Precisely :-)
And their son can inherit it as well.
Rent control is not "long gone" for them.

Yes, Starrs, I'm sure it's perfect for someone. But I guess I still prefer Gold St.

Just to be clear, apartments do not become destabilized once the rent becomes $2,000.

Only If the tenant departs and the rent exceeds $2500, can they be de-stabilized and the next tenant will pay market-rate rents.

Or, if the tenants income exceeds $200.000 annually for 2 years in a row AND the rent is more than $2500, they can be de-stabilized.

Renting is a loser's game long-term - but you need a substantial sum for downpayment even to get into the buyer's market

Not so. We owned a house for a while. The amount of money put into repairs, heating oil, improvements, property taxes, and other things let alone the mortgage and insurance we are ahead of the game. You do not het your money back from taxes and appreciation is a huge unknown.

Now we have gas and electric included and repairs are done quickly. One night the shower broke and we had be some where in the morning and soneone on the night shift fixed it at 11 PM. The cost was a tip for the guys.

It's true that you need a substantial sum - obviously much worse now - but when I bought for the first time it was only 10% down - so my down payment and closing costs were less than $25,000.

And being a co-op the costs I'm directly responsible for are limited - although I did have assessments a couple of times for elevator repair and furnace system upgrade. But if you buy and live in it and keep it (I kept my first place 12 years) you will make money. Perhaps not in a 2 or 3 or even 5 year period if it's the wrong years - but over time you always win. I paid about $160 and sold for more than $700. My parents bought their (very modest) house for about $18,000 - (granted in the 1960s) and even in this soft market it's worth more than half a million.

Agree that there can be a lot of expenses with a house but if you run the numbers carefully and have a solid inspection - it should be possible to evaluate if a deal is a good one or not is certainly possible to buy an apartment and get into a huge financial mess if 1) you don;t have a cushion to fall back on, 2) you expect maintenance to remain the same, 3) you haven;t checked the state of repair of major building systems, 4) the building has an insufficient reserve fund or a devil may care board or 5) the underlying mortgage is too high or has onerous conditions. I have 2 friends who got in major messes - but it was because of some combination of the above - which I blame them and their attorneys for not checking on.