NYAA Report Warns Four-Year Rent Freeze Would Devastate Rent-Stabilized Housing
Average Pre-1974 Rent-Stabilized Building Would Be Operating In The Red After Four Years of Rent Freezes
(New York, NY) - The New York Apartment Association (NYAA) today released a new report detailing the impact of a proposed four-year rent freeze on Pre-1974 buildings. The comprehensive analysis finds that roughly half of rent-stabilized housing would be bankrupted by a four year rent freeze, unless the government can offset operating cost increases. The result will be financial and physical collapse, which could result in the displacement of tens of thousands of renters and drive up the costs for market-rate tenants citywide.
“Freezing rents for four years without any plan for rising costs is not a path to stability; it’s a recipe for widespread building failure and displacement,” said Kenny Burgos, CEO of NYAA. “The publicly available data paints a very clear picture of distress and ultimately destruction of this vital housing stock.”
The report outlines the current financial health of all Pre-1974 regulated buildings and the 100% stabilized, Pre-1974 buildings, using the 2025 Income & Expense Study. NYAA ran a model on recent rent adjustments and operating cost projections to estimate the current financial health of buildings and predict the impact of a four-year rent freeze.
Our analysis shows that the monthly gap between rent and operating costs for Pre-1974, 100% stabilized buildings, has dropped from $244 per apartment to $197 and would continue to decline to a deficit of $98, per apartment, per month if rents are frozen for four years.
Roughly 47% of all rent-stabilized apartments are in 100%, or near 100% stabilized buildings. An estimated 5,000 of these buildings, with more than 200,000 apartments, are already in severe financial distress. The majority of these distressed properties are in the Bronx and Northern Manhattan.
“Talk is cheap. It’s easy for politicians to promise a rent freeze when they suffer none of the consequences of this policy push. It’s a lot harder for elected officials to enact substantive changes that would lower costs, like wholesale property tax reform,” Burgos said.
Buildings with a mix of market-rate units and stabilized units (40% to 60% market) will be able to weather a freeze by sharply raising rents on their market tenants, NYAA’s analysis finds. This would allow buildings to cover some rising costs, but in many cases the increased burden on market rate renters may still not be enough to fully cover cost increases to core expenses like debt service, property taxes and insurance, forcing cutbacks in maintenance and repairs.
NYAA’s analysis draws on data from the NYU Furman Center, the Citizens Budget Commission, and nonprofit housing providers Association for Neighborhood Housing and Development and Enterprise Community Partners. We conclude that unless the government takes major steps to subsidize this housing through property tax relief or direct subsidy to cover operating losses, a four-year rent freeze would accelerate both financial and physical distress across New York City’s rent-stabilized housing stock.
You can view the full report here.
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The New York Apartment Association (NYAA) is a 501(c)(6) not-for-profit organization that represents a diverse coalition of apartment building owners and managers who provide the majority of affordable multi-family housing in the state of New York. To put it simply, we are Housing New York. The official NYAA website is HousingNY.Org. @HousingNY on X; @HousingNY on Instagram; @HousingNY on Youtube, and @HousingNY on TikTok.