Calling 311 Can Cost You
"311 how can I help you...
" More and more New Yorkers are turning to the free phone service provided by the city of New York to its residents to help streamline city services.
In fact, over the last year, the service fielded over 6 million calls with complaints ranging from potholes to tenants complaining about hot water.
While most people say that this service is all good, there is a less-known, darker side to this service.
Of the millions of calls fielded by this service, a very large amount is made by NYC tenants, that is, tenants that rent their apartments from private landlords in any of the 5 boroughs.
These tenants rent from a privately owned building that has nothing to do with the city.
So why are the tenants calling the city and not their landlords directly? Many have hypothesized that the reason is that the landlords will not act unless the city forces them to.
While demonizing landlords is always fun (especially if you rent in NYC), it's simply not the case.
In fact, 70% of the complaints made are for inadequate heat and 80% of these complaints are made directly to 311 without notifying the landlord at all.
The ironic part is that when the tenant calls 311, it takes an average of 48 hours before the heat can be adjusted simply because the cities Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) has to send an inspector to the apartment and with the millions of calls coming into HPD and DOB (NYC Department of Buildings), they are extremely backed-up.
Needless to say, landlords are fed-up.
Not only would a call to their offices result in a faster resolution to the problem, this backwards way of reporting maintenance issues is costing them millions.
With revenues extremely down, the city is turning to agencies like HPD and DOB to generate revenues.
A typical violation can cost a landlord $100 a day and with some conditions bringing in $10-$20K to the city's coffers, its no wonder that the city of New York spent millions last year actually marketing and promoting the 311 service to tenants.
Now, you might ask "Why should I care?" The answer to that question is found in the famous law of the unintended consequence.
With the real estate market in the pits, landlords are scrambling to make mortgage payments and stay above water.
Landlords are practically begging tenants to call them first which would save them millions, but it doesn't seem to work.
The result? Higher rent.
It's that simple.
Managers in NYC are upping the rent across the board to simply keep up with the cost of managing the building, and one of the biggest expenses a management company deal with today - yes, bigger that the mortgage itself - is HPD and DOB violations.
There have been many failed attempts to solve this problem both from the cities side and the management side.
The City with "rent control", and the managers with giving away ipods to tenants that call them first, but these solutions are temporary at best.
So how do you find a real solution to this issue? Simple.
It takes a 10 year veteran in NYC real estate management to meet up with a couple of technology solutions experts that have developed technical solutions for complicated industries such as the feature film industry and airlines.
" More and more New Yorkers are turning to the free phone service provided by the city of New York to its residents to help streamline city services.
In fact, over the last year, the service fielded over 6 million calls with complaints ranging from potholes to tenants complaining about hot water.
While most people say that this service is all good, there is a less-known, darker side to this service.
Of the millions of calls fielded by this service, a very large amount is made by NYC tenants, that is, tenants that rent their apartments from private landlords in any of the 5 boroughs.
These tenants rent from a privately owned building that has nothing to do with the city.
So why are the tenants calling the city and not their landlords directly? Many have hypothesized that the reason is that the landlords will not act unless the city forces them to.
While demonizing landlords is always fun (especially if you rent in NYC), it's simply not the case.
In fact, 70% of the complaints made are for inadequate heat and 80% of these complaints are made directly to 311 without notifying the landlord at all.
The ironic part is that when the tenant calls 311, it takes an average of 48 hours before the heat can be adjusted simply because the cities Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) has to send an inspector to the apartment and with the millions of calls coming into HPD and DOB (NYC Department of Buildings), they are extremely backed-up.
Needless to say, landlords are fed-up.
Not only would a call to their offices result in a faster resolution to the problem, this backwards way of reporting maintenance issues is costing them millions.
With revenues extremely down, the city is turning to agencies like HPD and DOB to generate revenues.
A typical violation can cost a landlord $100 a day and with some conditions bringing in $10-$20K to the city's coffers, its no wonder that the city of New York spent millions last year actually marketing and promoting the 311 service to tenants.
Now, you might ask "Why should I care?" The answer to that question is found in the famous law of the unintended consequence.
With the real estate market in the pits, landlords are scrambling to make mortgage payments and stay above water.
Landlords are practically begging tenants to call them first which would save them millions, but it doesn't seem to work.
The result? Higher rent.
It's that simple.
Managers in NYC are upping the rent across the board to simply keep up with the cost of managing the building, and one of the biggest expenses a management company deal with today - yes, bigger that the mortgage itself - is HPD and DOB violations.
There have been many failed attempts to solve this problem both from the cities side and the management side.
The City with "rent control", and the managers with giving away ipods to tenants that call them first, but these solutions are temporary at best.
So how do you find a real solution to this issue? Simple.
It takes a 10 year veteran in NYC real estate management to meet up with a couple of technology solutions experts that have developed technical solutions for complicated industries such as the feature film industry and airlines.
Source...