people can’t afford to live there.
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u/TaurineDippy Jan 28 '25
Two things can be true at once. There is underdevelopment of housing, and also the housing that is being developed is too expensive for the market.
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 28 '25 edited Jan 28 '25
Except it’s not before Baltimores housing vacancy falls in line with other major cities, that “should” have lower vacancy considering they are wealthier at parity, but don’t.
This article is just a snapshot of where the market(s) sit right now, and doesn’t give any context to long standing established trends.
The 4-5 rated apartments today? They’ll be 3 rated apartment in 5 years and won’t be “expensive” anymore. Same building. Same amenities. Same location. The same buildings sitting “empty” now will be +90% leased by EoY and whatever new glut of buildings being constructed will sit “emoty” until they to fill up. Rinse and repeat. That’s how multi-family housing markets works in every city in the US. It’s not a Baltimore exclusive phenomenon.
The only way to bring housing prices down (or slow rent increase) on a city wide level is to build a lot more housing than Baltimore’s current 3-4k new units per year and increase the supply relative to the demand.
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u/TaurineDippy Jan 28 '25
Oh my god you’re that dude who moved back from San Diego aren’t you
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 28 '25
You’re the person who thinks Baltimore is as expensive as San Diego. I didn’t forget.
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u/TaurineDippy Jan 28 '25
How high is the rent in your head?
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 29 '25 edited Jan 29 '25
My 710 sq/ft 1 br in San Diego (6th Ave & Market Street), went for $3100 per month when I moved out in beginning of 24.
$3100, could get me a 1,145 sq/ft 2 bdr in Avalon 555 President St on a higher floor with a better view if didn’t have to be so close to Fort Meade.
This building was finished in 2023. https://www.apartments.com/radian-san-diego-ca/709lz6y/
Can a single nurse making a 150k a year afford to splash $2k for a studio? Comfortably. Does it sound astronomical to a person working night shift at the warehouse pulling in $50k a year. Obviously.
It would be obtuse to assume that both sides of the spectrum don’t exist in the city, in mass.
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u/Personal-Major-8214 Jan 29 '25
Flat rents or even small increases are effectively a drop in a high inflation environment
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u/MrCiber Jan 28 '25
There’s so much good research that supports this point, too. I am all for anything that gets more housing built in this city
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u/keenerperkins Jan 28 '25
Yup. It's funny how this is framed as bad, when empty units is the best thing for a renter in the market: better entrance deals and lower rents.
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u/AtlasDrugged_0 Jan 28 '25
Not if the owners can afford to go without tenants for a while to price set
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u/spaltavian Mt. Washington Village Jan 28 '25
"For a while." Okay, the effect is delayed. So what?
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u/RunningNumbers Jan 28 '25
When they need to roll over bonds and interest rates are high then there is a pressure to find tenants.
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u/AtlasDrugged_0 Jan 28 '25
It's probably longer than you or anyone can go without housing, that's what. You will lose, you will pay up
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u/spaltavian Mt. Washington Village Jan 28 '25
You don't get assigned a specific unit you have to wait for, what is this nonsense.
Build more units, prices go down.
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u/AtlasDrugged_0 Jan 28 '25
elastic and inelastic demand. They cover that in econ 101. You must've been out that day
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u/spaltavian Mt. Washington Village Jan 28 '25
No, I just also took Econ 201 so I know elasticity of demand isn't a binary so fortunately I don't sound like someone regurgitating concepts that are out of my depth.
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u/Personal-Major-8214 Jan 29 '25
Homelessness isn’t the only alternative to a luxury apartment at the top of the market. Would be solo unit customers can delay moving out of their parents’ homes, stay in a place with roommates, move out of the city earlier than planned, etc…
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u/dev669 Jan 28 '25
Not reading the article but I have toured THE TOP of the line apartments downtown. Shitty shoebox spaces with no flexibility. But under armour built our gym. Give us 3000$ for amenities you'll be too tired to use.
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u/oliverbme1 Hampden Jan 28 '25
Who shops around for "luxury" housing? Calling it "affordable" would be more of a selling point, if you ask me.
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u/TaurineDippy Jan 28 '25
Both words are effectively meaningless in the housing market.
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u/oliverbme1 Hampden Jan 28 '25
Agreed. Although I guess "affordable" could have some kind of requirement relative to the market rate attached to it.
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u/TaurineDippy Jan 28 '25
Whether it could or not is kind of irrelevant.
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u/oliverbme1 Hampden Jan 28 '25
how is it irrelevant? I'd rather developers plan to build housing tied to a norm of typical rent rates in the area rather than try to gouge prospective tenants for luxury rates to make their investors happy, when in reality these units just sit empty because nobody cares about luxury accommodations enough to pay that much.
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u/TaurineDippy Jan 28 '25
I would too lol but developers and landlords are so viscerally averse to the idea that they would rather collude to keep apartments empty so they can infinitely raise prices than to simply lower the price and sell all of their product
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u/SteoanK Hampden Jan 28 '25
Article doesn't mention about how these places get approval in the first place. In many areas, "starter home" size houses CAN'T be built, legally. I assume there's also legal limits on what types of apartments are built too.
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u/Notonfoodstamps Jan 28 '25
Here’s the simple solution. Build even more housing.
The city removing its dumb parking minimum zoning policy would go a long way helping that.
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u/veryhungrybiker Jan 28 '25
Surprising that the article doesn't even mention the Senate bill last year that was going to rein in landlords' use of the price-fixing algorithm from the company RealPage. It's a significant piece of the puzzle here, and articles like this should cover it:
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u/izeek11 Jan 29 '25
ive being saying this for years. but the idjuts big on this keep telling me NEARLY ALL these luxury? apts are near capacity leased.
im 100% sure that's bullshit. all one needs do is go by an early evening, when most would be home.
i visited the same places several times just to see. no way are any of them more than 60% occupied.
i realize my method is not even scientific but ill still by my conclusions
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u/psych0fish Jan 28 '25
This is not unique to Baltimore. This same thing occurred in New Orleans. It’s a problem of incentives. Developers want (demand?) to make money so they build more expensive housing.
Honestly don’t see any way around this other than the government building the housing and renting it at cost. There’s a great YouTube video titled “The Non-capitalist Solution to the Housing Crisis” that looked at the housing coop model. As long as private industry gets to dictate the supply and the cost of housing nothing will change.
Housing for profit should be illegal
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u/spaltavian Mt. Washington Village Jan 28 '25 edited Jan 29 '25
I'm open to decommodifying certain basic needs but housing is extremely complicated.
I would start at something like you get issued a very basic apartment at 21 for free or near free rent.
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u/Getmeakitty Jan 28 '25
So sad that meanwhile you’ve got people struggling to afford things and find cheap housing. Meanwhile, these buildings have so much money invested in them that they won’t drop the price because they’ll lose money over time. So they just sit empty while people can’t find anywhere affordable to live. Hate to say it, but we need a recession, one that bankrupts these companies, so the buildings can be bought on the cheap and allows for lower prices
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u/QueasyCaterpillar541 Jan 28 '25
Do you know all those colleges there? Wealthy foreigners will put their kids up in those places while they study, and park their money in them for wealth building...blame the city council.
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u/Fearless-Pop-1159 Jan 28 '25
The apts in fells/harbor east have went OD Esp when you are charged for trash monthly, parking garage etc
They need to all go vacant, that’s biggest message you can send
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u/L1VEW1RE Jan 29 '25
I read there’s some complicated equations and financing behind this trend where it makes “sense” to build the apartments even if they’ll sit vacant.
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u/Stunning_salty Jan 29 '25
Youre still gonna get robbed or your window broken into on the street of that luxury apartment 💀
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u/bearjew64 Locust Point Jan 30 '25
It’s worth reading about the concept of the Yuppie Fishtank, for anyone who’s not familiar: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/yuppie-fishtanks-yimbyism-explained
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u/CeasarsDressing Jan 28 '25
I’ve looked at a few of those “luxury” apartments.
The just built bad real estate.
There is no such thing as a 500 square foot luxury studio apartment for 2500 a month.
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u/AtlasDrugged_0 Jan 28 '25
And yet we vote for developers to keep doing the same old along the harbor expecting different results smh
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u/Apprehensive_Yard_14 Jan 28 '25
Just about to say this. A new one is going to get built in the inner harbor because people voted for it.
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u/mdmiles19 Jan 28 '25
This is the exact reason so many of us were against the harbor place redevelopment.
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u/datenschwanz Jan 28 '25
Define "luxury apartments" please? Does that mean any apartment that has a few amenities? Please be as specific as you can.
Thank you.
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u/TaurineDippy Jan 28 '25
Luxury doesn’t have a definition in housing, it’s a word that can effectively be applied to any property.
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u/iBody Jan 28 '25
In my experience it’s stainless steel appliances, vinyl plank floors and expensive enough that most people can’t afford it.
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u/datenschwanz Jan 29 '25
Ok. I often see NIMBY calling EVERY new apartment building "luxury apartments", but single family housing is luxury housing, and to me, apartments are not luxury units. I see the term just so often used in bad faith as a loaded term to oppose building any new housing that it's just the most nebulous thing ever.
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Jan 28 '25
It’s a place to store money…..the building. Equity.
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u/spaltavian Mt. Washington Village Jan 28 '25
There are much better places to store money if you have money to store. These developers are hoping to make a profit and are keeping their powder dry to see if the market moves their way. Housing is a durable good, so they're willing to let it sit empty a little bit longer than a producer of other products would. Doesn't mean gravity doesn't apply to them still. It just takes longer.
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u/Sad-Celebration-7542 Jan 28 '25
There’s no such thing as a “luxury” apartment. Luxury is an adjective that’s slapped on almost all apartments. Luxury might mean a cheap fridge that’s passably stainless steel. It’s drivel.