German Yakubov

Philly developer focused on Housing, urbanism, and economic development. Here to ask why everything takes 5 years and costs 3x as much.

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@ShawnChittle DC is exhibit A for how fast bad policy can break even subsidized affordable housing—once rent collections collapse and lenders walk away, there's nobody left to bail the buildings out lol

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@wageslave01 100%. when a city hates landlords more than it loves housing, low-income renters are always the first ones who lose their apartments

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@Andrewwood17 the math is identical in every country—if a city caps your upside, taxes the gross, and makes it impossible to remove non-payers, build-to-rent capital just walks away and rents go even higher lol

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@ByClaudiaVargas @citycastphilly there can only be one!

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

since this has 220k+ views—I actually build apartments in Philly (despite our best local politicians lol). if you're in Philly or moving down from NYC, we just opened The IceWorks at Belmont in West Philly (1BRs from $1,580, 2BRs from $1,980): https://t.co/EHNc4LNoKK — and follow along for more real estate math

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

wild ruling out of Seattle that @PHLCouncil needs to read. a builder put $39M into 254 low-income apartments locked at 60% AMI for 30 years. from 2015 to 2018 it worked, collecting ~94% of rent.

then Seattle stacked on "tenant protections": banned criminal background checks, banned winter evictions, required 180 days notice for rent hikes + 3 months relocation pay, and forced the owner to let unscreened roommates move in and take over leases.

result: rent collections dropped from 93.9% to 44.1%!!! the building lost nearly $6M through 2023 ($2.7M in 2023 alone) and is now appraised as functionally worthless. the city bankrupted actual affordable housing lol.

the appeals court just ruled the owner can sue Seattle for an unconstitutional taking. when you strip a landlord's right to screen, collect rent or remove non-paying tenants, it's not "regulation" anymore, you took the building…. Philly has half these laws already 🙄 https://t.co/avs4IKiIMw

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

The biggest difference between the DSA and literally anyone else is they don't want to create real value...they want to manage decline instead of growing the pie for everyone. It's always "we're pro-housing" right before pushing every policy that kills it 🙄

[Daniel Pearson @DPearsonPHL]

Philadelphia doesn't have enough jobs or housing. We need leaders who can work with corporations and developers, not ones who view them as cartoonish villains.

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@Prof4133 even if the trial court tries to dodge Penn Central on remand, the appeals court also revived the per se physical taking claim under SCOTUS's Cedar Point Nursery (forcing unscreened roommates onto the lease)—way harder for a trial judge to balance that away lol

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@pratjoey fair lol—NYC's 2019 rent law taking buildings from $200k/door to foreclosure auctions is still the heavyweight champ of municipal value destruction

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@raybury yep—Seattle's Economic Displacement Relocation Assistance law says if you raise rent 10%+ in a year and an income-eligible tenant moves out instead of paying it, the landlord has to pay them 3 months of housing costs in cash lol

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@KathrynBTrainor imagine doing everything the city asked—building 254 income-restricted units locked at 60% AMI—and then watching the city pass ordinances that cut your rent collections in half lol

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

the talent is already here. the jobs aren't, because BIRT taxes your gross receipts AND your net income and then the wage tax hits everyone you hire. companies do the math and sign a lease in Conshy and KOP...lol. fix the business taxes and the office demand follows

[The Philadelphia Inquirer @PhillyInquirer]

Philadelphia gained tens of thousands of degree-holding residents in the last decade — but office jobs aren’t growing https://t.co/jd4HL6KOzW

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@nextphlmayor Philly is the largest HOA in the country...

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@idcanniemoore @PHLCouncil LA and the Bay Area are running the exact same experiment—and then holding press conferences wondering why housing starts fell off a cliff 🙄

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@FriedrichHayek turns out if you make it illegal to screen tenants or evict non-payers, the math breaks even on subsidized 60% AMI buildings lol

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@tornatore @moseskagan and the wildest part is this wasn't even market-rate—it was 100% 60% AMI tax-credit housing that penciled at 94% collections until the city banned screening and winter evictions and cut collections to 44%

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@Kobyster @PHLCouncil 100%. cities spend millions begging homeowners to build ADUs and duplexes and then pass screening bans and 6-month eviction delays so one bad tenant can bankrupt a normal family

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@michael_wiebe @aaron_lubeck @PHLCouncil Yim was a facial challenge before the rules actually wrecked a building's books—and Yim is actually what locked WA into the federal Penn Central test this court just used lol. plus SCOTUS decided Cedar Point Nursery in 2021 after Yim

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@1davidguenthner send them the opinion PDF now—cities love pretending landlord equity is a free slush fund until a court tells them the taxpayers are on the hook for the taking lol

[German Yakubov @GYakubov]

@Denzera @PHLCouncil @dilanesper the opinion leans right into federal precedent—Penn Central on the regulatory taking (since the 30-yr LIHTC covenant locked them in while the rules wiped out NOI) and Cedar Point Nursery on the physical taking (forcing the owner to accept unscreened roommates on the lease)