New York Metropolis’s Lease Tips Board opened this 12 months’s rent-setting season Thursday with a brand new monetary report exhibiting landlord revenue rising for a 3rd straight 12 months citywide — and disagreements about what that basically means.
The primary public listening to of the board that Mayor Zohran Mamdani reshaped earlier this 12 months rapidly advanced into an argument over whether or not these headline beneficial properties say a lot in regards to the older, totally rent-stabilized buildings on the heart of town’s housing debate.
The board’s 2026 Revenue and Expense Research, based mostly on almost 17,800 buildings and greater than 805,000 residences, discovered that internet working revenue, or NOI, rose 6.2% from 2023 to 2024 for buildings with no less than one rent-stabilized unit. Collected lease rose 4.8%, complete revenue rose 4.9%, working prices rose 4.2%, and the share of buildings categorised as distressed fell barely to 9.2%.
However the identical report additionally pointed to a weaker image in buildings that extra carefully resemble the standard stabilized inventory. NOI development fell as buildings grew to become extra closely stabilized: 4.0% in buildings that have been no less than 50% stabilized, 3.5% in these no less than 80% stabilized and a couple of.4% in 100% stabilized buildings. Amongst pre-1974 buildings that have been totally stabilized, NOI rose 1.4% citywide.
Newly appointed Chair Chantella Mitchell opened the listening to by framing it as the primary in a collection of conferences to find out lease changes for rent-stabilized models with leases starting or renewing between Oct. 1, 2026, and Sept. 30, 2027. The board will meet once more on April 9, when members are scheduled to listen to the annual operating-cost index and mortgage survey, earlier than holding two extra public conferences forward of a preliminary vote on lease changes set for Could 7. Extra hearings will comply with earlier than a last choice is made in late June.
New York Metropolis’s Lease Tips Board opened this 12 months’s rent-setting season Thursday with a brand new monetary report exhibiting landlord revenue rising for a 3rd straight 12 months citywide — and disagreements about what that basically means.Photograph by NYC Lease Tips Board/YouTube
Forward of the assembly, Mamdani launched a video explaining how the rent-setting course of works, urging each tenants and landlords to take part within the hearings, however stopped wanting explicitly renewing his marketing campaign name for a lease freeze.
“You probably know how I feel about what should happen to the rent,” he mentioned.
Noting that he appointed six members earlier this 12 months, the mayor confused that the RGB is an impartial physique that weighs proof earlier than making its choices.
Mamdani was the primary candidate in final 12 months’s mayoral race to decide to a lease freeze, making it a cornerstone of his affordability message. Underneath former Mayor Eric Adams, the board accepted lease will increase annually, totaling about 12% over 4 years; below former Mayor Invoice de Blasio, it froze rents thrice.
Testimony widens the divide over what the information means
The RGB members mentioned the examine now breaks out buildings by building date and by the share of stabilized models, an try to deal with long-running issues that the citywide averages blur collectively very totally different sorts of housing.
The report covers properties with as little as one stabilized unit, excludes most residential-only buildings with fewer than 11 models from the underlying RPIE filings and contains income past condo lease. Business and ancillary revenue accounted for 11.1% of complete proprietor revenue in 2024.
Mark Willis of the NYU Furman Middle urged the board to go additional, arguing that policymakers want a clearer image of the rent-stabilized inventory’s most susceptible segments.
He mentioned older “legacy” buildings with 90% or extra stabilized models, together with income-restricted post-1973 properties, must be analyzed individually as a result of they derive almost all of their residential revenue from stabilized residences.
Willis additionally challenged the standard of the underlying income-and-expense knowledge, saying he was skeptical the reported NOI figures totally seize the actual stress house owners face. That led to a back-and-forth over methodology, with Willis and board members debating whether or not the figures mirror uncooked owner-reported knowledge or expense knowledge adjusted by the Division of Finance. RGB representatives mentioned the examine depends totally on uncooked knowledge, although some members urged the problem may come up once more at a later listening to.
Group Service Society housing coverage analysts Oksana Mironova and Samuel Stein shifted the main target to tenants. Drawing on survey knowledge, they advised the board that 434,300 low-income New Yorkers stay in regulated residences, greater than in every other housing class. They mentioned two-thirds of low-income rent-stabilized tenants can not make ends meet or are barely getting by, and 55% mentioned they might not cowl a $400 surprising expense.
Mironova and Stein additionally argued that lease stabilization is not only about value, however about stability. They mentioned tenants in stabilized residences usually tend to stay of their neighborhoods over time, and framed that safety of tenure as a sort of renter analog to homeownership.
Emily Eisner of the Fiscal Coverage Institute provided a broader argument for restraint on rents, describing regulation as a price-stabilization software in a metropolis formed by excessive housing shortage. She argued that among the sector’s monetary misery could mirror debt hundreds and valuations constructed on pre-2019 expectations about future lease development, relatively than present working prices alone.
Landlords, tenants have their very own views of report
Exterior the listening to room, Thursday’s report instantly drew sharply totally different readings from landlord and tenant teams.
Small Property Homeowners of New York, which represents many smaller landlords, mentioned the board’s most well-liked metric masked the fact going through older buildings.
“NOI is a flawed metric that presents a grossly inaccurate representation of the financial realities of small property owners,” SPONY President Ann Korchak mentioned in a press release. She mentioned NOI “doesn’t factor in mortgage debt, costly apartment improvements, and major capital expenses” and referred to as for “a more accurate and transparent analysis that uses more timely information and reflects the economic distress of small property owners.”
REBNY President James Whelan mentioned the board’s “statutorily mandated approach obscures data that shows continuing distress among larger segments of the rent-regulated stock,” together with “declining operating income, more housing violations, and lower assessments among buildings with large percentages of rent-regulated units.”
He added that if the board follows its authorized mandate, “it will take this reality into account in its final determination.”
Tenant teams argued the identical report confirmed the board had little justification for one more lease enhance.
“Tenants are winning our rent freeze,” Sumathy Kumar, director of NYS Tenant Bloc, mentioned in a press release. “Landlord incomes continue to rise while tenant wages stay stagnant and the cost of everything from food to transportation keeps going up.”
The Authorized Help Society struck an identical word, saying the report confirmed landlords “continue to earn steady profits,” whilst tenants face a historic affordability crunch.
“A freeze on rents for all tenants in stabilized units is the clear path forward,” the group mentioned, including that working-class tenants “must not be asked to bear the cost of yet another rent hike when today’s report proves unequivocally that an increase is not presently needed.”
