New York City freezes rent on 1 million stabilized apartments

New York City's Rent Guidelines Board froze rents on June 25 for about 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. The action was the first-ever freeze on two-year leases in city history.

New York City has roughly 3.7 million housing units, and about 1 million of them are rent stabilized, making up about 41% of rental apartments and 28% of the city’s total housing stock. The Rent Guidelines Board sets annual changes only for regulated apartments and lofts, along with some hotels and single-room occupancies; it does not control market-rate rents.

Mamdani cast the freeze as the fulfillment of his "Freeze the rent" pledge and said the board weighed tenants’ ability to pay, the cost of living and building operating costs. Tenant advocates had pressed for a freeze as rents and other basic expenses kept climbing, while landlords and their representatives said the policy could leave already thin building budgets even tighter. Many rent-regulated buildings serving more than 2 million residents are already under financial strain.

The June 25 vote followed a very different decision a year earlier. On June 30, 2025, the board approved increases of 3% for one-year leases and 4.5% for two-year leases, covering leases that began between Oct. 1, 2025 and Sept. 30, 2026. In the spring of 2026, the board had preliminarily weighed a range that included a freeze before settling on the final no-increase vote.

Brad Lander, the city comptroller, said in 2025 that tenants were being hit by rent increases even as landlord profits had soared, vacancy rates were at historic lows and rent-burdened households had reached unsustainable levels. Mayor Eric Adams defended the 2025 increases by saying the city had historically low rental vacancy and that he had pushed for the lowest possible increase. By June 2026, the rent board had gone all the way to zero.