Why NYC Landlords Struggle to Re-Rent Affordable Units

New York City’s system for re-renting affordable apartments is so cumbersome that units sit vacant for months, and sometimes more than a year.

The process was created to give New Yorkers equal access to below-market units, but causes owners to miss rent revenue and denies New Yorkers housing during the most severe shortage in the city’s recorded history.

A Gothamist story, based on a New York Housing Conference report, featured a two-bedroom apartment in the Bronx that has been empty since September 2023 despite a rent of just $1,250, roughly half the market rate. The citywide vacancy rate for similarly priced units is 1 percent.

“It’s infuriating,” Brendan Mitchell of the University Neighborhood Housing Program, which owns the building, told the publication.

The fourth-floor, mid-Bronx walkup has a remodeled kitchen, polished hardwood floors, and new plumbing and electric, and is reserved for families earning 60 percent of the area median income.

However, rather than listing the unit, city regulations require that UNHP must offer it only to people who entered lotteries for new buildings and who happened to also check a box for re-rentals. The housing provider must give small batches of potential tenants 10 days to respond before moving on to others.

“Using the Housing Connect system for these types of re-rentals inherently confuses the applicants, and ultimately selected applicants are not interested.”
– University Neighborhood Housing Program

“Owners are required to go through the 10-day waiting periods over and over again,” the Housing Conference report said. After going through at least 250 applicants, owners can apply for a waiver to use outside marketing.

Re-rentals are well-maintained but can be in walk-ups 15 or 20 years old, without amenities such as elevators, modern kitchens, gyms and on-site security, and far from applicants’ preferred neighborhood.

“Using the Housing Connect system for these types of re-rentals inherently confuses the applicants, and ultimately selected applicants are not interested in the property once they get through the screening process,” UNHP lamented on its blog.

Meanwhile, the nonprofit must turn away local residents who hear about its vacancies through word of mouth and inquire about renting them.

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development told The Real Deal that HPD’s “housing access team” is working to improve the system.

“This article and the NYHC report are not fully accurate as a reflection of the issue or what we’re currently doing,” the spokesperson said by email. “We of course want the units filled as quickly as possible. We agree there’s room for improvement in our re-rentals and luckily it’s something that’s well underway!”

Regardless of any nitpicks the agency has about the report and the story, it’s undeniable that UNHP’s renovated two-bedroom on Tiebout Avenue has been empty for 17 months despite a below-market rent — and that hundreds, if not thousands, of similar income-restricted apartments sit vacant for months every year.

There must be a better way, and one should have been put in place years ago.

The New York Housing Conference, an advocacy group for affordable housing providers, recommends exempting affordable re-rentals from the Housing Connect lottery so they can be listed.

Fairness matters, but the re-rental system does not seem fair to owners of those units or to eligible New Yorkers who would rent them if given the opportunity. Smartphone apps and the internet should make that simple.

New York City has no shortage of techies and graduate students who would be willing to pitch solutions. HPD could tap their expertise.

Or just let landlords list re-rentals the old-fashioned way.