• 3% for a one-year lease; 6% for a two-year lease;
• 2.5 and 5% for tenants who pay their own heat;
• For tenants who have been in their apartments for six years or more, the increases are $30 (1 yr) or $60 (2 yr) or 3% or 6%, which ever is higher. This means that if you have been in your apartment for 6 or more years, and your rent on 9/30/08 was under $1000 per month, your increase is $30 for a one year lease and $60 for a two year lease unless you pay your own heat - if that is the case, your increase will be $25 for one year and $50 for two year lease. If your rent was over $1000, you will pay an increase of 3% for 1 year, 6% for 2 year, or 2.5% and 5% if you pay your own heat.
• For Single Room Occupancy and hotel tenants, the increase is 0%.
• For Loft tenants, the Board authorized increases of 3% for one-year leases and 6% for two-year leases.

Think these guidelines are too high? Join the  movement to reform the Rent Boards!

Background   The New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) is a nine member board appointed by the mayor to set rent adjustments for the city's one million rent stabilized apartments.  The board is made up of two tenant representatives, two landlord representatives, and five people, including the chair, who represent the public.  In practice, the public members have tended to come from the business, financial and real estate sectors -- and tend to be pro-landlord. As a result, for decades the RGB has not acted to preserve affordability when it comes to setting rent adjustments. Every year, the RGB has voted to increase rents - even in years when costs for landlords went down.  The RGB starts meeting in March (all meetings are, by law, open to the public), publishes research reports prepared by the staff, and holds a preliminary vote in May. Public hearings are held in June followed by the vote on the final guidelines. Those guidelines go into effect for tenants signing leases on or after October 1st of that year. The Rent Guidelines Board is critically important to the affordability of rental housing in NYC; tenants should pay attention to the Board's actions and attend the public meetings and hearings. For more information from the RGB, visit its website at housingnyc.com.

Interested in reform of the rent guidelines board? See our Real Rent Reform Campaign platform which contains a number of legislative changes that would ease rent increases for tenants.

RGB Staff Reports   The RGB staff prepares detailed reports concerning rental housing in NYC.  These reports have confirmed what everyone knows - landlords' profits are consistently healthy, and that landlords have greatly profited from the large state vacancy allowance and from the vacancy decontrol rules that allow them to deregulate vacant apartments renting for $2,000 or more. In addition, those reports show that the regular increases allowed by the RGB have kept landlords' net operating income (profit) growing over the past 10 years. The reports cover landlord's expenses, mortgage information, housing affordability and other data about the city's residential real estate market.  RGB reports can be found on their website, along with a lot of other helpful information.

2005 Housing & Vacancy Survey    The NYC Dept of Housing Preservation and Development released the initial findings of the 2005 Housing and Vacancy Survey.  This survey, done once every three years in order to determine the vacancy rate (a vacancy rate of below 5% is required for the continuation of the rent regulations), reveals a vacancy rate of 3.09% -- still a housing emergency as defined by law.  The survey also shows several problematic trends for tenants which might play out in the RGB's deliberations this spring.

• The median income for renter households in NYC is $32,000, a reduction in real dollars by 5.6% from the last survey.

• The median rent stabilized household income in this survey is $32,000, a real dollar deduction of 8.6% from the survey three years ago.

• The median rent for a rent stabilized apartment is $844, an increase of 8.2% over three years ago, and the median unregulated rent is $1,000 per month.

• The median gross rent/income ratio is 31.2% (gross rent is rent plus utilities) which is dangerously high, especially for the lower income members of the population.

• Most disturbing, the city now has 28.8% of its household paying more than 50% of their income for gross rent.

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