Dan and Britt are moving. They are surrendering their five-floor walkup in Brooklyn and are moving to Queens. The new place looks nice, is cheaper and is rent stabilized. Meaning the city helps to control rent increases (~3% per year). Their old place was not. It was newish, but not up to code and as it turns out never had an occupancy permit. Dan and Britt lived with the place’s problems, including insufficient heat, until the landlord decided to jack up the rent by a third, which is an illegal increase in NYC. They objected, stopped paying rent and hired a lawyer. Fast forward two years until earlier this month. At a hearing, their lawyer negotiated a settlement with the landlord. They would move out in a month, but did not owe back rent. Rent that they had been saving in case things did not go this way. The long and the short of this story is that they walk away with a tidy nest egg, for a better place to live. I do not think that they will miss those five flights. Harry, Dan’s grandfather, who grew up in the Bronx during the Depression has repeatedly said that it was cheaper to move than pay rent.