Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. Renting an apartment in any city
Speaker 1: can be a stressful and daunting situation, but nowhere more
Speaker 1: so than New York. My guest today is the creator
Speaker 1: of a platform that makes the process of finding both
Speaker 1: quality apartments and landlords easier. Alia Mohammed created open Igloo
Speaker 1: after navigating her own frustrations with the rental market. Born
Speaker 1: in Canada, Mohammed spent nearly a decade working in international finance,
Speaker 1: venture capital, and consulting. She would eventually leave finance for
Speaker 1: the startup world and chose a cause close to home.
Speaker 1: With open Igloo, Mohammed hopes to bring transparency to rental
Speaker 1: markets by combining open source city data with feedback and
Speaker 1: reviews directly from tennant. As of this year, twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: open igloo has supported more than three million New York
Speaker 1: City renters. I wanted to know how open igloo gained
Speaker 1: such a large following since its launch in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: They find us on social media, they hear about us
Speaker 2: through friends and family, and sometimes on podcasts and then
Speaker 2: radio shows.
Speaker 1: Okay, but when they come to you they is it
Speaker 1: a fee they pay? Now? I was told that there's
Speaker 1: was there a fee from the beginning, and now there
Speaker 1: and there wasn't and now there is whove grounds much
Speaker 1: you need to charge them my fee?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we support renters all across the five boroughs
Speaker 2: in researching buildings and landlords. They're considering and searching for
Speaker 2: quality apartments. So we don't charge renters when they search
Speaker 2: for an apartment on our platform. The way that we
Speaker 2: monetize is we build partnerships with quality and reputable owners,
Speaker 2: and when we send them, renters to their door and
Speaker 2: at least get signed. That's how we get compensated.
Speaker 1: Owners of the buildings. Exactly, and how did the owners
Speaker 1: of the buildings react at first when you went to
Speaker 1: them and tell them what it was you had up
Speaker 1: your slave. It's a great question.
Speaker 2: So at the beginning, they were definitely cautious about what
Speaker 2: we were building. So we built a platform that allows
Speaker 2: renters to read and share reviews about their rental experiences.
Speaker 2: We coupled that with city data, so we give renters
Speaker 2: access to are there any open violations in this building?
Speaker 2: Any litigation history, any eviction history? So landlords were you know,
Speaker 2: a little bit cautious. But what we've done is we
Speaker 2: built a community of landlords that are really supportive of
Speaker 2: this transparency because landlords who take their businesses seriously understand
Speaker 2: that renters knowing the good, bad and ugly before they
Speaker 2: sign a one good face is really really important. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'll give you a small example. There was an apartment
Speaker 2: above a bodega that turns into a nightclub every single
Speaker 2: night until four in the morning. Why would a landlord
Speaker 2: want a tenant to move in not having access to
Speaker 2: that information, right, that's not going to be a good
Speaker 2: a good starting point for the relationship. So that's really
Speaker 2: what we're after is bringing these two sides together and
Speaker 2: giving them access to information.
Speaker 1: Now, when you have the owners of the buildings, and
Speaker 1: there was the ones that didn't want to participate in
Speaker 1: your program, they don't want to cooperate it in any way.
Speaker 1: That led me to think, among other things, of what's
Speaker 1: the number one complaint that renters have in New York
Speaker 1: about the buildings they are And I'm going to assume
Speaker 1: it's heat.
Speaker 2: Heat is a huge one, especially in the weather that
Speaker 2: we're having in New York City right now, record weather
Speaker 2: exactly seventy percent of buildings in New York City rely
Speaker 2: on the landlord to turn on the heat. We also
Speaker 2: have really old housing stock in New York City, so
Speaker 2: we're using steamed radiators that haven't been maintained in you know,
Speaker 2: in decades. So this is a real challenge that even
Speaker 2: if the heat is working in the building, your apartment
Speaker 2: might feel like asauna. Right, it's one hundred degrees in
Speaker 2: your apartment. So definitely heat is a number one complaint
Speaker 2: amongst runters.
Speaker 1: Now, when I would assume that New Yorkers, or the
Speaker 1: political consciousness of New York as it's expressed during elections
Speaker 1: and what the candidates say, they care deeply about housing
Speaker 1: and the lack thereof, would you say that that's true.
Speaker 1: New Yorkers want us to do something about the house situation,
Speaker 1: and not just the ones you need it affordable house Exactly.
Speaker 2: There are five and a half million renters in New
Speaker 2: York City, sixty five percent of the city rents their home,
Speaker 2: and there just simply isn't enough housing. And then you
Speaker 2: also look at the affordability of the housing that does exist.
Speaker 2: Thirty percent of New York City renter, the majority of
Speaker 2: New York City renters spend more than thirty percent of
Speaker 2: their income on rent. Another thirty percent of New York
Speaker 2: City renter is spend over fifty percent of their income
Speaker 2: on rent. So this is considered a very severely rent
Speaker 2: burdened city, and it needs to be a holistic solution
Speaker 2: that includes building housing, but also smart policy that's going
Speaker 2: to keep renters housed in the long run.
Speaker 1: Are you heartened by mom Donnie becoming the mayor?
Speaker 2: You know, I'm excited that he really focused on housing
Speaker 2: affordability as a pillar of his campaign, and he really
Speaker 2: spoke to the hearts of New Yorkers, which is this
Speaker 2: is something we're struggling with every single month when we
Speaker 2: write that rent check. And I'm excited that he seems
Speaker 2: to be really focused on solving this problem.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was young, I would come into
Speaker 1: New York and we would get the Village Voice there
Speaker 1: was no internet, and look for ass in the real
Speaker 1: estate market. Go to the apartment, stand in line. The
Speaker 1: line's a block long. I'm ever forget. I'm on Bleaker Street.
Speaker 1: I walk into the studio and all the walls are
Speaker 1: peeling off, the plasters pill you see the last inside
Speaker 1: you can see the laugh inside the wood framing, inside
Speaker 1: the walls. Everything, the paint is peeling. The thing is
Speaker 1: a mess, and there's like a box, a wooden box
Speaker 1: resemble the steam trunk. But then you look closer, there
Speaker 1: was drawers there. They just had the frame unpainted and
Speaker 1: you put a mattress on top, I guess, or some
Speaker 1: piece of pham. And I walk up to the guy
Speaker 1: and they wanted like back then, they wanted some you know,
Speaker 1: I don't remember. It was like, let's say it's fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for something that should have cost half that.
Speaker 1: I look at the guy. Because of the neighborhood, obviously
Speaker 1: there's a line of people, and I say to the guy,
Speaker 1: you gotta be kidding me. I looked him right in
Speaker 1: the face. You're charging fifteen hundred dollars to this. He goes.
Speaker 1: You come back at four o'clock, it'll be gone. And
Speaker 1: that was the reality of it. I learned right away
Speaker 1: your apartment. How did you find your apartment?
Speaker 2: I found my apartment by standing outside of the building
Speaker 2: waiting for people walking in and out, asking them if
Speaker 2: they liked the building. So my New York City rental
Speaker 2: story not as exciting as yours. But I lived in
Speaker 2: apartments that were not well maintained, landlords that never picked
Speaker 2: up the phone when something went wrong. So whenever I
Speaker 2: would apartment hunt, I wanted to do more research. I
Speaker 2: would just stand outside of buildings. I would wait for
Speaker 2: people walking in and out, saying do you live here?
Speaker 2: How's the landlord? Should I move in? And I got
Speaker 2: a lot of really valuable information from doing that, and
Speaker 2: that's ultimately how I found my apartment. I got good
Speaker 2: reviews from the people that were walking out. And this
Speaker 2: was really the light bulb moment to start opening glow,
Speaker 2: which is, can we build a platform to crowdsource this
Speaker 2: rental feedback, couple it with city data, and give renters
Speaker 2: their own background check on a building and landlord in
Speaker 2: the same way that renters have to put together one
Speaker 2: hundred page application to get an apartment in New York City.
Speaker 2: So that's how I found my apartment. It's rent stabilized,
Speaker 2: it's in Brooklyn. I've lived there for many years and
Speaker 2: don't have plans to leave anytime soon.
Speaker 1: Where are they doing it better? What city are they
Speaker 1: doing it better? Because you hear about housing crises all over,
Speaker 1: particularly San Francisco, because of the tech world pricing all
Speaker 1: that housing. Where's the city that you think is getting
Speaker 1: it more right than wrong?
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, it's a great it's a great question.
Speaker 2: And I think that New York is not unique in
Speaker 2: being a city that struggles with their housing. You look
Speaker 2: at San Francisco, you look at La you even look
Speaker 2: at Miami that had a lot of influx of new
Speaker 2: new renters during COVID. This is a global issue with
Speaker 2: metropolitan cities. Even if you look at case studies in Europe,
Speaker 2: which you know in Vienna or Berlin or even Paris,
Speaker 2: cities that have really strong rent regulation, they're also struggling
Speaker 2: to keep up with the population growth and grow the
Speaker 2: housing stock. So I think this is something that's really universal.
Speaker 2: It's the medium and smaller cities that are that are
Speaker 2: doing better, like a Boston or a DC.
Speaker 1: How's Toronto.
Speaker 2: Toronto also is having a lot of challenges. A lot
Speaker 2: of their housing stock is new, brand new condos, luxury
Speaker 2: condos where rents are just too expensive and your average
Speaker 2: working class family can't even afford to move into the
Speaker 2: new housing that's being constructed. So this is this is
Speaker 2: definitely a global issue across the gambit.
Speaker 1: I see those huge buildings on the south end of
Speaker 1: the park. I see those enormous pencil like buildings they
Speaker 1: put up in recent ears to the ugliest buildings I've
Speaker 1: ever seen in New York.
Speaker 2: And they have their own construction issues. There was the
Speaker 2: story of the match Tick building on Park Avenue where
Speaker 2: the garbage shoot, the garbage velocity, yes, exactly, it was
Speaker 2: just exploding. And you know, people spend tens of millions
Speaker 2: of dollars on those apartments.
Speaker 1: So one thing that comes to mind is I hear,
Speaker 1: maybe just in my head, the wording of people who
Speaker 1: are opposed to the work you do. They're totally market driven,
Speaker 1: and they're going to sit there and say, why does
Speaker 1: New York owe everybody a place to live here? Like
Speaker 1: once we reach where we are and there's a I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm all for rend control, stabilization, but the idea that
Speaker 1: we owe everybody a house, why don't they just go
Speaker 1: somewhere else. There's no room, it's done, it's filled up
Speaker 1: for now, and unless they build other things, what do
Speaker 1: you say to them?
Speaker 2: You know, I have a very firm belief that there
Speaker 2: are some things that are human rights, and housing is
Speaker 2: one of them, and housing is something that permeates into
Speaker 2: all aspects of our society. If people do not have
Speaker 2: stable housing, they're not going to have access to education,
Speaker 2: They're not going to have access to economic opportunity. Housing
Speaker 2: is really the foundation to living in a successful society.
Speaker 2: And you'll talk to some of these free market capitalists
Speaker 2: that also share that belief that you should not be
Speaker 2: able to charge whatever you want on housing, education, or healthcare.
Speaker 2: These are things that are extremely sacred that need to
Speaker 2: have some sort of regulation. New York City has always
Speaker 2: been a place where people want to live, that people
Speaker 2: move from all over the world, and we need to
Speaker 2: make sure that we are accommodating the spirit and culture
Speaker 2: and the history of New York City.
Speaker 1: You function, I'm sure the fees that are paid to
Speaker 1: you by your clients, if you will, that doesn't cover
Speaker 1: all the costs, correct, correct? So you get funding from
Speaker 1: where we do. We're a venture back to startup, right,
Speaker 1: and where does the money come from?
Speaker 2: So we have monetization models, but we also have venture
Speaker 2: capital investors that also believe in this mission of rental
Speaker 2: transparency that has provided funding to us.
Speaker 1: You did a lot of things in your career, Yes,
Speaker 1: before you did this, and I'm assuming you did fairly well.
Speaker 1: You win all these money. My friends who do finance
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, as a matter of treasure anything,
Speaker 1: I just called them. They're in money. I said, yes,
Speaker 1: just make my life simpler because I can't keep track
Speaker 1: of all these different offshoots. But you did that. Do
Speaker 1: you miss it or do you still do it? Are
Speaker 1: you still an entrepreneur in the way that you were
Speaker 1: before opening clip?
Speaker 2: I am an entrepreneur full time with Open a Glue,
Speaker 2: and I do miss my prior stints. I worked in banking,
Speaker 2: I worked in venture capital, investing in startups, working on
Speaker 2: a trading floor. My first job out of college was
Speaker 2: working in Wall Street. That's what brought me to New
Speaker 2: York City to begin with. And there's something fun about
Speaker 2: the pace and also just the learning. Right When you
Speaker 2: work in that type of environment, you're reading the news.
Speaker 2: You're reading about what's going on in all corners of
Speaker 2: all corners of the world. And I loved that about
Speaker 2: the job. But I do that now in my work
Speaker 2: with Openeglo. I love staying on top of what is
Speaker 2: going on in our city, what is going on in
Speaker 2: city politics, what is going on in the housing space,
Speaker 2: what is on renters' minds, and taking all of that
Speaker 2: knowledge to build a platform that hopefully is going to
Speaker 2: make New York City better in the long run. What
Speaker 2: we're seeing now, just a few years into building Open Agloo,
Speaker 2: is that landlords are changing their behavior. They're actually taking
Speaker 2: care of their buildings because they're realizing that the transparency
Speaker 2: that we're putting in, the spotlight we're putting on them
Speaker 2: means they're losing clients. They're not signing leases as fast
Speaker 2: as they once were because renters are looking at the
Speaker 2: reviews and saying, well, I don't want to pay four
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a month to live here. You don't take
Speaker 2: care of your renters that you have right now. So
Speaker 2: we're starting to see that impact, and that's really what
Speaker 2: I'm excited to continue to focus on.
Speaker 1: Not in all things, but I tend to view when
Speaker 1: I was reading about you and your work, I tend
Speaker 1: to view it like other things, where you're doing jobs
Speaker 1: the government ought to be doing. You're providing a service,
Speaker 1: and you're providing a reality to people that is a
Speaker 1: business the government might have been in to provide transparency,
Speaker 1: and so.
Speaker 2: Farth transparency and also informing renters about their rights. So
Speaker 2: rent stabilization is a big policy that impacts millions of
Speaker 2: New Yorkers. There's nearly a million rent stabilized apartments, and
Speaker 2: we ask renters when they're reviewing their landlords and buildings,
Speaker 2: do you live in a stabilized apartment?
Speaker 1: Yes? No?
Speaker 2: Not sure? Thirty five percent of our users check not sure,
Speaker 2: and that breaks my heart. That means that there are
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of renters who probably live in a
Speaker 2: stabilized apartment and don't even know it. And having this
Speaker 2: type of protection means your rent increases are limited and
Speaker 2: you are entitled to a renewal. The landlord cannot ask
Speaker 2: you to leave. So big mission at O BINEGLO has
Speaker 2: been sharing this information, trying to trying to get the
Speaker 2: work done. Believe absolutely, it's devastating when you when you
Speaker 2: think about the old school New Yorkers and we all
Speaker 2: know one or two of them that are living in
Speaker 2: a five hundred dollars rent controlled apartment on the Upper
Speaker 2: West Side. Those are because those renters knew their rights
Speaker 2: right and they stayed in that apartment for their entire lives,
Speaker 2: and as a result, they're able to stay and live
Speaker 2: in the city comfortably, and I want to make sure
Speaker 2: as many renters know about those rights as possible.
Speaker 1: Open igloo co founder and CEO Alia Mohammad. If you
Speaker 1: enjoy conversations about the heart of New York City, check
Speaker 1: out my episode with WNYC's Brian Larra.
Speaker 3: People have said to me, oh, your show is the
Speaker 3: opposite of Rush Limbaugh. And it's not because he's conservative
Speaker 3: and I'm liberal. It's because he makes no secret about
Speaker 3: the shows about what he thinks. For me, I have opinions.
Speaker 3: I sometimes state my opinions, or I sometimes frame questions
Speaker 3: in a leading way that suggests an opinion. But the
Speaker 3: show is not about what I think. So if I'm
Speaker 3: expressing a point of view, which I'm allowed to do
Speaker 3: on the show, but if I do express an opinion,
Speaker 3: it's in the context of, Okay, this is what I think. Now,
Speaker 3: everybody else who agrees or disagrees, come on in and
Speaker 3: let's have a meaningful conversation about it.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Brian Lehrer, go
Speaker 1: to Here's Thething dot org. After the break, Alia discusses
Speaker 1: her hopes for New York City housing plans under Mayor Mumdani.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin, and this is here's the thing. As
Speaker 1: the affordable housing crisis swells across the United States, New
Speaker 1: York City leads the way with its unaffordable market for renters.
Speaker 1: The newly elected Mayor Zoran Mamdani aims to freeze the
Speaker 1: rents on the one million rent stabilized apartments in New
Speaker 1: York City. As the terms are often conflated, I wanted
Speaker 1: Ali Mohammad to explain the difference between rent controlled and
Speaker 1: rent stabilized.
Speaker 2: So rent stabilized is typically buildings that were built before
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four that have six or more units, and
Speaker 2: rent controlled are very specific units that were built before
Speaker 2: nineteen forty seven, where there I might get the years
Speaker 2: wrong one or two, but built before nineteen forty seven
Speaker 2: where there has been a continuous tenant since nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 2: So if you've lived in your apartment since nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: one and the building was built before nineteen forty seven,
Speaker 2: you might have a rent control department. Now, there's only
Speaker 2: about sixteen thousand rent control departments left in New York City,
Speaker 2: and that's because when that continuous tenant who most likely
Speaker 2: passes away that rent control department converts into a rent
Speaker 2: stabilized apartment. So that's just a different regulation status, but
Speaker 2: they have many of the similar protections that the rent
Speaker 2: control departments are going to be. Those eighty dollars apartments
Speaker 2: in Manhattan, and the rent stabilized apartments are not necessarily affordable,
Speaker 2: and I think this is a common myth in New York.
Speaker 1: City as well.
Speaker 2: So rent stabilized is just giving you protections against really
Speaker 2: crazy rent increases, and it protects you against the landlord saying, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm not renewing you. You have to leave. That's all
Speaker 2: rent stabilization does, but it doesn't mean affordable. The most
Speaker 2: expensive rent stabilized apartment on record is fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: a month per month, and that is because over the
Speaker 2: years there have been these tax abatement programs. For example,
Speaker 2: where developers build a building they don't have to pay
Speaker 2: property taxes for thirty forty years if they make the
Speaker 2: building rent stabilized. So it's still very common that you
Speaker 2: will see, you know, these units in Hudson Yards that
Speaker 2: are rent stabilized, but you do have those protections against
Speaker 2: large rent increases.
Speaker 1: Now many many people come in I'm talking about the
Speaker 1: mayor's race in Mondani and they come in and they
Speaker 1: have a lot of hopes and they advertise a lot
Speaker 1: about what they intend to do. What do you think
Speaker 1: that's achievable? From Mom, Donnie, what would you like to
Speaker 1: see him do?
Speaker 2: I would love to see his plan of building two
Speaker 2: hundred thousand affordable units in New York City where they
Speaker 2: go all across the five boroughs. No neighborhood is going
Speaker 2: to be immune from getting affordable units built. And this
Speaker 2: has been one of the biggest debates in New York City. Oh,
Speaker 2: we don't want an affordable housing unit building in Soho.
Speaker 2: We don't want affordable housing built on the Upper West Side.
Speaker 2: We really need to come together as a community.
Speaker 1: See a lot of affordable housing on the Upper West
Speaker 1: Side now as it is, there's a lot of housing authority.
Speaker 1: I lived on a I used to live in the
Speaker 1: El Dorado for twenty years and in that West nineties
Speaker 1: area there was a lot of public housing.
Speaker 2: There is, but there's not enough. When you look at
Speaker 2: how the city has grown, and the vacancy rate in
Speaker 2: New York City is sub two percent, There's not enough housing.
Speaker 2: So I would like to see those two hundred thousand
Speaker 2: units built all across the city in the places where
Speaker 2: it's going to have the most impact. Right now, there's
Speaker 2: challenges and need to make sure if you build those homes,
Speaker 2: there's infrastructure to support it, schools, transportation, all of those things.
Speaker 2: But if he can really execute on this vision, the
Speaker 2: city is going to be in a much better place
Speaker 2: than when it started.
Speaker 1: You look at the city and you say, going in
Speaker 1: across all five burroughs, and I'm assuming there's some watchdogs
Speaker 1: groups like your own similar where the mission is to
Speaker 1: locate where more likely could that go? You either have
Speaker 1: to identify a insignificant amount of open land that's there
Speaker 1: to build houses on within reason, or you're going to
Speaker 1: tear something down. When Columbia decided to expand their campus
Speaker 1: and they went and bought all these muffler shops or
Speaker 1: whatever was up there adjacent to them and ripped everything down,
Speaker 1: ripped down like a whole block, yep. And they're going
Speaker 1: to do like the wall and have more wall and everything,
Speaker 1: you know, their campus, their private campus. Where do you
Speaker 1: think the housing can be built quickest?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great question. Even you know to your
Speaker 2: comment about Columbia, they have a very dark history when
Speaker 2: it comes to their expansion and displacing communities. I think
Speaker 2: we need to be really intentional that if we're going
Speaker 2: to be aggressive with this plan to build housing, it
Speaker 2: needs to make sure it's taking into consideration the wants
Speaker 2: of the community. Give you an example in Bedstide, there
Speaker 2: was a project to build an affordable housing building in
Speaker 2: a parking lot beside a church, and there were protests
Speaker 2: and people were upset about this. How could you build
Speaker 2: this beside the church. We weren't tearing down the church
Speaker 2: or anything like that. This was a vacant parking lot
Speaker 2: that hadn't been used. And there are places like that
Speaker 2: all across the city. My friends and family hate me
Speaker 2: because every time we're walking somewhere in New York, I'm like,
Speaker 2: that could be housing. That could be housing. This could
Speaker 2: be housing. It's abandoned parking lots, even in Manhattan. So
Speaker 2: I think that there's a lot of opportunities to build
Speaker 2: the housing that we need without displacing or changing, you know,
Speaker 2: the culture and facade of the neighborhoods that we hold.
Speaker 1: Dear, you're doing that work to your knowledge, now of
Speaker 1: identifying where the housing can go. Is there a group
Speaker 1: you work with or admire or are aware of who.
Speaker 2: Is Yeah, you know, citing that city council members, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of city council members that are taking this
Speaker 2: task really seriously. One or two Tosa, for example, he's
Speaker 2: a city council member in BADSTI who was behind that
Speaker 2: project close to the church. And I would really encourage
Speaker 2: other council members to follow suit and identify those development
Speaker 2: areas in their community and do it in a way
Speaker 2: with public input, of course, but with a sense of urgency,
Speaker 2: because we don't have five years to just argue and
Speaker 2: debate what color the brick should be. We need housing yesterday.
Speaker 1: Well, in that way, that real estate is always someone's equity.
Speaker 1: There's a town I work in in a film festival culture,
Speaker 1: and there's a movie theater there which does okay in
Speaker 1: the captive summer months. This is out on Long Island.
Speaker 1: The guy that owns the theater, he's never going to
Speaker 1: sell it to us, never we've begged him. We've gotten
Speaker 1: people with a lot of money, some rich monsters of
Speaker 1: our activities. We thought we could work it out. Had
Speaker 1: a number that made sense for everybody. But it didn't
Speaker 1: matter what the number was, he was. And you always
Speaker 1: realize that there are people out there, a huge number
Speaker 1: of them, who are never selling their land or their property.
Speaker 1: This is of a value them they think is only
Speaker 1: going to go up. Is that a problem you come
Speaker 1: up with in New York.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a good point with the theater example.
Speaker 2: Real estate is emotional. In New York City. It is emotional,
Speaker 2: and anybody who's bought or sold a home knows this.
Speaker 2: People think their houses are worth way more than it
Speaker 2: actually is because of the childhood memories you have from that.
Speaker 2: It's just not true. I would say in New York
Speaker 2: City you do see a lot of buildings change hands.
Speaker 2: I don't think you have the same stubbornness when it
Speaker 2: comes to real estate because it is a business. But
Speaker 2: the investors that have done the best are the ones
Speaker 2: that have bought and held and never sold. And this
Speaker 2: is where you see the most success in New York
Speaker 2: City real estate portfolios. You bought a couple buildings in
Speaker 2: the fifties, bought a couple buildings in the sixties, and
Speaker 2: you kept just building the portfolio. So maybe there is
Speaker 2: a little bit of stubbornness. But the buildings in New
Speaker 2: York City are already residential units, right, so you don't
Speaker 2: have this. You know, the garage owner won't sell because
Speaker 2: we want to build housing. I don't think that's true.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of those businesses they do end
Speaker 2: up selling to developers and getting those buildings built.
Speaker 1: Co founder and CEO of open iglu Alia Mohammad. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be sure
Speaker 1: to follow Here's the thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back,
Speaker 1: Mohammad tells us how to find a rent stabilized apartment
Speaker 1: in New York City. I'm Alec Baldwin, and this is
Speaker 1: here's the thing. When open igloo first began in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: its primary goal was to bring transparency to the New
Speaker 1: York City rental market help for renters. Open Igloo provides
Speaker 1: a platform for tenants to review their landlords and buildings.
Speaker 1: By twenty twenty two, open igloo was listed as one
Speaker 1: of the top one hundred apps in the App Store,
Speaker 1: and since then has grown to help millions of renters
Speaker 1: in the Five Boroughs with such success. I was curious
Speaker 1: how Alia plans to grow open Igloo beyond her original mission.
Speaker 2: I got asked all the time, when is open agglu
Speaker 2: gonna expand beyond even New York City. So we started
Speaker 2: the platform to help renters do research, and we've really
Speaker 2: evolved into a platform where people can find an apartment.
Speaker 2: And when I say that, I mean do the research,
Speaker 2: find the apartment, schedule the tour, apply for the apartment,
Speaker 2: pay sign all within a digital and transparent platform, because
Speaker 2: what we commonly hear from New York City renters is
Speaker 2: the scams. Okay, I found the apartment, I scheduled the tour,
Speaker 2: the broker ignored me, never showed up. Or I applied
Speaker 2: for the apartment but there were fifty other applications and
Speaker 2: I didn't get it, or there was a bidding war,
Speaker 2: or it was a made up scam to begin with.
Speaker 2: So these are the challenges we really want to tackle
Speaker 2: for renters and help them not just during the due
Speaker 2: diligence phase, but really throughout their entire rental journey, and
Speaker 2: not just for their first apartment, but for their second
Speaker 2: apartment and their third apartment. I think the thing that
Speaker 2: always frustrated me was Why is it so hard to
Speaker 2: get an apartment the second apartment. I just already have
Speaker 2: one year of rent payment history. I'm a good tenant,
Speaker 2: everything's good. Why do we need to go through the
Speaker 2: same application system all over again. So I think if
Speaker 2: we really scale open Igloo to make it this digital platform,
Speaker 2: we can make it a lot easier for renters all
Speaker 2: across the country.
Speaker 1: How much does an organization like yours at least attempt
Speaker 1: to locate housing for people outside the Five boroughs? You
Speaker 1: want to say to them, here's some things that are
Speaker 1: more affordable for you in New Jersey, in Westchester Lower Westchester.
Speaker 1: Are there areas where the City of New York could
Speaker 1: be cooperating with other cities and other states in terms
Speaker 1: of building affordable housing outside of the.
Speaker 2: Five borough Absolutely, I mean you've definitely seen this happen
Speaker 2: with New Jersey, a lot of New Yorkers moving to
Speaker 2: Jersey City, Hoboken, even deeper into Jersey be definitely more
Speaker 2: affordable in New York City. But also the quality. Right
Speaker 2: you talk to anybody who lives in Hoboken, They're like,
Speaker 2: I've got a pool, and I got a gym, and
Speaker 2: i got a rooftop and I'm paying twenty two hundred
Speaker 2: dollars a month, which is considered cheap to your average
Speaker 2: New Yorker who pays for rent here. But I think
Speaker 2: there's definitely room to collaborate with other cities. But what
Speaker 2: I would really like to see the city focus on
Speaker 2: is the Five Boroughs, because there's so much work to
Speaker 2: be done here in the outer Boroughs, in the Bronx,
Speaker 2: in Staten Island. There are opportunities all across the Five
Speaker 2: Boroughs to build more quality, affordable housing for people who
Speaker 2: want to live here. Right, And I hear this all
Speaker 2: the time. If you can't afford to live in New York,
Speaker 2: just go somewhere else? What about New Yorkers? What about
Speaker 2: people who were born and raised here and their families
Speaker 2: are here, and their kids' schools are here. It's not
Speaker 2: as simple as saying, just move to New Jersey. There's
Speaker 2: twenty two hundred dollars apartments over there. We really need
Speaker 2: to solve it within our our own four walls.
Speaker 1: How does somebody find a rent stabilized apartment in New York?
Speaker 2: So funny you ask. So you shared earlier about the
Speaker 2: Village Voice having to circle classifieds, and you know trying
Speaker 2: to know somebody who knows somebody to get your hands
Speaker 2: on one.
Speaker 1: Of these apartments.
Speaker 2: This was the old way of finding rent stabilized apartments
Speaker 2: in New York City. And there's a new way that
Speaker 2: we've been really focused on at Open a glu, which
Speaker 2: is identifying where these vent say they.
Speaker 1: Were previous rather than old. So don't say that's the
Speaker 1: old way, it's the old way.
Speaker 2: To sorry, the former way, the previous way. Thank you, Yes,
Speaker 2: you're welcome. I apologize please.
Speaker 1: So now we you.
Speaker 2: Know, we really want to try and come up with
Speaker 2: a digital and transparent way of identifying these apartments. So
Speaker 2: in New York City, every single landlord is required to
Speaker 2: register their rent stabilized apartments with the state, and we've
Speaker 2: taken that data and we've put it on open a
Speaker 2: Glue so that you can go and you can search
Speaker 2: for I want two bedrooms in this neighborhood at this budget,
Speaker 2: and I want it to be rent stabilized, and we
Speaker 2: will show you all the units that are available that
Speaker 2: are in buildings with those stabilized apartments. There was a
Speaker 2: recent law that passed, the Rental Transparency Act and went
Speaker 2: into effect just this month that requires landlords to post
Speaker 2: notices in their common areas if there are rent stabilized
Speaker 2: apartments in the building. And this law was to try
Speaker 2: and help renters who are already living in the building
Speaker 2: to know if maybe they have a rent stabilized apartment
Speaker 2: and know their rights, et cetera. But it's not really
Speaker 2: that helpful to people who are apartment hunting because you
Speaker 2: don't go door to door and sort of poke your
Speaker 2: hat into these vestibules. So this is one of the
Speaker 2: ways that you can find a stabilized apartment is going
Speaker 2: to opening.
Speaker 1: What's your evaluation to the extent as it relates to
Speaker 1: your work, as it relates to people trying to locate
Speaker 1: even remotely affordable housing. About the real estate companies in
Speaker 1: this city, do they I mean, do real estate companies
Speaker 1: when people go and say to them, I want to
Speaker 1: get in an apartment and you sa, how much I
Speaker 1: have to spend and you're like a normal average person
Speaker 1: who wants to be able to spend twenty five or
Speaker 1: thirty percent of your monthly income on the rent? Are
Speaker 1: they laughing in their faces? And now do the real
Speaker 1: estate community community they don't get it sometimes?
Speaker 2: Right, you definitely have conversations with those brokers that say, oh,
Speaker 2: you're what you're looking for is completely unrealistic, Like I
Speaker 2: can't help you, it's not out there. Yeah, your budget
Speaker 2: is less than two thousand dollars, like good luck, move
Speaker 2: out of state. And you know our answer is yes,
Speaker 2: it is very difficult to find those cheap apartments, but
Speaker 2: it's not impossible. You need to be intentional, you need
Speaker 2: to be focused, and you need to leverage the tools
Speaker 2: that are at your disposal, everything from our platform to
Speaker 2: the affordable housing lotteries to you know, staying close with
Speaker 2: your uncle so that you can inherit the apartment.
Speaker 1: When I was going to school in Washington, which was
Speaker 1: the first city I lived in. When I was in
Speaker 1: DC to go to gw and they were saying, how
Speaker 1: DC was the opposite of New York. We're in DC,
Speaker 1: all the wealth was in the center of town, and
Speaker 1: you lived in the suburbs going outward to Bethesda and
Speaker 1: Silver Spraying and so forth, and the Virginia suburbs, and
Speaker 1: that New York was the opposite of that. All the
Speaker 1: wealth is in the heart of the city, and everybody
Speaker 1: who doesn't have any that has less money and less
Speaker 1: economic opportunity to live outside and the other boroughs. And
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, is there a bor you think is the
Speaker 1: most ready to be redeveloped now with affordable housing the Bronx.
Speaker 2: Perhaps the Bronx definitely, but that comes with a lot
Speaker 2: of challenges. So we've seen projects open up in the
Speaker 2: Bronx that aren't truly affordable.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You look at the area median income for some neighborhoods
Speaker 2: in the Bronx forty fifty thousand dollars a year household
Speaker 2: incomes and the apartments are being priced at thirty one
Speaker 2: hundred thirty five hundred four thousand. Because these brand new,
Speaker 2: beautiful luxury developments. So it's not just enough to build
Speaker 2: the housing. The Bronx got a lot of new housing
Speaker 2: over the past five years. Problem is, no one can
Speaker 2: afford to live in them. So this is something that
Speaker 2: we really need to get to the Crux to But
Speaker 2: the Bronx is a big burrow and there's a lot
Speaker 2: of development opportunities there. My fear is that if we
Speaker 2: continue to build these luxury apartments, we're not actually going
Speaker 2: to solve anything.
Speaker 1: Now there are unscrupulous obviously landlords. I've had a couple
Speaker 1: of not many, And we hear about people who don't
Speaker 1: get their deposits back. What remedies do they have available
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 2: If they don't get their deposit back from their landlord.
Speaker 2: It's definitely something that happens in New York City. We
Speaker 2: actually track data about this at open igloo. The good
Speaker 2: thing is that seventy percent of renters report getting their
Speaker 2: complete security deposits back at the end of their lease,
Speaker 2: and it's a thirty percent that don't. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: there's a percentage of those that maybe there was something
Speaker 2: that they did break and something should have been retained.
Speaker 2: But if a landlord unjustly keeps a security deposit, you
Speaker 2: can file a complaint with the Attorney General or you
Speaker 2: can take them to Small Claims court. Within fourteen days
Speaker 2: of your moveout, and this is a law in New
Speaker 2: York City, within fourteen days of your move out, the
Speaker 2: landlord has to send you an itemized receipt of why
Speaker 2: they are keeping or retaining the deposit. And if they
Speaker 2: don't send that to you, they essentially forfeit it back
Speaker 2: to you. So those are the past to try and
Speaker 2: get it back. At open Igluo, we really want renters
Speaker 2: to do research on the landlord before they move in.
Speaker 2: Do they have a reputation for not returning security deposits?
Speaker 2: And this is data that we track and display on
Speaker 2: our platform so that you can avoid those places and
Speaker 2: hopefully avoid of that more of.
Speaker 1: Them that you want to admit too, that we want
Speaker 1: to imagine in terms of that, don't give them their
Speaker 1: money back.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, definitely, it's it's a common practice. I'm happy
Speaker 2: that it's not as common. It's not the majority of cases,
Speaker 2: but there's definitely landlords that are notorious for never giving
Speaker 2: security deposits back. What renters will commonly do, and this
Speaker 2: is you know, not legal, is they will use the
Speaker 2: security deposit to pay for their last month's rent and
Speaker 2: then they don't have to deal with this, you know,
Speaker 2: potentially confrontanial arrangement. I sort of have a controversial take
Speaker 2: on this where I tell renters do not use your
Speaker 2: security deposit as your last month's rent, because there is
Speaker 2: another law that says you were supposed to earn interest
Speaker 2: on your security deposit. So if you use your security
Speaker 2: deposit to pay last month's rent, you're essentially forfeiting the
Speaker 2: interest that your security deposit earned over that however long
Speaker 2: you lived in the apartment. So that's that's my advice
Speaker 2: to renters, is you know, collect that interest. I know
Speaker 2: it might be little, but if you live somewhere for
Speaker 2: five ten years, it adds up.
Speaker 1: My first department in New York that I bought was
Speaker 1: a condo, and then I moved into the Eldorado. I
Speaker 1: went from a condo to a co op. And now
Speaker 1: I'm in a building that's a condo. And I have
Speaker 1: been told by the brokers we've dealt with and those
Speaker 1: people who've tried to make an offer for us in
Speaker 1: our building that there's much more of an attraction toward
Speaker 1: condos now than co ops because a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't want to pull their pants down and show all
Speaker 1: their finances and everything else, like none of your business,
Speaker 1: you know, exactly. So my building is lower Fifth Avenue,
Speaker 1: and all that east of Fifth Avenue to Broadway area
Speaker 1: near Washington Square, all that area is mostly co ops,
Speaker 1: and the ones that are condos are thriving. Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody wants to come and live at a condo because
Speaker 1: they don't want to deal with the board. And we've
Speaker 1: had a lot of people connumbering our doorbell and ask
Speaker 1: us to buy our apartment.
Speaker 2: Don't get me started on the co ops. And it's
Speaker 2: one of those things, Alec that I tell renters never
Speaker 2: rent in a co op.
Speaker 1: Let's get you started. Go ahead, let me start this rant.
Speaker 2: You know, co ops are great, they're beautiful, right, some
Speaker 2: of them are beautifully maintained. But when you're a renter
Speaker 2: in a co op, it's difficult enough to be an
Speaker 2: owner in a car, right, But if you're a renter
Speaker 2: and a co op, it's a whole different story. Why
Speaker 2: because you are not protected against a lot of things
Speaker 2: that renters are protected against in normal buildings. So i'll
Speaker 2: give you an example. In New York City, the maximum
Speaker 2: that a landlord can charge on a rental application is
Speaker 2: twenty dollars simple credit check, background check, et cetera. In
Speaker 2: a co op. There is no cap in condos as well,
Speaker 2: So co ops can charge one thousand dollars for a
Speaker 2: rental application two thousand dollars, and they will. And it's
Speaker 2: essentially this way of discriminating against renters, to say we
Speaker 2: don't like renters here, and if you can't afford the
Speaker 2: non refuehightory, yes, if you can't afford the non refundable
Speaker 2: two thousand dollars application, we don't want you here. And
Speaker 2: I think there's something that's got something's got to change there.
Speaker 2: Even term limits, right, A lot of co ops have
Speaker 2: rules that an owner can only sublet their unit for
Speaker 2: two years at a time. So as a renter, you
Speaker 2: move in, you're just kind of getting settled. You've already
Speaker 2: paid all of these fees, and two years later you
Speaker 2: have to leave because of board rules. So I think
Speaker 2: from a renter's perspective, living and renting in a co
Speaker 2: op is a no no for me.
Speaker 1: What do you know about the air conditioning situation in
Speaker 1: New York that's coming up.
Speaker 2: I have been talking about this for years and years.
Speaker 2: So in New York City, there's very strict heat laws.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: New York City landlords are legally obligated to make sure
Speaker 2: that their renters have working in sufficient heat because, as
Speaker 2: we're seeing, winter can be dangerous and people do die
Speaker 2: in their apartments, especially vulnerable elderly New Yorkers. There's a
Speaker 2: law to propose something similar for air conditioning. Anyone that
Speaker 2: has spent a summer in New York City knows how
Speaker 2: disgustingly hot it can be, but also dangerously hot.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So a lot of New Yorkers they live without air conditioning,
Speaker 2: and this law would propose that landlords have those same
Speaker 2: obligations to air conditioning as they do to heat. Now,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't necessarily be obligated to pay for the air
Speaker 2: conditioning the electrical bill, for example, from running the air conditioner,
Speaker 2: but making sure that the apartment is outfitted with an
Speaker 2: air conditioner. But in New York City, for example, every
Speaker 2: single summer, cooling centers open up all around the city.
Speaker 1: Are cooling buses, Yes, you're.
Speaker 2: The cooling buses. They have doing the same thing right now.
Speaker 2: During this cold spurt, warming buses all of its buses
Speaker 2: to warming buses. Hospitals turn into warming centers twenty four
Speaker 2: to seven. And this is crazy. It means that people
Speaker 2: live in apartments where they're not getting sufficient heat or
Speaker 2: they're not being able to stay cool, and they actually
Speaker 2: have to go to one of these public buildings.
Speaker 1: That's talk about the lottery. It's talking about the lottery.
Speaker 1: What is your assessment of the lottery? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Interesting, So New York City has something called the Affordable
Speaker 2: Housing Lottery. So a lot of these new construction buildings
Speaker 2: that go up, a percentage of the units need to
Speaker 2: be allocated for the Affordable Housing Lottery and they are
Speaker 2: given to New Yorkers that meet certain income restrictions. Right,
Speaker 2: it's been a very successful program. There have been hundreds
Speaker 2: of thousands of New Yorkers that have been placed in
Speaker 2: these units, but it also has some criticisms. Right the
Speaker 2: time it takes to get placed. If you make even
Speaker 2: a penny more than what the band is, you don't
Speaker 2: get the apartment. Also, some of these bands are allocated
Speaker 2: to people who make one hundred and fifty one hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty five thousand dollars a year, which by New
Speaker 2: York standards doesn't mean you're a very wealthy person. But
Speaker 2: it leaves a lot of questions as to why do
Speaker 2: we need an affordable housing lottery to house people that
Speaker 2: are making six figures? What about people that make lower incomes?
Speaker 2: So a lot of criticisms of the program. There was
Speaker 2: a recent change, for example, where a person that got
Speaker 2: placed in an affordable housing lottery, if they moved out,
Speaker 2: that unit used to have to go back into the lottery.
Speaker 2: And what would end up happening is that unit would
Speaker 2: stay empty for months and months. And they've changed the
Speaker 2: law temporarily so that people can just apply directly, first come,
Speaker 2: per serve, so we can get that turn happened a
Speaker 2: little bit faster.
Speaker 1: This takes me back to the earliest days of my
Speaker 1: young days in New York. My uncle lived in his apartment,
Speaker 1: him and my father. They were from Fort Green, the
Speaker 1: old Fort Grain, But I grew up and spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time there as a child with my father's parents,
Speaker 1: and my uncle lived in Manhattan for years and got
Speaker 1: in an apartment of rent, stabilized apartment with very modest rent.
Speaker 1: People don't understand that in New York, with some modest exceptions,
Speaker 1: whether it's a terrace or a comunity garden, whatever, then
Speaker 1: in New York your home is pretty modest. And in California,
Speaker 1: you go out and the sun's on you and you're
Speaker 1: going to grow your tomatoes or whatever the hell. But
Speaker 1: in New York, you've got to open the door and
Speaker 1: close the door behind you when it's your home and
Speaker 1: your way. A home in New York is precious, and
Speaker 1: I've always been taken with that idea of you know,
Speaker 1: you close that door and you have peace and you
Speaker 1: have security and I think the work that you're doing
Speaker 1: is amazing. I think it's amazing. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: And it's just for all the downtown work you did.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm making up for my bad past.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for doing this with us.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. It was such an amazing conversation.
Speaker 1: My thanks to open igloos Alia Mohammad. This episode was
Speaker 1: recorded at CDM Studios in New York City. We're produced
Speaker 1: by Kathleen Russo, Zach McNeice, and Victoria de Martin. Our
Speaker 1: engineer is Isaac Kaplin Woolner. Our social media manager is
Speaker 1: Danielle Gingwich. I'm Alec Bald and here's the thing is
Speaker 1: brought to you by iHeart Radio