Paula Pant

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[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

There's no freeze on property tax.

There's no freeze on the wages paid to landscapers, plumbers, electricians, drywallers, flooring installers.

There's no freeze on the cost of lumber, copper, baseboard, quarter rounds, flashing, siding, window treatments.

There's no freeze on the wages paid to janitors or porters.

There's no freeze on utilities -- on electric, gas, water, sewer (building-paid utilities in hallways, lobbies, maintenance corridors; most buildings pay water and sewer for tenants).

There are currently 57,421 units sitting vacant in NYC because it's more cost-effective to leave them empty than it is to rent them out.

If you're wondering: "How that could be possible? Wouldn't making anything be better than making nothing?" -- the answer is no, because of the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act.

The HSTPA mandated a certain level of renovation for a vacant unit, but did not allow landlords to raise the rent enough to be able to recoup those costs.

If a long-term tenant moves out after decades, the apartment often requires $50,000 to $100,000 in lead abatement, new wiring, plumbing, and structural renovations.

Because the law heavily restricts how much of that cost can be passed to the next tenant.

The HSPTA eliminated the "vacancy bonus" (which allowed automatic 20% rent increases when a tenant left) and heavily capped Individual Apartment Improvements (IAIs).

This means landlords who want a renovation loan would be rejected by a bank, because the landlord would not be able to show that they could repay that loan.

Landlords who pay out-of-pocket would end up losing money, underperforming even what they could get by putting their money in a U.S. Treasury or gov't bond.

Therefore, it's more cost-effective to just leave the unit vacant.

That's why we have 57,421 vacant units across New York right now.

That number is about to get much worse.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

@elonmusk Exactly. Oppressive and irrational rules don't make costs magically disappear -- they just push those costs onto other people.

Elon, thank you for highlighting this issue -- and thank you for everything you're doing for humanity.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

@madsf88 I'm 3/4

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

Here’s the free guide I mentioned above. ⬇️

It’s for mom-and-pop investors who want to understand the numbers before they buy.

Download it here:
https://t.co/SyDAgE4Dn9

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

There's no freeze on property tax.

There's no freeze on the wages paid to landscapers, plumbers, electricians, drywallers, flooring installers.

There's no freeze on the cost of lumber, copper, baseboard, quarter rounds, flashing, siding, window treatments.

There's no freeze on the wages paid to janitors or porters.

There's no freeze on utilities -- on electric, gas, water, sewer (building-paid utilities in hallways, lobbies, maintenance corridors; most buildings pay water and sewer for tenants).

There are currently 57,421 units sitting vacant in NYC because it's more cost-effective to leave them empty than it is to rent them out.

If you're wondering: "How that could be possible? Wouldn't making anything be better than making nothing?" -- the answer is no, because of the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act.

The HSTPA mandated a certain level of renovation for a vacant unit, but did not allow landlords to raise the rent enough to be able to recoup those costs.

If a long-term tenant moves out after decades, the apartment often requires $50,000 to $100,000 in lead abatement, new wiring, plumbing, and structural renovations.

Because the law heavily restricts how much of that cost can be passed to the next tenant.

The HSPTA eliminated the "vacancy bonus" (which allowed automatic 20% rent increases when a tenant left) and heavily capped Individual Apartment Improvements (IAIs).

This means landlords who want a renovation loan would be rejected by a bank, because the landlord would not be able to show that they could repay that loan.

Landlords who pay out-of-pocket would end up losing money, underperforming even what they could get by putting their money in a U.S. Treasury or gov't bond.

Therefore, it's more cost-effective to just leave the unit vacant.

That's why we have 57,421 vacant units across New York right now.

That number is about to get much worse.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

I'm a renter in NYC, and I own rental properties in landlord-friendly states: Indiana, Nevada, Georgia.

Every month, I both pay rent and I collect it.

Learn about owning profitable rental properties as a mom-and-pop investor. Grab our FREE guide:
https://t.co/UzYbuXi0ub

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

Pop quiz: When something is in short supply, do you want to either: a) encourage, or b) discourage providing that item?

The answer is obvious: when we have a shortage, we want to encourage people to provide more of it.

Freezing the rent while letting operating costs balloon *discourages* landlords from providing housing, rather than encourages it.

This hurts the renters it's intended to help.

If your building has both rent-stabilized and market-rate units, higher costs get pushed onto the market-rate renters.

Your neighbor’s rent gets frozen. Yours goes up.

If your building has mostly or only rent-stabilized units, then the quality of maintenance and repairs goes down.

The result: NYC gets more expensive for market-rate tenants, and worse to live in for rent-stabilized tenants.

The lowest-income tenants may suffer most, because they have the fewest options when quality suffers.

So what will landlords do with their housing stock?

Some may convert it to condos and sell it, which removes units from the rental market.

Others just leave it vacant.

There are 57,421 vacant rent-stabilized units in NYC -- by which I mean, these are *unavailable to rent.*

This represents around 6 percent of the one million rent-stabilized units in the city.

If you're wondering, "Wait a second! I thought the vacancy rate was only 1.4 percent?" -- You are correct.

Vacancy rate refers to units that are *available to rent* -- on the market, searching for a tenant -- but are currently empty.

NYC has a low vacancy rate of its *available* units of only 1.4% -- far lower than the national average.

The 57,421 rent-stabilized units that are *unavailable* to rent are not counted in those vacancy rate figures.

These unavailable units are growing. The 57,421 number is as of April 1st, 2025, and it is a huge jump from the previous year's figure of 49,426.

To phrase that another way:

In the span of one year, the number of rent-stabilized units that became unavailable rose from 5% to 6% of the city's available stock.

One percentage point, in one year. That's a significant and rapid increase.

And it shows that the 2019 HSTPA has been accumulating damage for years.

This rent freeze is now salt in the wound, about to make it a lot worse.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

Bill, thank you so much for drawing attention to this issue.

Rent is frozen; costs are not. That's the core issue. Someone has to eat the costs -- and that hurts the janitors, porters, handymen, cleaners, everyone who keeps a building running.

The owner has to cut the operating budget, and the operating budget is made up of people.

Not every building will have to make severe cuts, though. In buildings with a mix of stabilized and market-rate rents, those cost increases get pushed onto market-rate tenants -- which means NYC rent gets more expensive, not less.

In those buildings, "freeze the rent" is just a cost transfer from one set of tenants to another. You're subsidizing your neighbor down the hall.

And all of this is for a system that doesn't even benefit the people who need it the most.

Rent stabilization isn't means-tested. 30% of rent-stabilized tenants have a six-figure income.

Someone earning $250,000 might live in a stabilized unit, while someone earning $50,000 might not.

You get a rent-stabilized unit through sheer luck and happenstance -- you hear about a listing in your college alumni WhatsApp group, or from your softball buddies at a bar.

You don't get it because you're low-income. You get it because you know the right people.

There's no upper income limit. So we're making buildings decay and pushing market-rate rents higher, for the benefit of random people who got the luck of the draw.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

@Tparker_nc Excellent point.

There are MANY expenses that aren't on this list ... the expenses that come with property maintenance would shock most renters.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

@SanFranRancor @RichardHanania Thank you. I am adamantly against a rent freeze, and I will build that case, everyday, for as long as it takes.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

This is a long thread, but it is a well-researched, well-reasoned, nuanced, thoughtful, balanced piece from someone with enormous expertise in NYC housing.

If you think freezing the rent is a good idea, read this. 👇

[Frank Braconi @FrankBraconi]

I’ve long been one of the few economists who defended the appropriateness of well-designed rent regulation laws in NYC and other “superstar” cities with tight housing markets and that are subject to rapid changes in market rents in gentrifying neighborhoods.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

@ThinkAppraiser Honestly, I averaged around one rental per year, and in 10 years I became richer than 90% in my age group

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

@Kasparov63 Garry Kasparov!! What an honor. So much respect for you.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

@DavidPiotrowski In addition, this will also harm the nurses, teachers, forklift drivers, pothole fillers who pay market-rate rent.

Rent stabilization is not means tested. You could earn $50,000 and pay market-rate rent. Someone else could earn $250,000 and live in a rent-stabilized home.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

Why don't you have means testing for rent stabilization? Right now, 30% of rent-stabilized tenants earn six-figure incomes. The people who pay market rate suffer.

Therefore, low-income people who pay market rate are forced to subsidize high-income people who got rent stabilized.

It's a regressive system in which college-educated suburban transplants are benefiting on the backs of porters, supers, janitors, electricians, contractors.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

@Nfcanavan First sentence in this Washington Post editorial. I believe their reporting comes from the Manhattan Institute.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

30% of rent-stabilized tenants earn six-figure incomes.

Many live in Class A luxury buildings with a mix of rent-stabilized and market-rate rents.

In those buildings, the market rent gets jacked up to subsidize stabilized tenants.

One reason why NYC is so expensive.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

@Nfcanavan https://t.co/jvyIdNjoUb

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

@MattZeitlin Agree 100%

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

@LDrogen That's the equivalent of telling every contractor, drywaller, plumber, electrician, roofing installer, etc:

"My access to your labor at a free or discounted rate is what I consider to be my inherent human right."

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

@WestHarlm Thank you for posting that chart. Could you please link to the source? I would love to read more.

Thank you again. I appreciate it.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

@Elvis_Bob Number 1, 2, 5 on your list are irrelevant. They all discuss rent control, which is different than rent stabilization.

[Paula Pant @AffordAnything]

Who gets hurt by NYC's rent freeze?

First, the people who pay market-rate rents.

Remember, rent stabilization is NOT income tested, so someone making $50,000 might pay market rent, while someone making $250,000 might live in a rent-stabilized unit.

And market rent is about to go up. When 40% of the rental housing inventory gets a price freeze, guess what happens to the other 60%?

Second, lower-income tenants who DO have stabilized leases are hurt the worst.

Low-income tenants are most likely to live in buildings that are majority rent-stabilized. And those buildings are in the most financial danger.

Those are exactly the buildings that can't absorb a freeze.

When operating costs exceed rental revenue, buildings stop getting maintained. Violations pile up. Things break and don't get fixed. The building struggles and struggles, eventually going bankrupt.

And operating expenses will exceed rental revenue. There's no freeze on property tax.

There's no freeze on the wages paid to landscapers, plumbers, electricians, drywallers, flooring installers.

There's no freeze on the cost of lumber, copper, baseboard, quarter rounds, flashing, siding, window treatments.

There's no freeze on the wages paid to janitors or porters.

There's no freeze on utilities -- on electric, gas, water, sewer.

More than 57,000 units rent-stabilized units across NYC are currently vacant, because landlords find it cheaper to keep it vacant than to make repairs. That number is about to get a lot worse, and it's the low-income tenants that get hurt first.

The people who come out fine? The 30% of rent-stabilized tenants earning six-figure incomes.

These tenants typically live in Class A luxury buildings that have a mix of both rent-stabilized units and market-rate units.

These buildings just jack up the rent on the market-rate units in order to stay solvent.

And so the people paying market rate pay even more, in order to subsidize their neighbors who make a six-figure income.

The freeze protects the people who need it least, and squeezes the people it was supposed to help.