New York City continues to face significant housing pressures as rents remain high and many residents struggle with the cost of housing. At the same time, thousands of rent-stabilized apartments have remained vacant.
According to data reported by Gothamist, more than 57,000 rent-stabilized apartments were vacant as of April 2025, an increase of approximately 8,000 units from the previous year. Brooklyn and Queens recorded some of the largest increases.
The vacant units have drawn attention as the city continues to deal with a shortage of affordable housing and a growing homelessness problem. Housing officials, landlords and advocates have offered different explanations for why rent-stabilized apartments remain off the market.
Some property owners have said the cost of renovating older apartments can make it financially difficult to prepare units for new tenants under rent-stabilization rules. Housing advocates, meanwhile, have raised concerns that some landlords may intentionally keep apartments vacant in hopes of eventually obtaining higher rents or changes in housing regulations.
The issue has also renewed discussion about New York City’s Local Law 18, which significantly restricted short-term rentals when it took effect in 2023.
The law requires short-term rental hosts to register with the city and generally requires hosts to remain in the residence while guests are staying there. It also limits the number of paying guests to two and prohibits booking platforms from processing transactions for unregistered properties.
Supporters of Local Law 18 have argued that apartments being used as short-term rentals should instead be available to long-term residents. Critics have questioned whether the restrictions have produced a meaningful increase in the city’s long-term housing supply.
Before the restrictions took effect, Airbnb had roughly 20,000 listings in New York City, according to published reports. That figure is considerably smaller than the number of rent-stabilized apartments subsequently reported as vacant, although the two categories involve different types of housing and are not directly comparable.
Former New York Assembly member Annette Robinson, who chaired the Assembly’s Subcommittee on Affordable Housing, argues that the city should reconsider how Local Law 18 applies to homeowners who occasionally rent rooms or portions of their homes.
Robinson said short-term rental income had provided an important source of supplemental income for some home owners, particularly in Brooklyn and Queens.
For home owners facing rising property taxes, maintenance costs and other expenses, she said the additional income could help them remain in their homes. Black home owners in some New York neighborhoods also face long standing concerns involving foreclosure, deed theft and the loss of generational home equity.
Robinson has called for changes that would distinguish between individual homeowners renting a room or part of their primary residence and investors operating multiple properties primarily as short-term accommodations.
Such changes would preserve restrictions intended to prevent residential apartments from being converted into unauthorized hotels while allowing some owner-occupants greater flexibility to earn supplemental income from their homes.
The larger question surrounding the city’s 57,000 vacant rent-stabilized apartments remains unresolved: why so many units are unavailable at a time when New Yorkers are struggling to find affordable housing.
Addressing the issue could involve several approaches, including incentives or assistance for landlords to renovate vacant units, stronger enforcement against improper warehousing of apartments and changes to regulations that policy makers determine are preventing otherwise habitable units from returning to the rental market.
The debate over short-term rentals is likely to continue as well, particularly as city officials evaluate whether Local Law 18 has achieved its intended effect on housing availability.
With tens of thousands of rent-stabilized apartments remaining vacant, the figures are likely to increase pressure on city and state officials to determine why the units are off the market and what policies could return more of them to New York City’s housing supply.
