New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey 2023: What Does it Mean for New York City?
by Francesca Eisenberg
The Selected Initial Findings of the 2023 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey (NYCHVS), came out on February 8th of this year and the results are shocking. The City’s rental vacancy rate was 1.41%, in other words, only 33,210 out of the 2,357,000 total housing units, both vacant and occupied, were available for rent in 2023 (Gaumer 2024, 21). To put this into perspective, that is the lowest vacancy rate since 1968 and shows a 3.09% decrease from the 4.54% vacancy rate reported in 2021 (City of New York 2024; Gaumer 2022, 25). A 1.41% vacancy rate is troubling on many levels, but it is especially alarming because it makes affordable housing nearly impossible to find. In a city with an absurdly high cost of living and nearly 2 million people living in poverty, affordable housing remains essential to preserving the diversity that New York City prides itself on (Chen 2024).
Figure 1 (New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey (NYCHVS) 2023)
To understand the impact and importance of the 2023 NYCHVS, it is imperative to know the basics of and history behind the survey. The NYCHVS became required by law after the passage of the 1962 Local Emergency Housing Rent Control Act (LEHRCA) which states, “The continuation… of the public emergency requiring the regulation and control of residential rents and evictions within cities having a population of one million or more shall be a matter for local determination within each such city. Any such determination shall be made by the local legislative body of such city on or before April first, nineteen hundred sixty seven and at least one every third year thereafter following a survey…” (New York State Senate 2021, Local Emergency Housing Rent Control Act 1962, Chapter 21 Section 1). LEHRCA allowed the responsibility of rent control to be transferred from the state of New York to the City with the stipulation that a comprehensive survey would be conducted every three years to evaluate the continued need for rent control laws. Out of this stipulation, the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey was created.
The NYCHVS is a representative study conducted about every three years using data from the Census Bureau (United States Census Bureau 2023). Starting in 1965 and continuing every 10 years since then, researchers randomly select a sample of housing units to include in the study; this ensures that they are able to track the conditions of housing, sometimes surveying the same housing units more than once in a ten year period (United States Census Bureau 2023). This is important because it can allow for the tracking of unit conditions over time rather than simply providing a snapshot of housing conditions in New York City at one particular moment. While the NYCHVS gets the most attention for its reporting on the city-wide vacancy rate, it also contains information on the conditions of units, demographic trends connected to the housing stock, and rent-stabilized and rent-controlled dwellings (City of New York 2024).
The survey is incredibly important and highly scrutinized because its city-wide vacancy rate is used to establish whether New York City is in a housing emergency which therefore can allow the extension of New York City’s Rent Stabilization Law of 1969 an additional 3 years (New York City Council 2024). On March 19, 2024, the New York City Council voted to declare a continued housing emergency in order to extend the Law until April 1, 2027 (New York City Council 2024). The 1969 New York City Rent Stabilization Law ensures that landlords cannot raise rents more than a certain percentage per year and must allow tenants to renew their lease when it expires; this applies to about 1 million units in New York City and provides an essential lifeline for low- and moderate-income residents (NYC Rent Guidelines Board). While the New York City Rent Stabilization Laws are important and impact a significant portion of New York City residents, based on the vacancy rate found in the 2023 NYCHVS, it is clear that little is being done to make New York City housing affordable.
Figure 2 (New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey (NYCHVS) 2023)
One important metric reported on in the NYCHVS is rent burden. Rent burden is defined by the NYCHVS as “a measure of housing affordability and describes the share of income spent on housing costs” (Gaumer 2023, 55). Renters are typically considered moderately rent-burdened if they pay 30 to 50% of their household income toward rent and severely rent-burdened if they pay 50% or more of their household income toward rent (Gaumer 2023, 57). In 2023, the NYCHVS reported that the rates of rent burden had decreased in the three years since the last survey from 34.3% of households being categorized as rent-burdened in 2021 to 29.5% in 2023. However, this statistic must be looked at with caution (Gaumer 2023, 55). The 2021 NYCHVS was conducted in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic when many wealthier people chose to flee the city to second homes or less dense areas, taking with them their ability to pay rent without being burdened. Now, as COVID-19 turns into an endemic rather than a pandemic, wealthy people are returning to the city in droves, with 56% of renters moving into vacant units making $100,000 or more and 44% of renters who replaced movers after 2021 making the same amount (Gaumer 2023, 46). Because wealthier people are moving back into the city, it pushes the citywide rent burden rate down because more people are able to pay their rent with less than 30% of their household income. However, this citywide metric obscures the reality that 90% of those making less than $25,000 per year and 81% of those making $25,000 to $49,999 are rent-burdened (Gaumer 2023, 59). Millions of people are rent-burdened and without significant change, New York City, which is already too expensive for many low- and middle-income New Yorkers, will become too expensive for even the wealthy to live in.
The incredibly low vacancy rate and severe rent burden impacting low- and middle-income New Yorkers, as shown by the 2023 NYCHVS, makes it clear that the city is in crisis. There are many proposed solutions for the housing crisis from Mayor Eric Adams’ “City of Yes” proposal which includes changes to rezoning and development laws to, in the short-term, increase the availability and ease of Section 8 vouchers (Zaveri 2023). The issue is getting these solutions off the ground and ensuring that they are effective in easing the housing crisis. There are countless innovative solutions that have and can be proposed to address affordability in New York City, they just need to be implemented. Without the support and efficient action of lawmakers and residents alike, New York City will continue to be inaccessible to the average resident and, eventually, even wealthier residents will be unable to financially support a life in the City.
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Bibliography
Gaumer, E. The 2023 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey: Selected Initial Findings. New York, NY: New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development; 2024.
Gaumer, E. The 2021 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey: Selected Initial Findings. New York, NY: New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development; 2022.
New York City Council. (2024, May 19). New York City Council votes to declare continuing housing emergency to maintain Rent Stabilization Laws. New York City Council Press Release. https://council.nyc.gov/press/2024/03/19/2576/
New York City. (n.d.). Rent stabilization FAQ. Rent Stabilization FAQ – Rent Guidelines Board. https://rentguidelinesboard.cityofnewyork.us/resources/faqs/rent-stabilization/
New York State Senate. (2021, November 11). NYS open legislation. NYS Open Legislation | NYSenate.gov. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LEH
The City of New York. (2024b, February 8). New York City’s vacancy rate reaches historic low of 1.4 percent, demanding urgent action. The official website of the City of New York. https://www.nyc.gov/site/hpd/news/007-24/new-york-city-s-vacancy-rate-reaches-historic-low-1-4-percent-demanding-urgent-action-new#/0
United States Census Bureau. (2023, August 18). New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey FAQs. Census.gov. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/nychvs/about/faq.html
Zaveri, M. (2023, September 21). In yards, Offices and Basements, New York Hopes to Build 100,000 Homes. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/nyregion/nyc-housing-plan-adams.html