Broker fees are breaking NYC housing, all thanks to leftist Dems

One of the worst consequences of New York’s insane housing regime is people like the broker who tried to charge a client an insane $15,000 fee for a downmarket, rent-controlled apartment in Queens.

Middleman profiteers like that can only exist when the law refuses to allow supply to match demand via free-market pricing.

In this case, that’s due to the BS “pro-tenant” actions taken by city and state Democrats.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio politicized the rent-hike process for regulated units, overseeing eight years of average annual increases of just 0.75% even as operating costs rose annually nearly five times as much.

Add in the state’s Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which prevents landlords from hiking rents remotely enough to cover the cost of bringing old units up to code, leaving them no choice but to leave the apartment vacant.

As a result, tens of thousands of rent-regulated units are off the market — and more every month.

And that’s to say nothing of the refusal of city and state progs to let anyone build anything.

They let the 421-a tax credit for developers expire, though it drove 75% of new affordable apartment construction over the past two decades.

City dwellers wanting a place to live at a reasonable price are being socked with outrageous fees just to be able to rent an apartment. BRIGITTE STELZER

And on the few occasions when a developer does manage to potentially make the numbers work, hard leftists on the City Council swoop in to shut the projects down.

Like former Harlem member Kristin Jordan Richardson, who put the kibosh on a plan to bring nearly 500 new affordable apartments to her own district.

It’s why a recent study found that a third of Gothamites are paying more than half their income in rent — and why shysters can thrive.

Time for city and state Democrats to open their eyes to the misery they’ve created.

Let developers and landlords turn a profit and end the supply choke-off — and New York’s utterly artificial affordable housing “crisis” will end.