A new report from the NYC Independent Budget Office (IBO) shows that the Lower East Side is just about average when it comes to the turnover of rent stabilized apartments.
The agency looked at records from about 925,000 apartments citywide, examining units that were rent stabilized for at least two years from 2010 through 2015. Researchers calculated how many apartments turn over from one year to the next. According to the IBO, neighborhood breakdowns were meant to offer new insight about a few different issues:
High turnover rates may indicate tenant mobility, changing neighborhood characteristics, or landlord efforts to vacate apartments to increase the legal rent of a rent-stabilized unit—or to reach a rent level that would enable deregulation. In contrast, low turnover rates may indicate tenant stability, or that tenants feel locked in to their rent-stabilized apartments because of their below-market rents when they otherwise may have considered moving.
The citywide average turnover rate was 12%. Here’s a snapshot of the neighborhoods within Community District 3:
- Lower East Side: 5390 rent stabilized units; 12% turnover rate
- East Village: 8883 rent stabilized units; 11% turnover rate
- Chinatown: 7736 rent stabilized units; 11% turnover rate
Neighborhoods like Battery Park City (32%), Hudson Yards (21%) and Midtown (22%) had much higher turnover rates. The report notes that rates tend to be higher in communities where a large proportion of the rent stabilized housing was built after 1974. Those properties, the IBO explained, were generally, “stabilized in exchange for special tax benefits and have rents that tend to be closer to their neighborhood’s market rate.” The rent stabilized stock is mostly older in Community District 3. For example, only 7% of rent stabilized units in Chinatown were created after 1974.
You read more from the IBO here. DNAinfo first reported this story yesterday.
