The Dynamics of Rental Housing in New York City

Details:
Because continuation of rent regulations in New York is conditioned upon the continuation of a serious housing shortage, the most important pur-pose of our study is to document the net rental vacancy rate across the City and in various market sectors, as of the first quarter of 1981. In addition to this narrow purpose, however, we hope that this report will help frame the larger continuing debate concerning housing needs and housing conditions in New York City and the appropriate public and private responsibilities to meet the needs. We attempt to accomplish this latter objective by providing accurate, current and easily understood information on the City’s supply and location of rental housing, including data on rents and housing conditions; and on housing needs, including information on the incomes, socioeconomic characteristics and housing expense burdens of the City’s nearly two million renters. As with previous reports in this series, wherever possible we com-pare current housing and market conditions with those of various times in the past to help gauge whether things are improving or getting worse over time.