New Yorkers say mayor's housing solution won't come soon enough as mortgage rates, rents continue to climb
NEW YORK -- As rents are hitting record numbers, mortgage rates continue to climb to their highest level in over 20 years.
New York City's mayor is responding with a solution but not soon enough for thousands of renters and hopeful buyers.
"I cannot afford to buy. I've been looking a little bit," said Brooklyn resident Avery Driggers.
The average long-term United States mortgage rate jumped to more than 7%.
"It's almost, it's more than double of what you would've paid two years ago," said Scott Durkin, president and CEO of Douglas Elliman, one of the country's largest real estate agencies.
He says homebuyers are already facing a challenging market with short supply and high asking prices. He advises buyers to shop around and use private banks.
"They will front the money and give you a better rate. The 7.4% could be 5.5," Durkin said.
Harlem sales agent Nigel Pearce says it's clear buyers have opted to sit tight until the rates come down.
"This zip code, 10027, we haven't had a closing in 90 days, which is highly unusual," he said.
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Would-be buyers are having to stay in the rental market longer, which is squeezing inventory and pushing up prices.
"We are in a bad state of affairs ... We recently released a building which had 135 units in it for low-income housing, and we had 43,000 applications," Pearce said.
To ease the housing crisis, Mayor Eric Adams announced plans to cut red tape and convert commercial office buildings into housing to create tens of thousands of new apartments.
"A hundred and thirty-six million square feet of office space will be eligible for conversion," Adams said.
One of the plans includes rezoning dozens of blocks of unused older buildings south of Times Square. It's an area that spans from 23rd to 40th streets between Fifth and Eighth avenues.
"We just have to dust it off and shine it up," Durkin said.
Though conversion is costly, Durkin says Midtown buildings are easier to transform than, for example, the empty high-rises in Lower Manhattan post-9/11.
"They were quite large skyscrapers, and here, you're talking buildings that are probably no higher than 20 floors," he said.
But for many, the dream of home ownership is still too far out of reach.
"I'm leaving New York, partially because it's so expensive," one person said.
The mayor's plans still have to be voted on by City Hall.
Housing advocates are also hoping for assistance from the state -- for example, tax incentives for developers.
