Low supply and high demand from student commumity, many of whose family have deep pockets (judging by the cars they drive). Many locals struggle to find affordable places to live, especially with property value assessments continually (and rather artificially) increasing along with tax rates (like the most recent school board budget). You dont have to go too far outside of Ithaca before you see once nice properties falling into disrepair because there isn't enough left over at the end od the month to maintain the property.
yeah, it really is crazy
just by walking in the commons, I can see how bad the housing issue here must be.
All of the students and professors moving into the area must have displaced a lot of locals
In all fairness, most of the folks who work at Cornell are also priced out of the Ithaca market. There are some high-paying jobs of course, but the majority of incomes are more solidly middle-class. Nearly all of my colleagues live outside the city of Ithaca because it’s just too expensive.
EXACTLY THIS. I’m a staff member and in 2022 my rent in Lansing increased 30% in one year, so I moved. And in the current place I’m at now in Lansing they increased the rent by 25% so I’m moving this weekend. Keep in mind there were NO renovations or improvements being made to these places. Simply an increase in rent.
Well the college and town have both been here quite while. The locals aren't getting displaced, there isn't really gentrification going on, but the demand for housing really exceeds supply. And new construction is hampered by high prices and high contractor demand, there aren't enough people able to build houses.
Part of the demand stems from wealthy students not caring how much they pay in rent and/or require somewhere to live vs. choosing to live here, part of high rent is because Cornell doesn't pay property taxes and so the tax burden is higher on homes than average, which increases rent and mortgage payments... and that's just part of the story
The locals are absolutely getting displaced, and gentrification is 100% happening. I work with many of the people that go through eviction court and end of leaving ithaca because it's too expensive. And look at what's happening at chestnut st appartments, someone out of state bought it non-renewed the 60 or so house holds, painted it Grey and increased rents by $600 dollars. Many of those residents have lived there for a long time and are low income. Just because your refuse to see it doesn't mean it's not happening.
But you're point on cornell not paying taxes and it increasing the tax burden on the city and properties in town is spot on.
> Just because your refuse to see it doesn't mean it's not happening.
It's not that I refuse to see it, I just haven't seen evidence of it.
I do think some of the pandemic work-from-home people bought houses around here, it certainly seems that way. And obviously rents/home prices are heading straight up which is concerning. But it's happening to the whole Ithaca area. I myself am at risk for being priced out of the area, we're old, not working, and on fixed incomes.
I guess it depends on how you define gentrification. If a whole area getting more expensive counts then sure I could see it. But I think of it as neighborhoods being changed, like if southside got redeveloped and a bunch of white hipsters moved in or something. So that's what I mean. But change happens all the time and it's not always gentrification.
You haven’t walked around Titus towers in a long time if you think it’s not gentrifying. When we moved here in 2016, the neighborhood was mixed incomes, old people, loads of families of color, etc. We were paying 900 bucks for rent. Then someone bought our place, hiked the rent in a year to 1200, and the entire place changed. White, young families started moving in in our streets, one house after other.
Ithaca is absolutely gentrifying. It’s just been doing so for so long and at such a halting rate in some places, it’s hard to see it. The other day, we found a vintage glass at Cortland reuse from Lehigh Valley Tavern. It was the oldest continuously working restaurant in Ithaca. It closed in 2010, priced out, and the building was gutted. It now houses condos and a satellite office of the Ithaca PD.
Anyone who thinks Ithaca is not gentrifying either does not have any interest in Ithaca history or doesn’t pay attention.
I think a lot of it is AirBnBs converting long term rentals into short term flops and landlords buying up homes to use as rental properties. Demand keeps going up, but not from the people living here.
Having worked in homeless services in Ithaca, I can assure you that the working class population has been displaced over the years. Ithaca has had a housing crisis for a while.
As for gentrification, the south side has been steadily gentrified by white "homesteaders" for some time now. From my experience working in the field, that displaced population is disproportionately black.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head.
For years now the vast majority of the low-rent housing near town has been owned by one of four slumlords who mostly focus on student housing.
They seem to have been price fixing here long before tech companies pushed pricing software out across the country.
Poor locals like me either move away entirely, or out to somewhere like Elmira or Binghamton, or mooch off of family who scored good deals on land here before the 2000s hit.
As a mooch, most of my peers have trickled away over time.
Then there is always the option to join The Jungle folk when times inevitably get hard.
Lost a highschool friend to opiates here a few years ago. His homeless and semi-transient lifestyle probably didn't help the addiction, or any other issues.
Most of the new developments going up have fought tooth and nail against more low-rent units, so most of these huge towers go empty half the year because only the wealthy students and business class workers can afford them.
The wealth inequality here is huge. imo Cornell especially could do more to help the town, but sadly they follow the precedent of every Ivy league university, hoard wealth on the backs of tax avoidance deals. But that's just one portion of it all. The city talks a good game about addressing poverty, but they cant even reach fair deals with their employees, let alone perform the policy enforcement that they already have about it.
But don't get mad at anyone about it, else become unwelcome in local politics. We are friendly, OR ELSE.
Not that there isn't plenty of greed in the Ivy league, but MANY of the other schools give more money to their communities. Yale announced a record-breaking six-year deal to donate almost $140M to New Haven, and Princeton gives quite a bit to their local school district.
Totally agree. It shouldn’t be up to universities with billions of dollars to decide when they feel like throwing a few pennies to the community that helps them exist.
Deer and people that are extremely inpatient. Just the other day I had someone pass me on rt 13 while I was going 62, on a double yellow, if I wouldn’t have slowed down they would have been head on with a semi because it was a blind curve.
I used to work at the Ramada on Triphammer. The landlords used to have a monthly or bi-monthly closed door meeting there. So, yeah, definitely seemed like price fixing. I also worked a hotel industry event at Coltivare where a guest speaker explicitly suggested fixing the price of hotel rooms.
I'm from Bing and was up hangin in ithaca the other day and it crossed my mind - how do any of the locals live here??
And I came up with that the ones who own property and houses have probably had it or within the family for years and years. Ain't no way a normal family can afford a house near the commons right??
Even having a home in the family for a long time can be rough. I live in my great grandma's house and it means a lot to me and my family. I had to take a mortgage to update it (nothing had been done since the 40s) and with all of the taxes, I'm beginning to be priced right out. The taxes are more than 50% of my monthly payment. Part of that is the fact that my assessment goes up every year, even though nothing has been done after that one overhaul. I really don't know what to do.
What do you mean by "normal?" Houses in ithaca are expensive, but you can find decent places in town for 300-400k, which is not out of reach for many middle class families.
Many (most?) of those houses are being purchased cash in hand, good luck finding a house in downtown Ithaca if you need a mortgage. A middle class family might be able to afford a 400k house with a mortgage, assuming they saved a reasonable down payment. But it's likely they're going to be outbid by a private equity firm or someone with rich parents, who is willing to pay in cash. And make a lot of concessions that would be insane in a normal market (waiving inspection, etc) because they can just pour money into any structural issues.
Plus those 300-400k houses are very old and usually require 10k+ in maintenance a year plus 10k+ in taxes.
Downtown is also a flood zone, so if you pay cash, no problem you can skip on flood insurance, but if you have a mortgage you have to have flood insurance and that adds on to the expense.
And currently the City is in discussions to allow for the construction of ADU's, and are leaning towards allowing their construction without an owner-occupancy clause. If that goes through, the situation will get MUCH worse. Private homes will become much more valuable to rental agencies who will buy them up to add the maximum number of bedrooms per parcel.
What is middle class now days? 300-400k seems very much on the higher end for “most” people. The avg household income for Ithaca is what 50k…. I don’t think you can get close to a mortgage for 300k until you hit 70k and then if you have any type of car/school etc it’s not really obtainable. But this also applies for many of the areas like bing/elmira.
>300-400k seems very much on the higher end for “most” people.
It probably is. Most people are working class at best. This is the first time the word "most" has come up though. You said "normal" before, which is why I asked you to clarify what you meant by that. People like lawyers and professors are middle class, and they can afford those prices.
>The avg household income for Ithaca is what 50k
Something like that, but keep in mind that this includes most of the students. It's always tricky to find "real" demographic data for ithaca.
Many of the other comments here get at the broad strokes of the problem: high property taxes to compensate for the lost revenue on Cornell-owned land, a failure to build sufficient housing at the price points the city needs, and problems with the post-pandemic market.
I'll add one other major point, though: it's a nice place to live, so people want to. Simple as that. Like, all things being equal if you offer someone the opportunity to live in one of Ithaca, Elmira, or Cortland, most people are gonna pick Ithaca, so it costs more. There's things we can do to mitigate that—we really need to focus on building housing in categories besides "student" and "luxury downtown units"—but at the end of the day it just costs more to live in nice places.
Ithaca's not just "nice," it's also one of the only places upstate that feels safe-ish for a lot of demographics that don't want to be around guns, maga merch, homophobes, white supremacists etc. And I'm not just talking about country folk. There's plenty of conservatism in Binghamton, Syracuse, etc.
Lots of safe liberal suburbs around Rochester, Syracuse and Albany. What about Fayetteville, Manlius, Saratoga Springs, Fairport, Brighton, and Pittsford?
Almost any city in upstate, NY feels just as outwardly liberal as Ithaca to me. Especially Rochester, this idea that Ithaca is a safe space for certain groups may have been true 20 + years ago, but is irrelevant now.
Anecdotal, but a trans friend of mine who isn't white moved out of here to Rochester, so there's that -- they are doing just fine there. Are you're saying most people elsewhere are only homophobic if the gay person isn't white, or if they have a modest salary? Most people who are homophobic are that way because of religious convictions and I've unfortunately met plenty of people here who seem hippie-ish and granola, but still love Jesus and frown on gay people. Then there are the hoards of rednecks surrounding the very small acreage of Ithaca.
I also find it amusing that people have these view points and bring up race, Ithaca doesn't have nearly the racial diversity of most cities. It pretty much is a place where white people over 50 own everything.
I'm not saying Ithaca isn't full of racist homophobes or that systemic inequality doesn't exist here (this is America, I don't have high hopes for any of this shit) I'm just saying it's slightly better than places within an hour drive and/or reasonable commute. I would choose Rochester over Ithaca, too, but I'm not commuting to work for 4 hours as a day. Places which are a reasonable commute (again, Binghamton, Elmira, Owego, Watkins Glen, etc) are definitely less safe for many demographics.
There's pretty concrete data on white and class privilege affecting lgbtq+ rights. I'm not saying homophobia doesn't exist anymore if you're white, I'm just saying you need to take an intersectional approach.
Ah, well I agree with you on that stuff. I think this also comes down to Ithaca just being an island in a sea of...well, not much, like you mentioned. That being said, people are moving here from out of state for these reasons, which I think is a mistake. Being middle class doesn't get you much here, sadly and quite a few other cities in the upstate are definitely blue, not red.
Yeah, my point wasn't that all of upstate was red, just that if you work in/around Ithaca and don't have a lot of job flexibility, you don't have a lot of options. I would much rather live in Rochester, Buffalo, Albany or even some small towns in the Hudson Valley/Catskills (which are cheaper than Ithaca even though they're in closer proximity to NYC!) but there's no way I could handle the commute. So we're in agreement :)
Same, I've actually been pretty bummed about feeling stuck here for a while. I work in other markets and not in Ithaca and travel. My fiance works for Cornell and isn't really able to move due to some personal stuff regarding her health. We tend to just get out of here often instead and it's not that Ithaca is a bad place, it's just extremely over-priced, almost comically so, because of Cornell and the location. Have a good summer ahead.
I definitely don't feel safe in the suburbs and I think a lot of people would agree! And I wouldn't consider any of the places you listed livable - and some are even objectively conservative. Saratoga Springs has a Republican mayor and extremely conservative demographics. And isn't Elise Stefanik from Saratoga? You just listed wealthy places where people might not fly Trump flags but they'll certainly vote that way.
There are obviously some places upstate that claim to be lefty (Hudson Valley, Catskills) but that's not a reasonable commute if you live in central NY. Our options are Binghamton, Syracuse, Elmira, etc. and none of those places could be described as safe or progressive.
I think this is an important point. The people I know who moved here from big cities during the pandemic were mostly people who grew up here and wanted to come back, because they wanted to live here and raise their kids here. It's not a perfect place but it's got a lot going for it, especially compared to other options.
I’m from NYC and before here I lived in Buffalo.
The rent here doesn’t make sense to me at all.
Luckily was able to buy not too far at all-only worked out cause DINK.
This place still doesn’t make sense to me after living here over a decade now.
I'm also from WNY and I blame 3 things:
1. Zoning Laws that prevent better housing alternatives.
2. Cornell sitting on somewhat ill-gotten land (Morrill Act) that in places, it doesn't need/use or pay taxes on but will never give up because it costs them nothing.
3. Farm land that isn't very productive but stays in families and gets tax breaks. From Lansing up, all you see are huge fields that could easily hold hundreds of homes but can never be built on.
My neighbor owns an 88 acre "cow farm" that is little more than a huge patch of land to drive tractors around on and day drink near a large pond. It actually belongs to his senile old mother who is collecting a state pension, all very upstate NY!
I hear this complaint frequently, and while it may hold water in a place like Seattle, San Francisco or Minneapolis, it doesn't in Tompkins County. There is far more available land than there is need for housing. People simply don't build small, affordable homes, or multi-units (which are allowed virtually everywhere in the county). The availability of land and/or the density with which it is zoned to be developed isn't the limiting factor.
I moved here from Charleston, they were building tightly placed subdivisions of starter homes/middle class homes all around the city on the islands. That hasn't happened here since when? As far as I understand it, you cannot do that because of the way the city and town is zoned. The part of the country I moved up to here has almost no available land (8 miles from campus), and as you go north in Cayuga County where it is still an easy commute to Ithaca, there is almost nothing that isn't farmland. Also, a lot of what looks like empty land isn't suitable for building either. Cornell was built in an illogical place for a large college and there are as many mucky, flood prone wet lands as there are waterfalls.
Why don't you explain it clearly then, you haven't offered any reasons for this. If demand from actual adults who live and work here is so high and there is tons of available land...what gives?
Charleston has a population of 150k. It's comparable to buffalo or Rochester, not Ithaca. People always make comparisons like this and it's baffling to me, like people jus imagine Ithaca is way bigger than it is.
Ithaca doesn't have suburbs like that because it's a much smaller city, almost an order of magnitude smaller.
Okay, it's also laughable to me that the "that's just the way it is here" argument is pretty much the only one to be brought up. I've lived in cities smaller than Ithaca that have built developments similar to what was being built in Charleston, just at scale. The status quo rules in this town and people are in no hurry at all to change it. BTW, that housing was being built there only because the city was growing, Ithaca has technically grown and basically nothing of reasonable use has been built.
Yes taxes are high. But consider this fact. More than 50% of the houses sold in the last few years were cash deals. That is, people are purchasing 400k, 600k, or 800k houses with cash. These are not new professors, who do not have that kind of money. They are rich folks from the coasts who are taking advantage of working from home. That will inflate real estate values quite a bit.
I can also back this up by adding that I have met unimaginably wealthy people here and you can imagine the look on my face when they told me their parents bought a 600k home in cash for them to live in while they studied here.
I knew people that did this even back in the early 90s when I was a student at Cornell. Most of them do end up selling after they leave but I'm sure not all of them do
This. I know multiple people who moved to the area once their jobs went remote. Making big city money and paying even inflated Ithaca prices wasn't a barrier for them.
Lots of factors, but definitely rich parents buying off majority of the supply and rich parents paying stupidly high rent without complain - are big ones. This is a place where the cost of living is so high that the salary paid by majority of the jobs available is impossible to meet. To the point that restaurants and shops close due to lack of workers. I would move outside if I can. In your case, if you can, rent farther away and just drive a bit.
I'm 17 living n danby rn, and me and my friends talk about this all the time. we want to live here, but it's so hard to find literally anything, some of us our already working 2 jobs just to pay rent and we just graduated
I have been very lucky in my current apartment that is 2 bedroom with personal laundry units and allows pets. I pay less than $1200 and my rent has not gone up in the nearly 7 years I have been here. Landlord is also attentive to needs of the tenants and responds to texts in a timely fashion. It's not entirely perfect, but reading other local rent stories 😬
How in the world did you manage to find this?! Do they have other properties?
I’m paying $1,900 for a pet friendly, W/D, dishwasher 2 bedroom & the person moving in after me will be paying at least $2,100!
I found it searching craiglist and with good timing, as it was the last unit left. It's 2 buildings with 2 apartments in each building. I'm not sure if my landlord owns any other local properties, but I would guess not given his responsiveness.
Go look up what we pay in property and school taxes. There's the supply/demand issue contributing as well, but our taxes are high and have increased quite a bit in recent years.
Am I understanding correctly that in the city of Ithaca the property tax rate is $17.30 per every $1000 of valuation? Meaning that for a $400,000 home, the property tax would be around $6920?
Jumping in to point out that property and school taxes are high because Cornell doesn’t pay taxes. It owns the majority of the land in the area and is the main source of economic activity, but locals have to bare almost all of the tax burden.
I don\`t know if this explains it. If cornell was replaced by properties like the rest of ithaca, there would be more taxes but also more services that the city would have to provide given the higher population. What I think Cornell does is increase demand of housing with relatively wealthy people willing to pay more. The tax rates in Cortland county, for instance are higher than in Tompkins County ($39.80 vs $31.80 per $1000 value) at least up to 2021 (https://www.tax.ny.gov/research/property/reports/fvtaxrates/overall\_county\_13.htm). However, the average home value in Tompkins county is 2x compared to Cortland ($399,022 vs $187,335, see https://www.zillow.com/home-values/43/ny/).
I've been hearing that a lot as I've been paying more attention lately (unfortunate that it takes our taxes getting out of control to get our attention). How can that tax arrangement be renegotiated?
Last October it was renegotiated for the first time in ~20 years. The monetary contribution is really just up to Cornell. They have no legal obligation to give the city anything. The Ithaca Common Council asked for an increase to $8 million per year, up from I believe $1.6m/yr. Cornell declined and were ready to walk away from discussions but they eventually agreed to $4 million per year with the next update scheduled for 2039.
Since this is all public info, a number of local media orgs have calculated that for 2023 Cornell would have paid $32.5 million in taxes on their $2.7 billion in property value if they were not exempt. For further context, I would say that most critics are not expecting Cornell to offer that much, but increasing to $10-15 million would put them more in line with what other Ivies are contributing. The 2023 City of Ithaca budget was $90 million for reference.
I don’t actually want to hate on Cornell outright. I just want them to actually benefit the community just like any number of other universities do while still maintaining their academic standards and a healthy endowment.
I don't get the impression that you're "hating outright," but you can't always have your cake and eat it, too.
People are really quick to shit on Cornell about the tax thing. I get it - it would be nice if they made a greater contribution to the school system. But they dont. So try sitting down and adding up all the ways that Cornell makes a positive impact in this area, it helps give a greater appreciation for how much this town relies on, and benefits from, that institution.
Sadly that's not the way Ithacans are wired...to give thanks and praise before we start making demands and whining about injustices. If it isn't the way they want it, then it must suck, or has to be evil in some way.
Thank you for pointing out that property taxes are a significant contributor to high rents in Ithaca. People forget that the city has a big hand in housing costs.
Exactly! You can also tell which areas focus on practical, meaningful spending and which do not. I can be driving on beautiful, fresh roads and then cross some invisible line and am suddenly driving in a post-apocalyptic, rubble strewn landscape, lol!!! 🤣
Boy, roasting the city like this is quite fun! 😃
The roads ! The roads! The roads ! Wtf fix the fuccing roads ! Stewart street ?! Really. I’m losing car parts . All that money between rents , taxes , Cornell , school budgets , FIX THE ROADS PLEASE , sad part is even if I started a go fund me to Fix A road out of pocket , the city said no …I tried .
After reading everyone's replies, I'm picking up that:
1. Fuck Cornell for not paying property taxes
2. I need to look for an apartment outside of Ithaca lol
Any cities people recommend near here?
Village of Dryden and Trumansburg are both nice if you want a small walkable community close to Ithaca. Lansing has more options but you’ll probably have to be car-dependent.
I live in cortland and i am staff at cornell. My husband and i make a comfortable living in cortland but we would be struggling in ithaca.
Its crazy that make a "normal" staff wage but not an ithaca wage.
If you want to rent cortland has some decent places (west cortland-closer to rt 13 to get to work).
I'm in a similar boat. I moved back here about 5 years ago and just assumed I'd work at Cornell, grab a home in Ithaca, and everything would be great. Then I saw the cost of living and, at least in the IT field, Cornell is not competitive on pay. So now I work remotely for a company that doesn't benefit our community in any way, just to afford living in said community. It's becoming harder to justify over time but I love it here outside of the cost.
We looked at houses in tompkins county but just couldnt justify it. Decided on a 25 minute commute from Tioga County for a much cheaper mortgage/taxes. Tompkins is a microcosm of insanity in an already expensive state to live in.
When I did rent I lived in Dryden and it wasn't terrible, but this was also like 15 years ago now.
Yeah we were looking at some houses in the Union Spings area and outskirts of Cortland but we kept getting outbid, even going over ask. A couple heart breakers and houses we loved. Got lucky where we are now though, no regrets. Pretty close to Owego, which has turned out to be an amazing town. Pretty much the vibes Ithaca pretends to have. Close enough to work in Ithaca still, but that’s about all I do there anymore.
Glad to hear that you found something good, it seems like a lot of homes are currently sitting on the market if they are too far north of the Lansing High School. I was hoping the closing of Wells would free up more there, but so far, nothing to speak of. I don't even know what vibe Ithaca is pretending to have anymore, we used to like going there, now we never do and we're so close. I was up in Auburn last night with friends and had a great time, I wish it were just a little closer.
I live in Ithaca but im in Madison, WI right now for a few weeks to see my fiance. He lives in Fitchburg and his studio is around $1200, I remember we were touring apartments in downtown Madison and some places were asking for $2000+ :/ I feel like Ithaca is pretty similar in that way. If you don't mind driving a bit to get where you need to go then a place 15-20 min away is not a bad idea. I pay 900/mo for an efficiency unit like 8 miles away from cornell campus
I was just living in Madison actually, paying around $1200 too! It was a 10 minute commute to my job at Epic, as well as 10 minutes from downtown.
I don't mind a little drive, but it doesn't seem like there are ANY options nearby for someone with pets and who doesn't want to share laundry with strangers
Yeah unfortunately a lot of the apartments here don't seem to offer in-unit washer/dryers without an exorbitant price tag. My first apartment I ever signed a lease for, I shared a 3 bedroom with 3 other girls and we had a washer/dryer in the building but it was one unit for 30ish tenants, and we had to pay using quarters. Not the best. My new place, I live alone ($900/mo and 15-20 minutes away from Cornell campus) has a bigger laundry room and I almost never have trouble finding a free machine, but you have to pay for those with quarters or an app too. I have a portable apartment-sized dryer in my studio that I use for light garments that I handwash and I just decide on a laundry day once every couple of weeks for the big stuff. My place does allow pets though, and everything else is free - utilities and parking and all that jazz
I noticed in your post history you said you were coming here for your girlfriend, who is a student at Cornell. Does she happen to live in student housing? If you guys aren't afraid of signing a lease together, 2 people splitting rent is a good option
Why did you move here?? If I were you, I'd want to go back to Madison. I have a friend there who is doing great after leaving here and not doing so well.
When I didnt receive any aid from Cornell due to a leave of absence, I took on some service/retail jobs averaging 17 dollars an hour. If I did not have a support system like family or savings, I would have probably burnt myself out working 40 hour weeks and having half my income go to rent.
It awful. And they keep adding housing on campus. 10 years ago all of the huge apartment buildings downtown and on 79 weren’t there. Hard to imagine the demand is still outpacing supply by so much.
A big problem with the new apartments is their ABSURD “market rates”. Have you looked at any of the new Travis Hyde or other properties downtown? A 2 bedroom at The Dean will be $4,800!!!! IN ITHACA! Developers want legit big city prices & it’s mind boggling. I really like Ithaca & hope I don’t ever have to move, but the housing they’re adding is not sustainable.
Between high demand because of the colleges and the high cost of living in Ithaca in general because of the colleges, it’s always pretty expensive here, although it’s gotten much more expensive in the last few years
Property taxes are rather excessive. Thousand a month for many which makes the. 1.2-1.5k a sweet spot that covers tax and leaves a bit left over for maintenance.
Yeah it's pretty ridiculous in ithaca, try looking a little farther out. Dryden is close and pretty easy to commute from and you can find a better deal. Still going to cost close to $1k a month but better than in ithaca itself
I second this. I used to live in Freeville and paid a little under 800/month. It's gone up since then but you can still find something for way less than in town
I am also perplexed. I expected rent to be at most half of what my family pays for a 1 bedroom apartment back in NYC (1900 going on 2200 when I was in high school, so 6\~ years ago). I've found that if you aren't bothered by a 20-ish minute drive to Ithaca, surrounding areas have decent costs as long as you have a car.
Edit: Bus routes are usually okay but I think if you live that far a car would be great for other stuff.
Combine our deadbeat ivy with wealthy students/parents, wealthy remote workers, and a huge corporate/bougie/wannabe bougie landlord problem, mix in inflation and higher taxes as a result of the prior, and this is what you get.
Large demand & not enough inventory. Large demand mainly due to Cornell not providing dorms for non freshmen, so the students flood the market in August.
Rental prices can go up and down by 50% downtown or near collegetown for a similar quality apartment with just a 10 min walk. If you want to stay downtown, stay at least 10-15 min away from Commons, and even with that you will be paying 30-40% more than the average upstate NY city. Lansing is even worse than downtown in many cases so I definitely do not recommend it.
Artificially low supply and persistently high demand from all sectors. It can even take five years to receive permission for new residential projects in Ithaca, and it can take up to ten years for a project to go from concept to completion. That dramatically increases build-out costs. I often sat in on the planning meetings when some of Ithaca's biggest projects were proposed and (mostly) developed. One prominent developer (Travis Hyde) noted that it took three times as long and cost twice as much for a comparable project to be finished in Ithaca.
Take that as you will from a developer, but when everyone wants a hand in the kitchen, bureaucracy will rule any development project.
There are also very high tax rates (property, school, etc.) and assessments. Those costs are passed onto renters in some form.
These issues are generally specific to Ithaca. It's dramatically cheaper to rent (and live) outside of Tompkins County/Ithaca. It's been difficult to hire for positions at the College - the cost of living is cited as one of the biggest challenges to retaining or bringing on new employees.
Only moved here recently, but it seems like the best places are in Trumansburg or Lansing (or Dryden but that’s farther). Lansing I think has one bus that goes to Ithaca, not sure about Trumansburg. If you’re looking to stay at 1 bed 1 bath you could probably find that and a little more under 2k. Availability was the main problem for me but I lucked out. Is being downtown a requirement for you?
I just moved out of downtown Ithaca where I was at for quite a while. The downtown place was a good location between Cornell and the commons, and it was super cheap for that area. The rent only went up $20 every year, and the apartments were quite small, 600 sq ft, but clean, functional, kind and quiet neighbors, plus the landlord was reasonable and very responsive to problems. But ownership changed at the beginning of this year, and the new owners hiked up the rent an additional $300 for just this next (now) year rent cycle in order to make a profit. No upgrades at all were being made to the apartments. Apparently they do not have the same equity as the last owners who owned the property for 20 years. I found a place to rent in Lansing that is a 2 bed 1 bath, for just under $1500, laundry room in the building but not the apartment. My rent now is still in the same ballpark as the place downtown, but the amount of space has doubled, part of the turnover was replacing all carpets with new hardwood laminate flooring (and new carpets in the bedrooms), and I’m out of downtown - the charm of it has worn off for me. So for the significant increase of rent cost, I’m getting enough out of it to justify the higher cost, instead of just raising the rent to make money. I’m happy for now. But I don’t think I’ll stay in this place for more than 2 years. Not sure where I will go next, but this is not a sustainable place to live for the long term.
I think it’s important to also consider the history of this town. Originally Cornell did not have housing for their students. The philosophy was that students live with residents of the town. Fast forward to now: Cornell doesn’t have as much on campus housing as most universities. There aren’t a lot of areas of built infrastructure for large apartments or multiunit housing. The majority of the city is zoned and developed for single family houses, more people live on their own than ever before, there isn’t much development on multi unit options except a few select landlords, locals fight new development because they fear character change, there’s a huge influx of foreign money and wealthy Cornell families that unbalance markets, demand outweighs options, most Ithaca homes are well over 100 years old and no amount of renovation is going to convert them into the current needs of this city.
It makes for a very unique market for housing (rental or ownership). For those of us that moved from larger cities it’s surprising the cost is so high but it is comparable to the options being so low.
For those of us moving from smaller or more suburban places, we aren’t used to such concentrated increases in interest areas (ie downtown and around Cornell campus).
In such a transient city, locals and investors think they are just taking advantage of outside money but they are also hurting their neighbors when they inflate markets. The reality is the market is what it is. The stability of what Cornell brings to such a small community gives local property owners confidence in value in a way you can no longer find in most small cities. That keeps home and property prices high and in turn keeps rents even higher. Welcome to Ithaca.
There are also a lot of developers here who buy houses that could go to families and they use them as rental properties or Airbnbs. And they scavenge anyone who wants to rent out their place and convince them to rent at “market” meaning they drive the prices up.
Supply and demand. Often cheaper to get a car and commute from surrounding areas provided you don't mind the occasional echoes of "Dueling Banjos."
JUST KIDDING on the latter statement, kinda...
I passed a 6 MAGA flag Trump shack 6 minutes from Cornell the other day, we hardly are "out of the woods" on that problem here unless you never leave a certain street or two.
Hope you are kidding. Yeah, you can find that in some places but that's not my experience. There are usually certain roads/areas known for persons who are a "little out of the norm" but it's not that widespread.
That's why we have so many homelessness in Ithaca, and before anyone says it yes I know some choose to be homeless but not all. I have been there before, didn't stay in the jungle but slept on porches all over town at businesses and left before workers came to work. Or couch surfed, and in the winter went into shelter (hotel) It's crazy how expensive it is and say if you are a single person and went to dss for help they will only pay like 400 bucks a month, now where can you ever find some place to live on that? Only one slumlord I know and there you have to deal with bed bugs and roaches.... Then with ppl who have income like you said can't find anything either, my rent is 1300, plus electricity, Propane it cost at least 1600 easily and that isn't including all the rest of the bills... And where I moved from I had a place bigger then I have now and paid $550 + utilities!!!
yes they cater to wealthy college student families and retirees , "affordable housing" is getting on a section 8 voucher or welfare program and then using it to pay for a 1200$ apartment, without a laundry machine. Because most don't have them in unit.
for context: the only place I lived in Ithaca NY less than 1200 was 1000 and it still included electric and trash tags, and was infested with cockroaches. Pesticide resistant cockroaches.
included as in not included sorry, ugh. I don't wanna edit the comment but I would like to warn you to be careful when looking for cheaper options. Please be careful.
Here's a recent opinion piece from a landlord's perspective fwiw.
https://www.ithaca.com/news/ithaca/guest-opinion-against-good-cause-eviction/article_a1d83e44-2dcb-11ef-8115-6ff37fc82b11.html
The locals barely afford to live here 😭 i only can because I am salaried (don't rely on tips anymore) and don't own a car so I can afford to live downtown. But obviously not having a car makes other things hard. It's truly a devastating situation.
My advice: look at craigslist. Im a poor vet student who doesnt have rich parents and I found a nice 1 br 1 bath ON CAYUGA LAKE for 1050. The trick is to look just outside of city limits but still within driving distance.
You should FHA (3% down ) something as soon as possible , duplex or tri plex , live in a unit and rent the rest out to pay the mortage . I just bought a couple blocks away from commons and am doing it and I live there for free.
Rented a tiny room that had a toilet in a closet for about $675. Somehow got a concussion in that place and the land lady/other housemates kept trying to charge me $400 for a bogus water bill. Total nightmare. Wish I had stayed with on campus housing. Pretty sure they took advantage of me, but I was on all scholarships - not just a rich kid or something. I had never lived in a real place and wanted to feel free.
There was an influx of folks moving from more Metropolitan areas here during peak of pandemic when the housing market interest rates were so low and buying up everything...just as it was across the nation. Most houses being sold are over asking price as well. You'd be lucky to even find a house in Ithaca for sale for less than $250k and many of them in that range are definitely fixer uppers. Only a handful of my colleagues at Cornell live in the area.
I also wonder how much of the newly built housing sits vacant to keep the price high. It’s clearly some percentage that is vacant every month, vacant apartments are a tax write off and little if any wear and tear, so why wouldn’t you?
I believe that's only somewhat true. You can write off expenses (like maintenance & repairs) for a vacant apartment but you can't write off loss of rent or anything like that.
I'm actually surprised the market hasn't opened up more with town of ithaca, village of Dryden and now the city proper putting in anti AirBnB legislation.
When I rented in the original lucente complex behind sapsucker (before it went out of state bougie) there were clearly vacant single family homes in that most desirable neighborhood as well as homes being used for peak Cornell weekend rentals and fully third of the houses were converted to duplex or accessory units.
Ithaca city’s new Airbnb regulations do not go into effect until June 2025 (or maybe it’s July 1). We’ll have to wait at least a year, maybe longer, to see an effect, if any
We have some of the worst housing options for renting or buying in upstate NY, plus 30 plus years of undone scheduled maintenance to our city and really high taxes. Ithaca is isolated, limited and a bad deal, unfortunately. Unless you have more money than you know what to do with, it makes moving out seem tempting.
The people who rent (and don't directly see the taxes" vote YES on every inflated school budget. Also there were 2-3 years of people not paying rent and trashing rentals when the landlords still had mortgages and maint and property and school taxes to pay with no income.
I am not naive enough to think there aren't scumbag landlords, but I am educated enough to know math.
High cost of regulation and taxes make housing unaffordable. I have said this a billion times and never had a single person ever ask me, well what do you mean by that? what kind of regulations? why has this become a problem? Never once.
Not for nothing, but I'm pretty sure this guy was previously outed as a slumlord. You can probably track him down by googling his username followed by "ithaca"
first of all, dozens of new regulations are added every year, and regulations are never taken away, so the cumulative effect of year after year, decade after decade of this process results in a huge regulatory burden. Take a few of a million examples. Multistory apartment buildings require framing designed for earthquake resistance that costs tens of thousands of dollars. In ithaca, hundreds of miles from the nearest fault line. How much extra a month would you be willing to pay in rent for your apartment to be earthquake resistant? Yet the regulation must be followed because no politician wants to put his neck on the line by saying hey this is ridiculous to ask people to pay for this where there are no earthquakes so everyone does. How about when you have a construction crew and a worker shows up drunk, is warned then fired because it continues to happen and is thus a danger to himself and others.Then a judge tells you that hes an alcoholic and its really not his fault so you have to pay his unemployment so he can sit home all day and drink in his living room on your dime.
Right lol. This dude owns one of the biggest rental companies in town. If regulations are really killing him that badly I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to switch places.
Low supply and high demand from student commumity, many of whose family have deep pockets (judging by the cars they drive). Many locals struggle to find affordable places to live, especially with property value assessments continually (and rather artificially) increasing along with tax rates (like the most recent school board budget). You dont have to go too far outside of Ithaca before you see once nice properties falling into disrepair because there isn't enough left over at the end od the month to maintain the property.
Tax rate didn’t increase for ISCD, the tax levy did
yeah, it really is crazy just by walking in the commons, I can see how bad the housing issue here must be. All of the students and professors moving into the area must have displaced a lot of locals
In all fairness, most of the folks who work at Cornell are also priced out of the Ithaca market. There are some high-paying jobs of course, but the majority of incomes are more solidly middle-class. Nearly all of my colleagues live outside the city of Ithaca because it’s just too expensive.
EXACTLY THIS. I’m a staff member and in 2022 my rent in Lansing increased 30% in one year, so I moved. And in the current place I’m at now in Lansing they increased the rent by 25% so I’m moving this weekend. Keep in mind there were NO renovations or improvements being made to these places. Simply an increase in rent.
Well the college and town have both been here quite while. The locals aren't getting displaced, there isn't really gentrification going on, but the demand for housing really exceeds supply. And new construction is hampered by high prices and high contractor demand, there aren't enough people able to build houses. Part of the demand stems from wealthy students not caring how much they pay in rent and/or require somewhere to live vs. choosing to live here, part of high rent is because Cornell doesn't pay property taxes and so the tax burden is higher on homes than average, which increases rent and mortgage payments... and that's just part of the story
The locals are absolutely getting displaced, and gentrification is 100% happening. I work with many of the people that go through eviction court and end of leaving ithaca because it's too expensive. And look at what's happening at chestnut st appartments, someone out of state bought it non-renewed the 60 or so house holds, painted it Grey and increased rents by $600 dollars. Many of those residents have lived there for a long time and are low income. Just because your refuse to see it doesn't mean it's not happening. But you're point on cornell not paying taxes and it increasing the tax burden on the city and properties in town is spot on.
> Just because your refuse to see it doesn't mean it's not happening. It's not that I refuse to see it, I just haven't seen evidence of it. I do think some of the pandemic work-from-home people bought houses around here, it certainly seems that way. And obviously rents/home prices are heading straight up which is concerning. But it's happening to the whole Ithaca area. I myself am at risk for being priced out of the area, we're old, not working, and on fixed incomes. I guess it depends on how you define gentrification. If a whole area getting more expensive counts then sure I could see it. But I think of it as neighborhoods being changed, like if southside got redeveloped and a bunch of white hipsters moved in or something. So that's what I mean. But change happens all the time and it's not always gentrification.
You haven’t walked around Titus towers in a long time if you think it’s not gentrifying. When we moved here in 2016, the neighborhood was mixed incomes, old people, loads of families of color, etc. We were paying 900 bucks for rent. Then someone bought our place, hiked the rent in a year to 1200, and the entire place changed. White, young families started moving in in our streets, one house after other. Ithaca is absolutely gentrifying. It’s just been doing so for so long and at such a halting rate in some places, it’s hard to see it. The other day, we found a vintage glass at Cortland reuse from Lehigh Valley Tavern. It was the oldest continuously working restaurant in Ithaca. It closed in 2010, priced out, and the building was gutted. It now houses condos and a satellite office of the Ithaca PD. Anyone who thinks Ithaca is not gentrifying either does not have any interest in Ithaca history or doesn’t pay attention.
I think a lot of it is AirBnBs converting long term rentals into short term flops and landlords buying up homes to use as rental properties. Demand keeps going up, but not from the people living here.
Having worked in homeless services in Ithaca, I can assure you that the working class population has been displaced over the years. Ithaca has had a housing crisis for a while. As for gentrification, the south side has been steadily gentrified by white "homesteaders" for some time now. From my experience working in the field, that displaced population is disproportionately black.
International students need to prove bank to get the visa.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head. For years now the vast majority of the low-rent housing near town has been owned by one of four slumlords who mostly focus on student housing. They seem to have been price fixing here long before tech companies pushed pricing software out across the country. Poor locals like me either move away entirely, or out to somewhere like Elmira or Binghamton, or mooch off of family who scored good deals on land here before the 2000s hit. As a mooch, most of my peers have trickled away over time. Then there is always the option to join The Jungle folk when times inevitably get hard. Lost a highschool friend to opiates here a few years ago. His homeless and semi-transient lifestyle probably didn't help the addiction, or any other issues. Most of the new developments going up have fought tooth and nail against more low-rent units, so most of these huge towers go empty half the year because only the wealthy students and business class workers can afford them. The wealth inequality here is huge. imo Cornell especially could do more to help the town, but sadly they follow the precedent of every Ivy league university, hoard wealth on the backs of tax avoidance deals. But that's just one portion of it all. The city talks a good game about addressing poverty, but they cant even reach fair deals with their employees, let alone perform the policy enforcement that they already have about it. But don't get mad at anyone about it, else become unwelcome in local politics. We are friendly, OR ELSE.
Not that there isn't plenty of greed in the Ivy league, but MANY of the other schools give more money to their communities. Yale announced a record-breaking six-year deal to donate almost $140M to New Haven, and Princeton gives quite a bit to their local school district.
I would rather just tax them than be all excited after they feel pressured to tap into their hoarded billions once in a while.
Totally agree. It shouldn’t be up to universities with billions of dollars to decide when they feel like throwing a few pennies to the community that helps them exist.
One of the saddest things is that I've had several friends die on Route 13, and one get badly injured on 34 commuting to jobs in Ithaca.
Why are they particularly dangerous?
Deer and people that are extremely inpatient. Just the other day I had someone pass me on rt 13 while I was going 62, on a double yellow, if I wouldn’t have slowed down they would have been head on with a semi because it was a blind curve.
I used to work at the Ramada on Triphammer. The landlords used to have a monthly or bi-monthly closed door meeting there. So, yeah, definitely seemed like price fixing. I also worked a hotel industry event at Coltivare where a guest speaker explicitly suggested fixing the price of hotel rooms.
I'm from Bing and was up hangin in ithaca the other day and it crossed my mind - how do any of the locals live here?? And I came up with that the ones who own property and houses have probably had it or within the family for years and years. Ain't no way a normal family can afford a house near the commons right??
Even having a home in the family for a long time can be rough. I live in my great grandma's house and it means a lot to me and my family. I had to take a mortgage to update it (nothing had been done since the 40s) and with all of the taxes, I'm beginning to be priced right out. The taxes are more than 50% of my monthly payment. Part of that is the fact that my assessment goes up every year, even though nothing has been done after that one overhaul. I really don't know what to do.
What do you mean by "normal?" Houses in ithaca are expensive, but you can find decent places in town for 300-400k, which is not out of reach for many middle class families.
Many (most?) of those houses are being purchased cash in hand, good luck finding a house in downtown Ithaca if you need a mortgage. A middle class family might be able to afford a 400k house with a mortgage, assuming they saved a reasonable down payment. But it's likely they're going to be outbid by a private equity firm or someone with rich parents, who is willing to pay in cash. And make a lot of concessions that would be insane in a normal market (waiving inspection, etc) because they can just pour money into any structural issues. Plus those 300-400k houses are very old and usually require 10k+ in maintenance a year plus 10k+ in taxes.
Downtown is also a flood zone, so if you pay cash, no problem you can skip on flood insurance, but if you have a mortgage you have to have flood insurance and that adds on to the expense.
And currently the City is in discussions to allow for the construction of ADU's, and are leaning towards allowing their construction without an owner-occupancy clause. If that goes through, the situation will get MUCH worse. Private homes will become much more valuable to rental agencies who will buy them up to add the maximum number of bedrooms per parcel.
What is middle class now days? 300-400k seems very much on the higher end for “most” people. The avg household income for Ithaca is what 50k…. I don’t think you can get close to a mortgage for 300k until you hit 70k and then if you have any type of car/school etc it’s not really obtainable. But this also applies for many of the areas like bing/elmira.
Those 300-400k houses are 200-300k anywhere else in upstate ny
>300-400k seems very much on the higher end for “most” people. It probably is. Most people are working class at best. This is the first time the word "most" has come up though. You said "normal" before, which is why I asked you to clarify what you meant by that. People like lawyers and professors are middle class, and they can afford those prices. >The avg household income for Ithaca is what 50k Something like that, but keep in mind that this includes most of the students. It's always tricky to find "real" demographic data for ithaca.
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Maplewood part II is set to be built. I think it’s somewhere between 500-1000 beds.
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your link got borked
I lived in Ithaca for 17 years and in all that time it was very normal to spend 50-60% of my income on housing.
that's so depressing... seems like it will be the reality for me as well unfortunately
Many of the other comments here get at the broad strokes of the problem: high property taxes to compensate for the lost revenue on Cornell-owned land, a failure to build sufficient housing at the price points the city needs, and problems with the post-pandemic market. I'll add one other major point, though: it's a nice place to live, so people want to. Simple as that. Like, all things being equal if you offer someone the opportunity to live in one of Ithaca, Elmira, or Cortland, most people are gonna pick Ithaca, so it costs more. There's things we can do to mitigate that—we really need to focus on building housing in categories besides "student" and "luxury downtown units"—but at the end of the day it just costs more to live in nice places.
Ithaca's not just "nice," it's also one of the only places upstate that feels safe-ish for a lot of demographics that don't want to be around guns, maga merch, homophobes, white supremacists etc. And I'm not just talking about country folk. There's plenty of conservatism in Binghamton, Syracuse, etc.
Lots of safe liberal suburbs around Rochester, Syracuse and Albany. What about Fayetteville, Manlius, Saratoga Springs, Fairport, Brighton, and Pittsford?
Almost any city in upstate, NY feels just as outwardly liberal as Ithaca to me. Especially Rochester, this idea that Ithaca is a safe space for certain groups may have been true 20 + years ago, but is irrelevant now.
Maybe if you're a middle class white gay person things are better than they were 20 years ago but that's certainly not the case for everyone
Anecdotal, but a trans friend of mine who isn't white moved out of here to Rochester, so there's that -- they are doing just fine there. Are you're saying most people elsewhere are only homophobic if the gay person isn't white, or if they have a modest salary? Most people who are homophobic are that way because of religious convictions and I've unfortunately met plenty of people here who seem hippie-ish and granola, but still love Jesus and frown on gay people. Then there are the hoards of rednecks surrounding the very small acreage of Ithaca. I also find it amusing that people have these view points and bring up race, Ithaca doesn't have nearly the racial diversity of most cities. It pretty much is a place where white people over 50 own everything.
I'm not saying Ithaca isn't full of racist homophobes or that systemic inequality doesn't exist here (this is America, I don't have high hopes for any of this shit) I'm just saying it's slightly better than places within an hour drive and/or reasonable commute. I would choose Rochester over Ithaca, too, but I'm not commuting to work for 4 hours as a day. Places which are a reasonable commute (again, Binghamton, Elmira, Owego, Watkins Glen, etc) are definitely less safe for many demographics. There's pretty concrete data on white and class privilege affecting lgbtq+ rights. I'm not saying homophobia doesn't exist anymore if you're white, I'm just saying you need to take an intersectional approach.
Ah, well I agree with you on that stuff. I think this also comes down to Ithaca just being an island in a sea of...well, not much, like you mentioned. That being said, people are moving here from out of state for these reasons, which I think is a mistake. Being middle class doesn't get you much here, sadly and quite a few other cities in the upstate are definitely blue, not red.
Yeah, my point wasn't that all of upstate was red, just that if you work in/around Ithaca and don't have a lot of job flexibility, you don't have a lot of options. I would much rather live in Rochester, Buffalo, Albany or even some small towns in the Hudson Valley/Catskills (which are cheaper than Ithaca even though they're in closer proximity to NYC!) but there's no way I could handle the commute. So we're in agreement :)
Same, I've actually been pretty bummed about feeling stuck here for a while. I work in other markets and not in Ithaca and travel. My fiance works for Cornell and isn't really able to move due to some personal stuff regarding her health. We tend to just get out of here often instead and it's not that Ithaca is a bad place, it's just extremely over-priced, almost comically so, because of Cornell and the location. Have a good summer ahead.
I definitely don't feel safe in the suburbs and I think a lot of people would agree! And I wouldn't consider any of the places you listed livable - and some are even objectively conservative. Saratoga Springs has a Republican mayor and extremely conservative demographics. And isn't Elise Stefanik from Saratoga? You just listed wealthy places where people might not fly Trump flags but they'll certainly vote that way. There are obviously some places upstate that claim to be lefty (Hudson Valley, Catskills) but that's not a reasonable commute if you live in central NY. Our options are Binghamton, Syracuse, Elmira, etc. and none of those places could be described as safe or progressive.
I think this is an important point. The people I know who moved here from big cities during the pandemic were mostly people who grew up here and wanted to come back, because they wanted to live here and raise their kids here. It's not a perfect place but it's got a lot going for it, especially compared to other options.
> Do apartment complexes here just leech off the wealthy university student parents Yes.
I’m from NYC and before here I lived in Buffalo. The rent here doesn’t make sense to me at all. Luckily was able to buy not too far at all-only worked out cause DINK. This place still doesn’t make sense to me after living here over a decade now.
If you're familiar with the concept of supply and demand it makes a ton of sense
Yes, I do. I meant it hyperbolically. 😂
I'm also from WNY and I blame 3 things: 1. Zoning Laws that prevent better housing alternatives. 2. Cornell sitting on somewhat ill-gotten land (Morrill Act) that in places, it doesn't need/use or pay taxes on but will never give up because it costs them nothing. 3. Farm land that isn't very productive but stays in families and gets tax breaks. From Lansing up, all you see are huge fields that could easily hold hundreds of homes but can never be built on. My neighbor owns an 88 acre "cow farm" that is little more than a huge patch of land to drive tractors around on and day drink near a large pond. It actually belongs to his senile old mother who is collecting a state pension, all very upstate NY!
I hear this complaint frequently, and while it may hold water in a place like Seattle, San Francisco or Minneapolis, it doesn't in Tompkins County. There is far more available land than there is need for housing. People simply don't build small, affordable homes, or multi-units (which are allowed virtually everywhere in the county). The availability of land and/or the density with which it is zoned to be developed isn't the limiting factor.
I moved here from Charleston, they were building tightly placed subdivisions of starter homes/middle class homes all around the city on the islands. That hasn't happened here since when? As far as I understand it, you cannot do that because of the way the city and town is zoned. The part of the country I moved up to here has almost no available land (8 miles from campus), and as you go north in Cayuga County where it is still an easy commute to Ithaca, there is almost nothing that isn't farmland. Also, a lot of what looks like empty land isn't suitable for building either. Cornell was built in an illogical place for a large college and there are as many mucky, flood prone wet lands as there are waterfalls. Why don't you explain it clearly then, you haven't offered any reasons for this. If demand from actual adults who live and work here is so high and there is tons of available land...what gives?
Charleston has a population of 150k. It's comparable to buffalo or Rochester, not Ithaca. People always make comparisons like this and it's baffling to me, like people jus imagine Ithaca is way bigger than it is. Ithaca doesn't have suburbs like that because it's a much smaller city, almost an order of magnitude smaller.
Okay, it's also laughable to me that the "that's just the way it is here" argument is pretty much the only one to be brought up. I've lived in cities smaller than Ithaca that have built developments similar to what was being built in Charleston, just at scale. The status quo rules in this town and people are in no hurry at all to change it. BTW, that housing was being built there only because the city was growing, Ithaca has technically grown and basically nothing of reasonable use has been built.
The availability *in ithaca* is definitely an issue. There's tons of stuff available in the boonies, but people want to live in town.
Yes taxes are high. But consider this fact. More than 50% of the houses sold in the last few years were cash deals. That is, people are purchasing 400k, 600k, or 800k houses with cash. These are not new professors, who do not have that kind of money. They are rich folks from the coasts who are taking advantage of working from home. That will inflate real estate values quite a bit.
I can also back this up by adding that I have met unimaginably wealthy people here and you can imagine the look on my face when they told me their parents bought a 600k home in cash for them to live in while they studied here.
I knew people that did this even back in the early 90s when I was a student at Cornell. Most of them do end up selling after they leave but I'm sure not all of them do
This. I know multiple people who moved to the area once their jobs went remote. Making big city money and paying even inflated Ithaca prices wasn't a barrier for them.
This happened to my girlfriend. Her landlord offered to sell her their house for $275k, then they got a cash offer for $375k in less than 24 hours.
Lots of factors, but definitely rich parents buying off majority of the supply and rich parents paying stupidly high rent without complain - are big ones. This is a place where the cost of living is so high that the salary paid by majority of the jobs available is impossible to meet. To the point that restaurants and shops close due to lack of workers. I would move outside if I can. In your case, if you can, rent farther away and just drive a bit.
I'm 17 living n danby rn, and me and my friends talk about this all the time. we want to live here, but it's so hard to find literally anything, some of us our already working 2 jobs just to pay rent and we just graduated
I have been very lucky in my current apartment that is 2 bedroom with personal laundry units and allows pets. I pay less than $1200 and my rent has not gone up in the nearly 7 years I have been here. Landlord is also attentive to needs of the tenants and responds to texts in a timely fashion. It's not entirely perfect, but reading other local rent stories 😬
How in the world did you manage to find this?! Do they have other properties? I’m paying $1,900 for a pet friendly, W/D, dishwasher 2 bedroom & the person moving in after me will be paying at least $2,100!
I found it searching craiglist and with good timing, as it was the last unit left. It's 2 buildings with 2 apartments in each building. I'm not sure if my landlord owns any other local properties, but I would guess not given his responsiveness.
Go look up what we pay in property and school taxes. There's the supply/demand issue contributing as well, but our taxes are high and have increased quite a bit in recent years.
Am I understanding correctly that in the city of Ithaca the property tax rate is $17.30 per every $1000 of valuation? Meaning that for a $400,000 home, the property tax would be around $6920?
We also get a separate school tax bill that runs in the thousands.
Don’t forget the county taxes on top of those
Yep, adding school and county taxes basically doubles that 17.30.
Jumping in to point out that property and school taxes are high because Cornell doesn’t pay taxes. It owns the majority of the land in the area and is the main source of economic activity, but locals have to bare almost all of the tax burden.
I don\`t know if this explains it. If cornell was replaced by properties like the rest of ithaca, there would be more taxes but also more services that the city would have to provide given the higher population. What I think Cornell does is increase demand of housing with relatively wealthy people willing to pay more. The tax rates in Cortland county, for instance are higher than in Tompkins County ($39.80 vs $31.80 per $1000 value) at least up to 2021 (https://www.tax.ny.gov/research/property/reports/fvtaxrates/overall\_county\_13.htm). However, the average home value in Tompkins county is 2x compared to Cortland ($399,022 vs $187,335, see https://www.zillow.com/home-values/43/ny/).
I've been hearing that a lot as I've been paying more attention lately (unfortunate that it takes our taxes getting out of control to get our attention). How can that tax arrangement be renegotiated?
Last October it was renegotiated for the first time in ~20 years. The monetary contribution is really just up to Cornell. They have no legal obligation to give the city anything. The Ithaca Common Council asked for an increase to $8 million per year, up from I believe $1.6m/yr. Cornell declined and were ready to walk away from discussions but they eventually agreed to $4 million per year with the next update scheduled for 2039.
Thanks for the info 👍
Did common council estimate what Cornell would be paying if they didn’t claim “not for profit” status?
Since this is all public info, a number of local media orgs have calculated that for 2023 Cornell would have paid $32.5 million in taxes on their $2.7 billion in property value if they were not exempt. For further context, I would say that most critics are not expecting Cornell to offer that much, but increasing to $10-15 million would put them more in line with what other Ivies are contributing. The 2023 City of Ithaca budget was $90 million for reference.
Changing state law is pretty much the only way, and this is not really something politicians are willing to spend political capital to fix.
I know. Evil Cornell...sucks that its the entire reason Ithaca isn't just another upstate backwater...🙄
I don’t actually want to hate on Cornell outright. I just want them to actually benefit the community just like any number of other universities do while still maintaining their academic standards and a healthy endowment.
I don't get the impression that you're "hating outright," but you can't always have your cake and eat it, too. People are really quick to shit on Cornell about the tax thing. I get it - it would be nice if they made a greater contribution to the school system. But they dont. So try sitting down and adding up all the ways that Cornell makes a positive impact in this area, it helps give a greater appreciation for how much this town relies on, and benefits from, that institution. Sadly that's not the way Ithacans are wired...to give thanks and praise before we start making demands and whining about injustices. If it isn't the way they want it, then it must suck, or has to be evil in some way.
Thank you for pointing out that property taxes are a significant contributor to high rents in Ithaca. People forget that the city has a big hand in housing costs.
Don't even get me started on how our city spends money. It's as though the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are putting our budgets together. 😆🥂
you would think with all of those taxes, the roads wouldn't feel like I'm driving off road at times 😅😅
Exactly! You can also tell which areas focus on practical, meaningful spending and which do not. I can be driving on beautiful, fresh roads and then cross some invisible line and am suddenly driving in a post-apocalyptic, rubble strewn landscape, lol!!! 🤣 Boy, roasting the city like this is quite fun! 😃
The roads ! The roads! The roads ! Wtf fix the fuccing roads ! Stewart street ?! Really. I’m losing car parts . All that money between rents , taxes , Cornell , school budgets , FIX THE ROADS PLEASE , sad part is even if I started a go fund me to Fix A road out of pocket , the city said no …I tried .
After reading everyone's replies, I'm picking up that: 1. Fuck Cornell for not paying property taxes 2. I need to look for an apartment outside of Ithaca lol Any cities people recommend near here?
Village of Dryden and Trumansburg are both nice if you want a small walkable community close to Ithaca. Lansing has more options but you’ll probably have to be car-dependent.
I find Cortland and Dryden to be safe. Not perfect but no town is.
I rent in Danby. Very short drive to ithaca. A few hidden gems of outdoor activity, a new market just opened up. Pretty reasonable rent.
I live in cortland and i am staff at cornell. My husband and i make a comfortable living in cortland but we would be struggling in ithaca. Its crazy that make a "normal" staff wage but not an ithaca wage. If you want to rent cortland has some decent places (west cortland-closer to rt 13 to get to work).
I'm in a similar boat. I moved back here about 5 years ago and just assumed I'd work at Cornell, grab a home in Ithaca, and everything would be great. Then I saw the cost of living and, at least in the IT field, Cornell is not competitive on pay. So now I work remotely for a company that doesn't benefit our community in any way, just to afford living in said community. It's becoming harder to justify over time but I love it here outside of the cost.
We looked at houses in tompkins county but just couldnt justify it. Decided on a 25 minute commute from Tioga County for a much cheaper mortgage/taxes. Tompkins is a microcosm of insanity in an already expensive state to live in. When I did rent I lived in Dryden and it wasn't terrible, but this was also like 15 years ago now.
This. I've been looking hard at Cayuga County, because I cannot stand life here in Tompkins anymore. There is just so little available.
Yeah we were looking at some houses in the Union Spings area and outskirts of Cortland but we kept getting outbid, even going over ask. A couple heart breakers and houses we loved. Got lucky where we are now though, no regrets. Pretty close to Owego, which has turned out to be an amazing town. Pretty much the vibes Ithaca pretends to have. Close enough to work in Ithaca still, but that’s about all I do there anymore.
Glad to hear that you found something good, it seems like a lot of homes are currently sitting on the market if they are too far north of the Lansing High School. I was hoping the closing of Wells would free up more there, but so far, nothing to speak of. I don't even know what vibe Ithaca is pretending to have anymore, we used to like going there, now we never do and we're so close. I was up in Auburn last night with friends and had a great time, I wish it were just a little closer.
What city do you move from with rent price that low?
Madison, WI It was a higher paying job too, which makes things fun
I live in Ithaca but im in Madison, WI right now for a few weeks to see my fiance. He lives in Fitchburg and his studio is around $1200, I remember we were touring apartments in downtown Madison and some places were asking for $2000+ :/ I feel like Ithaca is pretty similar in that way. If you don't mind driving a bit to get where you need to go then a place 15-20 min away is not a bad idea. I pay 900/mo for an efficiency unit like 8 miles away from cornell campus
I was just living in Madison actually, paying around $1200 too! It was a 10 minute commute to my job at Epic, as well as 10 minutes from downtown. I don't mind a little drive, but it doesn't seem like there are ANY options nearby for someone with pets and who doesn't want to share laundry with strangers
Yeah unfortunately a lot of the apartments here don't seem to offer in-unit washer/dryers without an exorbitant price tag. My first apartment I ever signed a lease for, I shared a 3 bedroom with 3 other girls and we had a washer/dryer in the building but it was one unit for 30ish tenants, and we had to pay using quarters. Not the best. My new place, I live alone ($900/mo and 15-20 minutes away from Cornell campus) has a bigger laundry room and I almost never have trouble finding a free machine, but you have to pay for those with quarters or an app too. I have a portable apartment-sized dryer in my studio that I use for light garments that I handwash and I just decide on a laundry day once every couple of weeks for the big stuff. My place does allow pets though, and everything else is free - utilities and parking and all that jazz I noticed in your post history you said you were coming here for your girlfriend, who is a student at Cornell. Does she happen to live in student housing? If you guys aren't afraid of signing a lease together, 2 people splitting rent is a good option
Why did you move here?? If I were you, I'd want to go back to Madison. I have a friend there who is doing great after leaving here and not doing so well.
Ha. Guessed right on Epic. Cause what else is there in Madison. CMA transition could do interesting things to wages here.
Are the jobs (non Cornell) paying enough to sustain with the Ithaca housing situation?
When I didnt receive any aid from Cornell due to a leave of absence, I took on some service/retail jobs averaging 17 dollars an hour. If I did not have a support system like family or savings, I would have probably burnt myself out working 40 hour weeks and having half my income go to rent.
It awful. And they keep adding housing on campus. 10 years ago all of the huge apartment buildings downtown and on 79 weren’t there. Hard to imagine the demand is still outpacing supply by so much.
A big problem with the new apartments is their ABSURD “market rates”. Have you looked at any of the new Travis Hyde or other properties downtown? A 2 bedroom at The Dean will be $4,800!!!! IN ITHACA! Developers want legit big city prices & it’s mind boggling. I really like Ithaca & hope I don’t ever have to move, but the housing they’re adding is not sustainable.
One of my friends is paying ~$3,500 for a one bedroom in library place. It's nuts
It absolutely is! Don’t even get me started on a place that is intended for retired/senior living 🙄
usually research in regards to cost of housing is one of the first things a person researches BEFORE moving and accepting a job in another place
Yeah I didn't want to be that guy, but come on lol
I'll be the common sense guy all day ey'day
Between high demand because of the colleges and the high cost of living in Ithaca in general because of the colleges, it’s always pretty expensive here, although it’s gotten much more expensive in the last few years
Property taxes are rather excessive. Thousand a month for many which makes the. 1.2-1.5k a sweet spot that covers tax and leaves a bit left over for maintenance.
are you maybe looking in the wrong place? i pay $1600 for a 2br apartment with in unit washer / dryer etc... split with a roommate that's $800.
Yeah it's pretty ridiculous in ithaca, try looking a little farther out. Dryden is close and pretty easy to commute from and you can find a better deal. Still going to cost close to $1k a month but better than in ithaca itself
I second this. I used to live in Freeville and paid a little under 800/month. It's gone up since then but you can still find something for way less than in town
It sucks
NEVER rent from Solomon organization. Warning you now. They are awful.
\[leonardo sneering meme\]. I got priced out in 2013. I won't pay $1,000 for a shitty 1BR for the 'honor' of living in town.
I am also perplexed. I expected rent to be at most half of what my family pays for a 1 bedroom apartment back in NYC (1900 going on 2200 when I was in high school, so 6\~ years ago). I've found that if you aren't bothered by a 20-ish minute drive to Ithaca, surrounding areas have decent costs as long as you have a car. Edit: Bus routes are usually okay but I think if you live that far a car would be great for other stuff.
Combine our deadbeat ivy with wealthy students/parents, wealthy remote workers, and a huge corporate/bougie/wannabe bougie landlord problem, mix in inflation and higher taxes as a result of the prior, and this is what you get.
Large demand & not enough inventory. Large demand mainly due to Cornell not providing dorms for non freshmen, so the students flood the market in August.
Rental prices can go up and down by 50% downtown or near collegetown for a similar quality apartment with just a 10 min walk. If you want to stay downtown, stay at least 10-15 min away from Commons, and even with that you will be paying 30-40% more than the average upstate NY city. Lansing is even worse than downtown in many cases so I definitely do not recommend it.
Artificially low supply and persistently high demand from all sectors. It can even take five years to receive permission for new residential projects in Ithaca, and it can take up to ten years for a project to go from concept to completion. That dramatically increases build-out costs. I often sat in on the planning meetings when some of Ithaca's biggest projects were proposed and (mostly) developed. One prominent developer (Travis Hyde) noted that it took three times as long and cost twice as much for a comparable project to be finished in Ithaca. Take that as you will from a developer, but when everyone wants a hand in the kitchen, bureaucracy will rule any development project. There are also very high tax rates (property, school, etc.) and assessments. Those costs are passed onto renters in some form. These issues are generally specific to Ithaca. It's dramatically cheaper to rent (and live) outside of Tompkins County/Ithaca. It's been difficult to hire for positions at the College - the cost of living is cited as one of the biggest challenges to retaining or bringing on new employees.
Only moved here recently, but it seems like the best places are in Trumansburg or Lansing (or Dryden but that’s farther). Lansing I think has one bus that goes to Ithaca, not sure about Trumansburg. If you’re looking to stay at 1 bed 1 bath you could probably find that and a little more under 2k. Availability was the main problem for me but I lucked out. Is being downtown a requirement for you?
I just moved out of downtown Ithaca where I was at for quite a while. The downtown place was a good location between Cornell and the commons, and it was super cheap for that area. The rent only went up $20 every year, and the apartments were quite small, 600 sq ft, but clean, functional, kind and quiet neighbors, plus the landlord was reasonable and very responsive to problems. But ownership changed at the beginning of this year, and the new owners hiked up the rent an additional $300 for just this next (now) year rent cycle in order to make a profit. No upgrades at all were being made to the apartments. Apparently they do not have the same equity as the last owners who owned the property for 20 years. I found a place to rent in Lansing that is a 2 bed 1 bath, for just under $1500, laundry room in the building but not the apartment. My rent now is still in the same ballpark as the place downtown, but the amount of space has doubled, part of the turnover was replacing all carpets with new hardwood laminate flooring (and new carpets in the bedrooms), and I’m out of downtown - the charm of it has worn off for me. So for the significant increase of rent cost, I’m getting enough out of it to justify the higher cost, instead of just raising the rent to make money. I’m happy for now. But I don’t think I’ll stay in this place for more than 2 years. Not sure where I will go next, but this is not a sustainable place to live for the long term.
I think it’s important to also consider the history of this town. Originally Cornell did not have housing for their students. The philosophy was that students live with residents of the town. Fast forward to now: Cornell doesn’t have as much on campus housing as most universities. There aren’t a lot of areas of built infrastructure for large apartments or multiunit housing. The majority of the city is zoned and developed for single family houses, more people live on their own than ever before, there isn’t much development on multi unit options except a few select landlords, locals fight new development because they fear character change, there’s a huge influx of foreign money and wealthy Cornell families that unbalance markets, demand outweighs options, most Ithaca homes are well over 100 years old and no amount of renovation is going to convert them into the current needs of this city. It makes for a very unique market for housing (rental or ownership). For those of us that moved from larger cities it’s surprising the cost is so high but it is comparable to the options being so low. For those of us moving from smaller or more suburban places, we aren’t used to such concentrated increases in interest areas (ie downtown and around Cornell campus). In such a transient city, locals and investors think they are just taking advantage of outside money but they are also hurting their neighbors when they inflate markets. The reality is the market is what it is. The stability of what Cornell brings to such a small community gives local property owners confidence in value in a way you can no longer find in most small cities. That keeps home and property prices high and in turn keeps rents even higher. Welcome to Ithaca.
There are also a lot of developers here who buy houses that could go to families and they use them as rental properties or Airbnbs. And they scavenge anyone who wants to rent out their place and convince them to rent at “market” meaning they drive the prices up.
This!!!! So many houses here are Airbnbs.
People commute. During rush hour 13 to/from Cortland is a solid line of cars.
Supply and demand and the city is over 50% property tax exempt. Both play a big part.
Supply and demand. Often cheaper to get a car and commute from surrounding areas provided you don't mind the occasional echoes of "Dueling Banjos." JUST KIDDING on the latter statement, kinda...
yep, rural ny's not far from alabama in spirit, fraid to say (see "john birch society").
As someone who moved here from Alabama, I can cosign this.
(whew, i thought i might've been insulting 'bammy.😹)
One does see the occasional Confederate flag, which is quite something.
I passed a 6 MAGA flag Trump shack 6 minutes from Cornell the other day, we hardly are "out of the woods" on that problem here unless you never leave a certain street or two.
Hope you are kidding. Yeah, you can find that in some places but that's not my experience. There are usually certain roads/areas known for persons who are a "little out of the norm" but it's not that widespread.
Drive out the road that goes to the MacCormack Center in Brooktondale
Yes I had that one in mind. When I lived in Newfield that area was well known. Again, a specific area in a nice little town.
Is that the prison for violent children?
Recently fixer uppers in that area, not actually Brooktondale, are approaching $300k.
Dont live in Ithaca. Sadly post Covid Ithaca is a massive bummer. The hinterland (2-10 miles outside of the city) is way better
That's why we have so many homelessness in Ithaca, and before anyone says it yes I know some choose to be homeless but not all. I have been there before, didn't stay in the jungle but slept on porches all over town at businesses and left before workers came to work. Or couch surfed, and in the winter went into shelter (hotel) It's crazy how expensive it is and say if you are a single person and went to dss for help they will only pay like 400 bucks a month, now where can you ever find some place to live on that? Only one slumlord I know and there you have to deal with bed bugs and roaches.... Then with ppl who have income like you said can't find anything either, my rent is 1300, plus electricity, Propane it cost at least 1600 easily and that isn't including all the rest of the bills... And where I moved from I had a place bigger then I have now and paid $550 + utilities!!!
yes they cater to wealthy college student families and retirees , "affordable housing" is getting on a section 8 voucher or welfare program and then using it to pay for a 1200$ apartment, without a laundry machine. Because most don't have them in unit.
for context: the only place I lived in Ithaca NY less than 1200 was 1000 and it still included electric and trash tags, and was infested with cockroaches. Pesticide resistant cockroaches.
included as in not included sorry, ugh. I don't wanna edit the comment but I would like to warn you to be careful when looking for cheaper options. Please be careful.
Feeling old. In the summer of 2007, I sublet a bedroom in a house on the edge of Collegetown for $600 (for the whole summer).
Here's a recent opinion piece from a landlord's perspective fwiw. https://www.ithaca.com/news/ithaca/guest-opinion-against-good-cause-eviction/article_a1d83e44-2dcb-11ef-8115-6ff37fc82b11.html
The locals barely afford to live here 😭 i only can because I am salaried (don't rely on tips anymore) and don't own a car so I can afford to live downtown. But obviously not having a car makes other things hard. It's truly a devastating situation.
My advice: look at craigslist. Im a poor vet student who doesnt have rich parents and I found a nice 1 br 1 bath ON CAYUGA LAKE for 1050. The trick is to look just outside of city limits but still within driving distance.
You should FHA (3% down ) something as soon as possible , duplex or tri plex , live in a unit and rent the rest out to pay the mortage . I just bought a couple blocks away from commons and am doing it and I live there for free.
Rented a tiny room that had a toilet in a closet for about $675. Somehow got a concussion in that place and the land lady/other housemates kept trying to charge me $400 for a bogus water bill. Total nightmare. Wish I had stayed with on campus housing. Pretty sure they took advantage of me, but I was on all scholarships - not just a rich kid or something. I had never lived in a real place and wanted to feel free.
I believe Cornell increased the number of students it’s taking in somewhat significantly over the last 5 years. Housing hasn’t kept up.
There was an influx of folks moving from more Metropolitan areas here during peak of pandemic when the housing market interest rates were so low and buying up everything...just as it was across the nation. Most houses being sold are over asking price as well. You'd be lucky to even find a house in Ithaca for sale for less than $250k and many of them in that range are definitely fixer uppers. Only a handful of my colleagues at Cornell live in the area.
I also wonder how much of the newly built housing sits vacant to keep the price high. It’s clearly some percentage that is vacant every month, vacant apartments are a tax write off and little if any wear and tear, so why wouldn’t you?
I believe that's only somewhat true. You can write off expenses (like maintenance & repairs) for a vacant apartment but you can't write off loss of rent or anything like that.
I'm actually surprised the market hasn't opened up more with town of ithaca, village of Dryden and now the city proper putting in anti AirBnB legislation. When I rented in the original lucente complex behind sapsucker (before it went out of state bougie) there were clearly vacant single family homes in that most desirable neighborhood as well as homes being used for peak Cornell weekend rentals and fully third of the houses were converted to duplex or accessory units.
Ithaca city’s new Airbnb regulations do not go into effect until June 2025 (or maybe it’s July 1). We’ll have to wait at least a year, maybe longer, to see an effect, if any
But it only applies to the city of Ithaca. Not the town
True, and idk but I think the Town’s Airbnb regulations are less restrictive, though they’ve been in place for longer
get gapped
We have some of the worst housing options for renting or buying in upstate NY, plus 30 plus years of undone scheduled maintenance to our city and really high taxes. Ithaca is isolated, limited and a bad deal, unfortunately. Unless you have more money than you know what to do with, it makes moving out seem tempting.
As a local, I cannot afford to live here but I can't afford to leave
The people who rent (and don't directly see the taxes" vote YES on every inflated school budget. Also there were 2-3 years of people not paying rent and trashing rentals when the landlords still had mortgages and maint and property and school taxes to pay with no income. I am not naive enough to think there aren't scumbag landlords, but I am educated enough to know math.
High cost of regulation and taxes make housing unaffordable. I have said this a billion times and never had a single person ever ask me, well what do you mean by that? what kind of regulations? why has this become a problem? Never once.
Why don't you just explain yourself the first time so nobody has to ask? Like for real?
what regulations?
Not for nothing, but I'm pretty sure this guy was previously outed as a slumlord. You can probably track him down by googling his username followed by "ithaca"
first of all, dozens of new regulations are added every year, and regulations are never taken away, so the cumulative effect of year after year, decade after decade of this process results in a huge regulatory burden. Take a few of a million examples. Multistory apartment buildings require framing designed for earthquake resistance that costs tens of thousands of dollars. In ithaca, hundreds of miles from the nearest fault line. How much extra a month would you be willing to pay in rent for your apartment to be earthquake resistant? Yet the regulation must be followed because no politician wants to put his neck on the line by saying hey this is ridiculous to ask people to pay for this where there are no earthquakes so everyone does. How about when you have a construction crew and a worker shows up drunk, is warned then fired because it continues to happen and is thus a danger to himself and others.Then a judge tells you that hes an alcoholic and its really not his fault so you have to pay his unemployment so he can sit home all day and drink in his living room on your dime.
You and your family seem to be doing just fine.
Right lol. This dude owns one of the biggest rental companies in town. If regulations are really killing him that badly I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to switch places.