The city’s Rent Guidelines board voted Monday evening to extend the rent freeze on one-year leases for rent-stabilized apartments, in a repeat of last year’s vote. The board also called for a 2 percent increase for two-year leases.
Real estate investors have argued that a rent freeze puts a damper on the city’s multifamily investment sales market, as there over 1 million rent-stabilized apartments in the city — nearly half of the city’s rental stock.
“Another abhorrent illustration of de Blasio’s politics dictating housing policy,” Joseph Strasburg, president of the Rent Stabilization Association, a landlord group, told the Wall Street Journal.
Tenant advocates, however, were pushing the board to consider rolling back rents, saying that property owners’ expenses have gone down.
The Rent Guidelines Board’s chairperson, Kathleen Roberts, told the newspaper that the vote reflected lower operating costs for rental landlords over the past year, driven by a drop in heating-fuel prices. [WSJ] — Hiten Samtani