Know when NYC's housing crisis will end? Bet on it. Put up or shut up, people!
This means you, mayoral candidates
New York City’s rental housing emergency, driven by a lack of supply, is formally codified in city and state law. The New York City Council can declare a housing public emergency, pursuant to state law, when the city’s vacancy rate is 5% or less.1 During this emergency, rent regulation is in effect.
And pursuant to state law, the city council does this about every three years, with the most recent emergency renewal in 2024. New York City has been in this particular emergency for over 50 years, and the city council has been dutifully declaring the emergency all the while.2
Well—when are we going to get out of it? When will the vacancy rate be a healthy ~7-8%? When will renters have more options, when will we have a newer housing stock with modern amenities, when will prices stabilize and come down? These are all the same question, really.
People make all kinds of claims about “bringing down rent,” but no one is going on the record by claiming an actual date that this will end, and driving toward it. The people of New York need a light at the end of the tunnel, and someone who burns the ships to reach that date. Here’s anyone’s first chance to do that: I have made betting markets on Manifold at every rent emergency renewal point through 2036.
The questions all resolve to “YES” if the city’s administrative code (§26-520) still has an unexpired housing emergency declaration, and they resolve to “NO” if it does.
My hope (and optimistic expectation) is that the crisis will have ended by 2036—after all, NYC previously exiting a rental emergency faster than that.
But for now, go on the record. Place your bets. And let’s see what collective intelligence surfaces. Betting is good for your own thinking, and reveals things to the broader world. (This post’s title is a small homage to
.)Will New York City still be in a legally declared rental housing emergency by April 1, 2027?
Will New York City still be in a legally declared rental housing emergency by April 1, 2030?
Will New York City still be in a legally declared rental housing emergency by April 1, 2033?
Will New York City still be in a legally declared rental housing emergency by April 1, 2036?
Per the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974 (ETPA), a local determination of a housing emergency for all or a class of housing (excluding rent controlled, city/state owned, and others) in NYC can be done when the vacancy rate is 5% or less. From Chapter 576 of 1974 §3(a) (emphasis added):
A declaration of emergency may be made as to any class of housing accommodations if the vacancy rate for the housing accommodations in such class within such municipality is not in excess of five percent and a declaration of emergency may be made as to all housing accommodations if the vacancy rate for the housing accommodations within such municipality is not in excess of five percent.
For an appropriately cutting response to a half-century-old, declared-but-unaddressed emergency, see: “Never Let a Crisis End,” City Journal (November 2024).