It’s no longer just landlords and their advocates screaming into the void about the ruination of rent-stabilized housing — NYU’s Furman Center has joined the din.
At the Rent Guidelines Board’s second meeting of 2025, New York University’s center for housing research presented data showing that older, entirely rent-stabilized buildings — particularly those in the Bronx — are grappling with revenue shortfalls caused by the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019.
The HSTPA made it impossible to substantially raise rents outside of the annual adjustments approved by the RGB annually. which have historically failed to keep pace with inflation.
“The rent shortfall has likely grown since HSTPA passed and will continue to grow, potentially exponentially, in 100 percent rent-stabilized buildings,” a presentation delivered by Furman Center Senior Policy Director Mark Willis concluded.
The New York Apartment Association, which represents rent-stabilized landlords, said the commentary marked the first time the Furman Center had expressed concern about the future of rent-stabilized housing. The center did release an initial analysis of HSTPA in 2021, but it found little evidence of falling values or disinvestment.
“Their [recent] findings paint a sobering picture: a growing number of rent-stabilized buildings, especially in the outer boroughs, are on the brink,” NYAA CEO Kenny Burgos said.
The center’s data shows older rent-stabilized buildings in the Bronx that were just breaking even before HSTPA have fallen farther into the red every year since it passed. In 2024, the average unit was operating at an annual shortfall of $1,444.
Per the research, absent alternate routes to raise revenue, the RGB’s rent adjustments aren’t cutting it.
The Furman Center seized on the findings to make a case for intervention — something both sides of the landlord-tenant divide have broached in recent years.
“To preserve the long-term viability of the most vulnerable sub-segments of this stock, the shortfall may need to be dealt with outside of the RGB process,” the center’s presentation reads.
Landlords have long claimed that the board’s data-based rent adjustments don’t account for all of their expenses — debt service is notably missing — and that public members are swayed by tenant interests. Renters, meanwhile, claim the mayor-appointed board bends to real estate’s asks.
But each year, conversations around shifting the system fail to progress past finger-pointing.
Willis’ presentation did not propose specific solutions either, but it did warn that the city alone couldn’t plug the hole created by the HSTPA for many building owners. The problem, he said, was too great.
“Unless we vastly increase the amount of budget for subsidized housing, almost all of it is going to have to go to rescuing these buildings,” Willis said.
“So we won’t be building any new ones in the future either,” he added. “That would be the risk.”
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