The dashed yellow line marks the 3% threshold below which NYC officially declares a housing emergency. The 2021 spike reflects pandemic-era out-migration; the collapse to 1.4% by 2023 represents the sharpest two-year tightening in the survey's history.
1 in 70 apartments is available. The last time it was this bad, the city was still recovering from fiscal collapse.
The 1968 trough preceded the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974. The current trough has produced the 2019 tenant protections, a formal housing emergency declaration, and — with Mamdani's election — the most explicitly pro-tenant mayoral administration in the modern era. Whether that translates to supply growth or rent suppression will define the city's housing future.