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SCOTT JAGOW: Bids come in today on New York City’s hottest pieces of real estate: Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. Insurance company Met Life built them after World War II. For decades, they’ve provided affordable rents in a city where that’s pretty hard to find. Now, the people who live there are worried those days might be over. Ashley Milne-Tyte has more.

ASHLEY MILNE-TYTE: Real estate developers and financial institutions are expected to bid as much as $5 billion for the two housing developments.

New York University professor Laurence Longua says they see a lot of potential in those 11,000 rentalsa€¦

LAURENCE LONGUA:“There are tremendous opportunities under current law to raise the rents to in many cases double what the tenants are paying right now, so this is really the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

Still, the tenants association is in the running too. They’ve put together a $4 billion-plus bid of their own. But will that be enough for seller Met Life?

LONGUA:“Metropolitan Life is a company that converted not too long ago from a mutual company to a stock company and they are beholden to their shareholders.”

Rents at the complex can be hundreds, even thousands, less than market rates.

In New York I’m Ashley Milne-Tyte for Marketplace.