NYC Rentals Continued To Tax Affordability But 4 Exciting Housing Initiatives Were Just Passed
Takeways
NYC’s October rental market remained extremely strong, with rents and bidding wars intensifying just before the mayoral election, defying headlines about a city “exodus” and outpacing the decade’s third-quarter sales average by 4.3%.
In sharp contrast to national trends—where rents fell at the fastest rate in 15 years, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens saw double-inflation rent growth, confirming robust demand and urgency for more housing supply.
Major housing initiatives passed in NYC were overshadowed by the mayoral race, but evidence-based data shows New York’s market divergence is now a national talking point in housing policy and affordability debates.
Dear Housing Notes Readers: Apologies for the NYC-centric content lately, but a lot is happening here, and much of it has national housing-market implications. Our NYC rental research for October was published today by Douglas Elliman, and it showed how truly bogus the “fleeing the city” narrative has been. Here’s a CNBC headline published today: No one leaving New York City because of Mamdani, say two top real estate CEOs. Using evidence-based research (said in a sarcastic tone), the run-up to the NYC mayoral election has shown both a robust sales market and a robust rental market. Sales volume in the third quarter was 4.3% above the decade’s third-quarter average. The October rental market saw price growth twice inflation and many bidding wars. The rental results, which tend to show a much faster reaction to market conditions than sales, boomed the month before the mayoral election.
The NYC results are in sharp contrast to much of the US rental market, which is cooling. This contrast shows, among many things, how vibrant the demand side remains in NYC as indicated in this Bloomberg piece: Manhattan Rent Prices Climbed Near Record in Month Before Mamdani Win [gift link]. But on the flip side, it shows a desperate need to address housing affordability nationwide. There is a good WSJ summary piece on the new Mayor’s plan: “The Economics Behind Zohran Mamdani’s Biggest Plans” [gift link]. At first glance, high rental demand requires the city to stimulate a lot more housing construction. To the surprise of many, this was addressed in four housing initiatives that were passed but drowned out by the Mayoral race, which somehow became a national event. To get a sense of rental price growth in Manhattan, here’s how I illustrated it using our Elliman rental report series since just before the pandemic. Wow.
National Rents Fell At Fastest Rate In 15 Years
According to Apartments.com, a Costar asset, rent growth continued to decline amid Washington’s tariff policy, which crushed the economy.
Apartments.com shows NYC (five boroughs) rents falling, while we show Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens rents rising.
Proposal 1 Passed: Fast-Track Affordable Housing Citywide
I apologize for the wonkiness of the following four sections. News of the four housing initiatives passed on election day 2025 was drowned out by all the misinformation, racism, billionaire cronyism, and vitriol of the NYC mayoral election, which somehow became a national event. I am reminded that JFK was only 43 when elected US president. Creating more affordable housing is critical to the continued success of NYC (or an urban area), and the housing initiatives that passed didn’t get their due. If you don’t care, skip to my conclusion at the bottom.
But I digress…
Creates faster approval processes for affordable housing, especially for publicly funded projects in areas that have built little affordable housing in the past.
Allows some projects to request zoning changes directly from the Board of Standards and Appeals, skipping several slow approval steps.
Aims to ensure affordable housing is developed across all neighborhoods to reduce housing inequality.
Proposal 2 Passed: Expedited Review for Modest Housing and Infrastructure Projects
Creates the Expedited Land Use Review Procedure (ELURP) for modest increases in housing density, smaller infrastructure projects, and climate resiliency initiatives.
Reduces review time for these changes, with the City Planning Commission making the final decision rather than the City Council, and maintains community board review.
The goal is to incentivize small and medium-scale housing and resilience projects by targeting bureaucratic delays.
Proposal 3 Passed: Affordable Housing Appeals Board
Creates a new faster review (ELURP) for small increases in housing density, infrastructure, and resiliency projects
Cuts approval time, leaving the final decision to the City Planning Commission after community board review, with no City Council vote
Meant to speed up smaller housing and resilience efforts by removing lengthy delays
Proposal 4 Passed: Modernize and Digitize City Map
Allows the city to replace over 8,000 separate paper maps with a single digital map used for official approvals
Makes city processes clearer and faster for property and development reviews.
The new map will help speed up housing and infrastructure projects by giving everyone up-to-date, unified information
Final Thoughts
New York City’s housing market is still robust, with home sales and rents rising even as other parts of the country see prices drop. This shows NYC’s housing demand is much higher than elsewhere and has remained sustained through the Mayoral election.
At the same time, voters approved substantial changes to make it easier and faster to build affordable housing. These new rules should help boost construction and reduce housing inequality, even though objective coverage of them was mainly drowned out by the mayoral election, which was full of misinformation and bad takes.
The Actual Final Thought – There was a great quote by former Mayor Ed Koch shared by Mayor-Elect Mamdani which is such a New York take that cuts through all the misinformation.
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The StreetMatrix housing index platform that we have created powers the Home Value Lock product that Josh Altman talked about today. We are fortunate to have Josh join our team.
StreetMatrix Arrives In California
Here’s the latest newsletter with links to all our resources. More specifics on this effort to come!
