About The Rent In New York City

For quite a while now, apartments in New York have been featured in Broadway shows, in movies and on TV. There are some apartments that are rent controlled and not very luxurious, although there are also some very luxurious and glamorous apartments on Park Avenue. For instance, on the TV show friends, Monica could only afford her apartment while she was working on a starting chef's salary because it was rent controlled.
However, many of the apartments in New York that are rent stabilized or rent controlled are shrinking in numbers every year because they are being purchased and upgraded by well meaning members of the upper to middle class. There are only a total of approximately 40,000 apartments that have rent restrictions or are rent controlled according to the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal. After a certain period of time they will be made available on the free market once these apartments become vacant and they frequently become rent stabilized.
The number of rent stabilized apartments decreased during the past 18 months. Apartments that have restricted rents can be a great bargain in some very prime neighborhoods. However, in some of the less desirable neighborhoods, apartments that rent restrictions are only somewhat less expensive than the same apartments would be in the open marketplace.
In many cases, there is no financial incentive for landlords to apply for an increase in the rent or to renovate and therefore the very low priced apartments still exist.
By order of the local Rent Guidelines Board, rents that are stabilized increase approximately 3% every year. There are many apartments that are falling into disrepair and are aging in New York. Many tenants that have lived in these apartments are electing to move to more comfortable apartments.
When the landlords go through the laborious and long process of filing an application for an increase in rent, controlled rents will only increase.
For the few additional dollars each month, most landlords of older apartments agree that it simply isn't worth the effort. The living conditions will simply continue to deteriorate when landlords won't improve the apartment every year.
Many of the older apartments are being renovated and are becoming prime living space in some in neighborhoods. The new apartment owners start to apply pressure to get their tenants to move once they have purchased this kind of apartment. After these apartments have been vacated, the rents for these apartments increase to the market levels.