NYC’s Weird Plan to Solve The Housing Crisis… 

After watching that dangerous and disgusting flood footage in NYC, I’d NEVER consider living in a basement there ever!

Encouraging people to make apartments out of basements? Are you kidding. Iam a fireman in the city, basements are absolute death traps for Firemen and civilians alike. These politicians need to do bettter

I was at the gas station and noticed a car full of belongings and a lady with her dog. I gave her $20 and she just started bawling and was extremely grateful. When I was in my 20’s I was homeless for 2 months and lived in my car. I know how it feels to be in that situation.

Nice work. I’ve been on the PbatesLTD train for a while, never sold as they are always building.

My concern: There was flooding in NY this past fall. I would be very wary of renting a basement apartment. In fact, I would not.

Am I the only one that remembers people drowning in their homes when the city flooded and they couldn’t get out of their basement apartments?

Am impressed with how the quality of your videos has turned from showcasing apartment x to documenting the problems that nyc faces in its housing sector such as the immigrants or the ADU angle here. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

You should do a new video about Pbatesltd ! I really like you’re mellow delivery and you seem like you’re very knowledgeable. I watch lots of influencers and you always seem very calculated and know exactly what you’re talking about and understand it. You’re better at explaining complicated things simply, than any other person on youtube keep it up brother!

My heart goes to the entire community for PbatesLTD building up something even my grandpa can understand. This is so smart by them to launch it to shatter the doubts and fears of the common folk which is not even correct to begin with. Everyone knows the state of inflation and recession now and the way out is already in progress. Now it's just about catching the big fish

In a previous video, you mentioned the 100's of thousands of empty apartments that exist, that because of rent laws are NOT being rented or updated because it isn't economical for landlords to repair or update them, along with empty buildings (like the flat iron building) that are sitting unoccupied. . .it sounds like there are spaces, but that the NYC zoning, occupancy codes and other legal mumbo jumbo makes it impossible for any of this to happen within a reasonable amount of time.

It's astonishing what people will do to "live" in the city.

Basement apartments are often "desperation units", dark, damp, rodent-infested and subject to flooding. They can have emergency exit problems in case of fire. I'm sure that there are many illegal ones that are occupied right now, but those occupants can't afford anything better in the city. They need to relocate, but there's not necessarily anything better that's affordable within commuting distance. NYC needs to build fewer luxury units and more affordable housing, or they won't have the workers that keep the city operating.

Love the PbatesLTD content. I think this project is just as essential as HBAR and they both will be great movers

I feel that the last bull run was bolstered by all the money being printed. Major returns next bull run but I think they will be tamer in my humble opinion. A 10x on PbatesLTD and a 15x on polygon are fair considering how much those two coins are interwov

Just start converting all the closets to living spaces, you then could have about 10 persons per unit. Downsizing an already tiny space into an even smaller living space, what could go wrong. This is beyond ridiculous.

NYC has really hit bottom, Thank you Cash for the eye opening reality that really exists. And you do it with such respect. No Bias. Bravo!

People are going to have major issues with that plan. ADU will increase property tax and cause a lot of people to be priced out of a home.

This channel keeps getting better and better. Keep it up!

🗽Your videos are getting more and more interesting with all these facts, explanations of government policies, future possibilities and your own professional perspective on proposed solutions. You've also been keeping us up-to-date on generalized NYC failings, budgets, crazy-ass ideas for new laws, etc. I used to watch you mostly for your humor, 2nd to satisfy my nostalgic need for a dose of NY visuals, 3rd to feel better financially that I got out, and NOW for the education! Thank you! 🙂

Last time I visited a friend in New York, she was living in a basement. It was dark, it was damp, and the kitchen and bathroom were obviously kits from a hardware store (very small.) It was worse than any place I've ever lived in--and I've lived in a place in Chicago where the bathroomfloor was rotting out, and another where the windowsills had been so consumed by termites that only the paint remained. I doubt my friends' apartment was legal. Kind of wonder how many of these 300K+ potential basements already have people living in them.

As a former New Yorker that left several years ago I am loving that Jordan has all this extra content documenting NYC's downfall.

This is coming from our Carpet Bagger Representative Scott Wiener in California. In California, the laws lean heavy toward the tenant. Once you let them into you home or guest house, pool house ADU. You have to follow all the laws that protect tenants. In California, it takes 9-10 months to evict, and lawyer costs. These tenants are in your home or on your property. We don't like it and you would have to be nuts. I rented a room in California, the tenant turned out to be a drug addict. I had to get a lawyer to get this wack-job out of my personal home. We had to lock ourselved in our bedrooms at night. The police were called several times....DON'T DO IT!!!!

hi cash......I live in Fairbanks Alaska but I watch your videos everyday! I love that you are so involved with what's going on in NYC.....the rent prices are so shocking to me.....how do normal people cover 5600 a month.....I live on 1600 a month but I was smart and paid off my condo 16 yrs early so I only have condo fees of 500 a month and electric and of course other living expenses but when I bought this place 18 yrs ago the HOA FEES were only 187 a month and they cover heat....water...sewer....snow removal and building not unit insurance....I am 67 and retired living with 2 cats that are my furry nurses....lol. I PRAY FOR NYC! take care Cash....see you in the next vid!

So make apartment's smaller and what happens to the rent? Stays the same or increases. SMH. Thank you for shedding a light on this. Much appreciated.

I never thought I'd live in a reality where NYC would actually start to resemble the NYC portrayed in Soylent Green in 1973.

I lived in NY Astoria for 1 year for a job. Totally disillusioned with NYC barely 3 months in, i couldnt get out of NYC fast enough. It is loud, dirty, expensive, dangerous, dystopian. Living there was like being a rat. I now live in NW DC, life is soooo much better here.

I’ve been reading The Tenements for the first time and it’s sad how much of it still sounds relevant to todays living conditions in NYC. As a person who’s only lived in the south, I have 0 understanding of why people choose to live there. I live in an apartment that would be considered a massive luxury in NYC, I’m pretty close to lots of things to do/places to eat, and I pay $1500 for the whole place.

How can the housing problem be resolved? RELOCATE TO A DIFFERENT STATE! I decided to move to a different state after becoming weary of residing in New York City. Numerous states offer much more affordable living options and a higher standard of living.

One of the things they don't consider is the reason that people don't want to be landlords in the first place. The laws here are incredibly pro-tenant. I know many older people who own multi-family homes in the outer boroughs. The mortgages are paid off and they won't rent out the homes because they don't want to take the chance of getting stuck with tenants that decide not to pay for months or years. So these properties will remain off market until the older folks die...and then they'll probably be sold to developers who will chop them up into 1BR apartments instead of keeping them as family housing.

so lemme get this straight. they wanna convert already small apartments into micro apartments now? 😝

Being in California it is so weird to hear that ADU's are a "new" idea in New York and you haven't heard of them. They are all the rage here. In fact the state has enacted laws to make it easier to put them in your yard and cities are even waiving permit fees and required offsets for buildings in order to allow people to put them up in an effort to combat the housing shortage here. There are loads of garage conversions to ADU's here too.

I work for a developer here in NYC that does just as you said in the end. They buy small properties, 2-3 family homes, demolish them, and build multi-family buildings in their place. The process can be done in less than a year if you have a GC who knows what they're doing and, obviously, if you have the funds or investors to put money into the project. And you don't need to put up 100% of the cash. You take out a mortgage for it as you would when buying a house, put up a percentage, and then pay it off over time, or sell the building for a profit once it's complete. As far as basements go, personally, I'd never feel fully comfortable living in a basement. Sure, it's better than living on the street, but I'd always be worried that it could get flooded. Just look at the storm we had a few months ago. And I don't know where you got that $5,600 "average" monthly rent. That's insanely high rent. If you include all 5 boroughs, there are many places that go for well under $2,000, and if you're lucky, under $1,500. It seems like it wasn't that long ago when you could still find places for under $1,000, but I think that those days are pretty much gone. I remember back in the 90's when a 1 bedroom could go for $600.

Amazing. I'm surprised more people have not left NYC with all the problems it has and the super expensive rent. Wow!

These basement ADUs should only be allowed if the location has never flooded.

What about all of those empty apartments he told us about in another video. The ones the landlords won’t rent because of taxes of something. This whole thing is insane. I don’t see the attraction to living in NYC. For anyone.

Hey Cash I'm glad you and your family remained in NYC, I think these type of innovative ideas would great to be covered as nice public service

Kudos Cash, for the new approach you are giving to your channel, still within the real estate realm but oriented towards the education and information of your subscribers.

Cash, you should be up for some kind of Urban Award, these vlogs are so well thought out! Looks like there are all kinds of possibilities, personally I could never live like a mole, I need light for my will to continue,lol.

Why? When there is vast opportunity all across upstate NY to relocate businesses and employees to revitalize communities that have been losing population for decades. This comes down to Albany being owned by NYC and not utilizing the resources of the majority of the state, not to mention taxing residents beyond capacity. Instead the goal is now to cram even more people into tiny dark basement apartments that people never leave because they all "now work from home", and that will be flooded out in the stinking sinking Island of greed. Why does anyone 'need' to live in NYC to 'work from home'? There are no advantages to living in the city when office space is not necessary, retail stores are closing right and left because of theft and restaurants continue to fold because there is no foot traffic from office workers and they can't afford the food or to pay employees and forced tipping is causing customers not to tip. Nobody could pay me enough to move to NYC.

I spent 8 months in a basement apartment in Queens... all I can say to people considering this is get used to a lot of pet roaches. Especially in the summer 😅

I'm hoping there will be a housing crisis so I can buy cheaply when I sell a few houses in 2024. As a backup plan, I've been thinking about purchasing stocks. What advice do you have for choosing the best buying time? On the one hand, I continue to read and see trading earnings of over $500k each week. On the other side, I keep hearing that the market is out of control and experiencing a dead cat bounce. Why does this happen?

ADU's have been around on the west coast for more than a decade and tiny homes came around the same time. Most of those states have changed state wide rules to allow them and some cities allow 2 on a property. But, they cost $$$ to build and taxes do go up, which leaves the rents high as a result. Some good to it, but has drawbacks. Glad to see your channel expanding to more issues with housing. Keep it going.

This would fix one issue and create/perpetuate more- including congestion, increased waste when there’s nowhere to put the waste, increased pressure on the water, gas and power infrastructure, etc just to name a few of many.

How do you keep basement apartments from getting flooded? Also, if there's a fire, how does someone get out of a basement apartment?

What about the flooding that NYC has been experiencing? Could be dangerous ☠️ 😢

So glad I live in a big state full of clear land. I don’t understand wanting to live in a city that’s already so overcrowded.

I grew up in Greenwich Village in the 1970's when that neighborhood was made up of Italian and Portuguese immigrants. I lived at 196 Spring Street. I can't tell you how safe it was. Reason being it was a Genoves Controlled area. There was NOT ONE EMPTY STORE FRONT. We lived in a 6fl. Walk up 3 small rooms some apartments had a tub in the kitchen...haha my mother and father paid $196 dollars a month. Greenwich Village is NO LONGER SAFE AND IT IS SO UNAFFORDABLE 😕

I like to keep a small "in case the market crashes" fund to try and take advantage of the low prices. When the market goes south, I use that money spread out over the following months buying my targeted stocks on low days. on top of my usual DCA, They keep dropping and I keep buying. I'm still in on Renewable Energy, EV, Tech, Health.coins too gotta be greedy when others are fearful. At this point I'm grateful for my FA Pbatesltd . Already with a 7 figure portfolio but I have no doubt investing more.

Hey Cash love your videos! While this may be a win for prop owners, none of these new units will be priced in a way to get anybody off the street.

Even if the ADU plan would work out - what is next? It appears that NYC draws people in and that will not stop - the housing crises will return / continue. Personally, I am wondering how these rent prices can be paid anyway.

This was not boring great job!👏🏻🔥🔥🔥

Heck ya, I lived in storage container in Iraq for 2 years in military loved it, but as a family no way but for single person that's heaven.

I really like your videos - they're interesting, informative, and have a good pace (not boring).

New York has the same problem as the UK, the issue of supply and demand for housing. Those in charge keep trying to increase supply but can never catch up and will never address the problem, too much demand

I was born and raised in Brooklyn. I left NYC 7 years ago, and I don't regret it, but it still sucks to see the place you grew up going to shit.

The last thing I want is a little building built in my backyard it's already small enough NO THANK YOU

Many large houses were converted to apartments back in the day. Neighbor of mine bought several large houses that he de-converted from multi to single family homes. Not quite the same there, but splitting large apartments is very similar. Plus the office building where I used to work was converted to apartments years ago. With more people working from home, empty office space could be converted.

Easy way to fix the problem is to stop putting all the jobs in one city and even worse on only one area of the city. Then people wouldn't have to live in tiny apt. in overcrowded cities.

I don't know how it is in big cities, but out here in the rural areas, we consider the sizing of windows to the size of our firefighters. I can't even imagine !iving in an area with no accessible windows. A grate over your windows to prevent theft is chilling! Escaping a burning house is paramount in an emergency. Just having one escape route is also concerning. I can understand all of the regulations.

ADUs are a terrible idea. There are people with ADUs in their backyards in CA, where tenants paid ZERO rent for past 3 years! Homeowners can't trust the government to do the right thing anymore.

Cash- They need an army of architects and engineers to survey this and come up with designs that will last for decades to come. I wish anyone that wants to assist in this process the best of luck. Great coverage. Excellent work. 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 It was great to see you discuss this with Alex. It made me really appreciate where I am sitting today. Keep going!☮️👏👏👏👏

I live in a small town in northern Michigan called Houghton and we have the similar problem like most places in the United States at the moment and what we came to the conclusion of is that we have a zoning issue not a housing issue. The city rezoned a lot of area and are doing the same reconfiguring of existing properties.

Awesome video. I really enjoy your work and the effort you put into your videos.

A main problem is why actually cities grow that large? And the answer is because they offer more oppotrunities than smaller cities, and attracting an excessive workforce they create more opportunities for businesses, so it is a reccursive problem. Instead of making people live in cellars it would be much better to work out how suburbs or rural areas can be more attractive.

VERY AWESOME INFO FROM EVERY VIDEO .. BRAVO ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wasn’t Amazon selling these compact, modernized, zip filed box house thingys a couple of years ago? Had room for a small bed a small bathroom and kitchen. Was only a few thousand dollars? At this point I’d think it would be cheaper to purchase a bunch of those, find an area with a vacant lot, and set up those units as temporary housing.

I’ll never ever live in New York, but as someone not considering having a family, having a small studio with a kitchen, bathroom, and space for a bed all in one room is honestly more than enough space for me 😂 especially since most of the time I would only be using the space to eat breakfast and dinner, sleep, and shower

The commercial real estate conversion seems like the best option longterm. Yes its going to be more expensive but there is more supply and good locations.

They tried this is CA, except not in basements, and it completely failed. 😢 I think NYC needs to approach this problem differently and I feel like all the answers could come from these videos.

As an Electrical Engineer, I would like to add some knowledge on this. It is not just limited to converting basement. NYC building codes have certain rules which qualify as dwelling/or not. After that there is also zonign laws which categorise zipcodes accoridng to the susceptiblity to rain. Flooding zones can’t have habitation in basement.( Along the port line and closer to sea is generally a flood zone).R4A regulations which can complicate things so its not just related to Housing dept. In short converting basements into living spaces can have several legal implications and safety hazards.

I watch you even though I don't live in NYC because its so interesting

Guess NYC forgot about hurricane Ida 2 years ago where people drowned in the basements from the flooding.

As a person that lives across the Hudson from NYC people are going to get hurt this is a really bad ideal

2012 I saw respectable two bedroom apartments turned into three bedroom apartments, the same sort of stuff happening to 1 bedroom and studio apartments - some to the point that the rooms are so small that a baby crib would fit perfectly wall to wall. A few years later, housing that was springing up started to have smaller than average sized rooms and then the buildings that sprung up a few years after those were even smaller. Another note, I want to draw attention to the fact he mentioned that cities are designed with a certain capacity in areas in providing adequate utilities (think water, electric and refuse management) - quality of life and environmental repercussions damned, I might have been a little optimistic if I could forget that NYC already has major infrastructure issues that are still not being addressed for a variety of reasons to varying degrees. Don't know if anyone has noticed but in some areas, services and amenities you should have access to are either reduced or disappearing (ie. grocery stores, pharmacies, financial services, actual full service and care hospitals, simpler and or more consistent transit options, space and access for emergency vehicles to name a few. With more people in an area one would think these and other protective services would be scaled up to fit needs right? Right?!) This is a complicated mess, and the current state of policies in place now and to come, economics, politics and what ever else there is are also increasing the difficulty of coming to a solution as much as they are being obstacle to it. As much as I would love a quick solution, I'd rather it be a proper one that people can safely live out their livelihood.

Just sitting here in my 1600 sq ft house in a middle class neighborhood that I am paying $620 a month to own (that price includes taxes and insurance btw) and wondering why anyone would want to stay in NYC.

During that big rain storm not too long ago, so many basement apartments were flooded.

Cash, can you do some tours of “illegal” nyc basements?

We always called ADUs “Mother In Law Quarters.” Must have offended someone, as ADU came about a couple years ago. Lol I love tiny homes. I’m surprised NYC didn’t start doing this a long time ago. Thanks for your awesome reporting, Cash.

My neighbor just had to evict a basement dwelling tenant because the HPD was up his ass. Regardless, putting people in the basement is not a real solution and would only be temporary. NYC is composed of islands and space will be forever limited. It is not like LA where the square mileage of the entire city can expand in all directions.

Is there a housing crisis or is there a failure to make use of the land in areas that are not major cities? Instead of sinking very expensive money into developing property or utilities in NYC, maybe start developing smaller towns. That and get rid of foreign investment in property. A lot of foreigners invested in property in NYC and other major US cities and this drastically and unjustly drives up the price of all property.

I don't get the basement apartment when you have flooding issues in nyc

I know several people that moved to my state from NYC and they love it here. They found better jobs, can afford a home as well as two vehicles. Once one of them moved here it didn’t take long for other families to see how well they’re doing and follow suit. Now they do miss things about NYC so they still go back to visit but overall they are much happier. I also know lots of people from LA that have done the same thing here.

For Rent: $4269 a week: Cozy Crawlspace conversion, 200sq. ft. with 4ft ceilings. No cooking or guests permitted, Tenant must be comfortable with some flooding, asbestos and vermin.

We call them 'granny flats' in Oz. but they are usually on blocks of land that most New Yorkers would consider huge. Obviously that changes when you get to inner-city areas in Sydney and Melbourne, but I walk past houses in this burg where the owner needs a sit-on mower to keep the grass under control : bizarre in 2023. We do have a housing crisis here - mainly due to our government deciding to bring in 600,000 people a year without giving any though to where they will live. Thanks for the vid.

As a Californian we have been doing this for years and it hasn’t done shit to the rent. Good luck y’all.

Ok... You did a couple of videos saying that there were 1000's of apartments that are empty but can't be rented because they need to be fixed up. NYC should fix those up first. I'm sure they have the money somewhere in a mattress hidden. 😂 2nd thing... Didn't NYC flood about a month ago, twice almost back to back???? So those basement apartments may not be the brightest idea. Maybe fix up those attics. Just make sure they're insulated properly.

Ha, last week you were showing us the trend to make two units into one bigger one, now we are going to making one unit into two smaller ones. NYC housing is going two directions at once. LOL

If the Government of New York would stop with the regulations and let people build again then the housing shortage would be fixed.

An ADU looks like what we would call a granny flat here in Australia. It is a secondary dwelling that can built or added on to an existing property. This type of property is very common here...however the idea for splitting apartments in New York is different. Australia does have a problem with getting tiny houses approved and the paperwork involved is a lot.

Property splitting happens here allot. Two homes on a 24 perch block, and some double blocks become 12 single unit accommodation.

I thought you were going to show something of the converted shipping containers. There is a company, CO.RI.MEC, that makes pre-fab structures. I have lived in them. They can be pretty comfortable.

Unfortunately from where I live in upststate New York a landowner can't have two residences on one piece of property - you have to divide the property and then build another house

There's room for more than one style or type of basement conversion but what about safety such as air circulation/ventilation or for egress? Are windows not mandatory?

That downstairs “apt” in this video is a fire hazard. A kitchen shouldn’t be approved for that space. Also, there is no second means of egress out to the exterior of the building and inadequate ventilation.

The real problem is that these developers are build high rise apartments by the ton and they’re all half empty because people can’t after to live in them. And this is after they done knocked down blocks to build them forcing people out.

Crazy they can just build or set up living area anywhere. Like there's no building fire codes. You can't even live in an RV in your own drive in alot of cities.

I've never seen a counter mounted on top of a stairwell in my entire life. these places are too small already, wow

This is what they’re doing in San Diego. ADUs are everywhere

What is the current occupancy rate for offices in NYC? Last I read it was 50% or thereabouts. Rather then divide shoebox apartments into smaller shoeboxes why not convert all the empty office space?

I have an idea. In many public housing projects, buildings have terraces on every floor that are unused and locked. They represent a significant amount of square footage for building new apartments. One could even combine two floors to make duplexes for families.