Housing & Real Estate
Housing & Real Estate in New York
The rent guidelines fights, the rezonings, the big deals, and the buildings going up or falling apart. The slow-moving stuff that decides your lease, your block, and your neighborhood five years out.
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Explainer How rent stabilization actually works About one million apartments get their rent increases from a nine-member board, and this year's order is 3% on a one-year renewal and 4.5% on a two-year, for leases starting October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026. The machinery, straight from the documents that run it. Explainer Why that scaffolding has been up for years Almost 16,000 buildings higher than six stories must have their facades inspected every five years, an Unsafe finding puts a shed up immediately, and the repair is due within 90 days. For years nothing made taking the shed down cheaper than leaving it: the city's own 2023 diagnosis was that an owner could keep one up without paying a single dollar in penalties. The mechanism, from the Buildings Department's own pages. Explainer How NYC property taxes work A one-to-three family home is assessed at 6% of market value and taxed at 19.843%; a co-op, condo or rental building is assessed at 45% and taxed at 12.439%. Four classes, two ratios, caps on top of caps: the strangest property tax system in America, from the statute and the city's own math. Explainer How NYCHA actually works One in sixteen New Yorkers lives in NYCHA housing, and the repair bill runs to nearly $80 billion. Here is who runs it, who is watching it, and how the buildings got this bad, from the documents. Explainer How to appeal your NYC property tax assessment Class 1 homes file between January 15 and March 15; class 2, 3 and 4 property files on or before March 1; the Tax Commission's decision is due by May 25; and there are exactly four grounds: excessive, unequal, unlawful, or misclassified. A real, free, first-stop appeal before you ever see a courtroom, from the Charter that created the body that hears it. Explainer What is ULURP, the way New York City reviews land use Rezone a block, sell city land, or site a new facility, and you enter ULURP, Charter section 197-c: a fixed, public, months-long ladder of hearings, community board to borough president to City Planning Commission to Council, laid out step by step. Explainer Rent control vs. rent stabilization, and why the difference matters About 24,020 apartments live under rent control and about 960,600 under stabilization, by the 2023 Housing and Vacancy Survey, and the two systems barely resemble each other. Which one you have decides your rent, your lease, and what happens when you leave. Explainer What a landmark designation actually restricts Designation means the Landmarks Preservation Commission must approve, in advance, any alteration, reconstruction, demolition or new construction that affects the building, and unpermitted work on a cornice or a stoop can cost up to $5,000 and then $250 a day, as of August 2026. The agency regulates the exterior; use, floor area and tenants belong to zoning. From the LPC's own pages. Explainer What "affordable housing" actually means in New York Affordable means a share of a regional income figure. Every affordable apartment in New York is pegged to Area Median Income, which HUD set at $152,700 for a three-person household in the city's region for 2026, and a one-bedroom at 60% of AMI rents for up to $1,822 a month while one at 130% rents for up to $3,948. How the bands work, how the randomized lottery assigns your log number, and why a new building in a neighborhood mapped for Mandatory Inclusionary Housing has to set aside 20 to 30 percent of its floor area for income-restricted homes. Explainer How an eviction moves through NYC Housing Court A nonpayment case cannot even be filed until the landlord serves a written 14-day rent demand, and after a judgment the marshal must serve a separate notice and wait at least 14 more days before changing the locks, so an eviction in New York runs on a fixed clock, not a single court date. The petition, the 10-day answer window, the trial, the warrant, and the marshal's notice each open a chance to stop the case, and tenants at or under 200% of the federal poverty line, or 60 or older, get a lawyer for free. Explainer What City of Yes for Housing Opportunity actually changed New York's City Council adopted City of Yes for Housing Opportunity on December 5, 2024, one citywide zoning change expected to add about 82,000 homes over 15 years by allowing a little more housing in every neighborhood rather than concentrating it in a few. It legalizes backyard cottages up to 800 square feet, lets more empty offices convert to housing, adds a bonus of 20% more floor area at 60% of Area Median Income for affordable units, and rolls back mandatory parking across most of the city. Explainer How the FARE Act changed who pays the broker fee Since June 11, 2025, a broker who represents the landlord, including one who simply posts the listing with the landlord's permission, cannot charge the tenant a fee to rent an apartment in New York City, under the FARE Act, Local Law 119 of 2024. A tenant who chooses and hires their own broker can still be charged one, landlords must itemize every other fee in writing before a lease is signed, and a landlord's agent who charges a banned fee faces a civil penalty of up to $1,000 for a first violation and $2,000 for each one after. Explainer How Local Law 18 changed short-term rentals in NYC Since Local Law 18 took hold, hosting a short-term rental, one shorter than 30 consecutive nights, in most New York City buildings requires registering with the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement, and a booking platform cannot legally collect a fee on a listing until it runs that listing through the city's verification system. A host who lives in the unit can still take up to two paying guests at a time without any of this, and a listed "Class B" hotel-type building can still rent whole units short-term.
Housing & Real Estate, explained
The questions New Yorkers actually ask.
What is rent stabilization, and is my apartment covered?
Rent stabilization caps how much your rent can rise each year, a figure the city’s Rent Guidelines Board sets every June, and it gives you the right to renew. Roughly a million NYC apartments are covered, mostly in buildings of six or more units built before 1974. Your lease and the state’s rent registry can tell you if yours qualifies.
Why is it so hard to build housing in New York?
Because every project runs a gauntlet: zoning, the city’s ULURP land-use review, the local Council member’s effective veto, and usually a separate Albany fight over a tax break. Each step is a place a building can die, which is why "we need more housing" and "nothing ever gets built" are somehow both true.
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