RGB’s Housing Supply Report Says Market Still Very Tight

More housing units were created in 2017 than in the previous year, according to the recently released Rent Guidelines Board annual housing supply report. There was an 11 percent increase in the number of apartments created, but the vacancy rate is still very low, and 11.5 percent of housing is considered “overcrowded,” meaning there’s more than one person per room. The city’s housing market, per the report, remains “very tight.”

In addition, the city saw a net gain in the number of rent-stabilized apartments added to the housing stock last year for the first time since vacancy decontrol became law in 1994. There was a net gain of 4,387 stabilized units in 2017 mostly due to tax break programs such as 421-a. On the other end of the equation, vacancy decontrol accounted for 3,517 units leaving the system last year, the lowest number since 1999. Since 1994, 147,512 apartments have been deregulated.

The report also looked at the various housing types that have been created in the period between 2016 and 2017. Here are some statistics:

• Permits for new apartments increased 36 percent from 2016, to 22,131 units; the largest number was in Brooklyn, with 6,130, but Queens had the largest gain, rising 80 percent over 2016;
• Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens also saw the largest numbers of completed apartments in 2017, with 6,130; 5,401; and 5,104 units, respectively; and
• Mayor de Blasio’s Housing New York program “spurred a total of 24,293 housing starts” in 2017, with 32 percent of those being newly created apartments.