NYC wants to give landlords $50K to spruce up their units

New York City is offering landlords with unrentable apartments some serious cash to bring them back to life. But does that mean the landlords actually want it? 

Two-and-a-half years ago, the city offered to reimburse property owners up to $25,000 to fix up and rent out their unloved, rent-stabilized apartments.

The program, called Unlocking Doors, aimed to return these low-cost units to the city’s tight rental market. The problem: No one was really interested. 

An investigation by Gothamist revealed that only one landlord has successfully applied for the program — and they never followed through with repairs. Another landlord returned an incomplete application and dropped out. 

State law heavily restricts annual rent increases on rent-stabilized apartments. The only way out of the deal for landlords is extensive renovations at personal expense. The city wants to help these owners renovate — but only if they keep the unit low-cost.

The city’s Independent Budget Office reported in 2023 that 13,000 rent-stabilized units has been left empty for more than a year. Just one year later, the city department of Housing Preservation and Development reported fewer than 2,500 vacancies among the city’s stock of rentals going for $1,000-a-month or less.

The mediocre turnout for Unlocking Doors prompted HPD to double its reimbursement offer to $50,000. Property owners told Gothamist that it’s still not enough. 

Jack Ndreu, a landlord with three buildings in The Bronx, expressed uncertainty about relying on city funds. 

“Maybe you go through all this stuff and the new mayor takes it all away, or they take the tenant’s voucher away,” Ndreu told the outlet. 

Ndreu added that the upfront cost of repairs might be too much for small property owners, and the pool of those who qualify for Unlocking Doors is already small. 

Qualifying units cap out at $1,200 a month for one-bedrooms and $1,400 a month for three-bedrooms. Such hard-to-come-by apartments are rarely vacated. 

Other owners and landlord advocates expressed fears of getting barred from future profit by the program’s red tape. Operating costs could exceed the rent limits or voucher recipients could lose their benefits. 

Samuel Stein, a housing policy analyst who testified in favor of the $50,000 change, put the blame on landlords for the lack of buy-in.

“They don’t want the rents to stay what they are, even if the cost to bring an apartment back online is completely covered by the city,” he said.

Local housing officials claimed the program’s poor showing proves that “warehousing” — in which landlords opt to keep units vacant instead of renting them out — isn’t the citywide scourge that landlord groups and some neighbor-less tenants claim. 

When it comes to “warehoused” rent stabilized units, city landlords have historically complained of insufficient monthly returns to meet repair needs after longtime tenants vacate. 

Efforts to quantify the prevalence of warehousing by different city agencies have yielded widely differing accounts, accordion to the outlet.

 An HPD spokesperson told Gothamist that their data reveals “very few vacant low-cost, rent-stabilized apartments,” but added that every potential source of housing for New Yorkers is critical.