Paula Pant (@AffordAnything)

There's no freeze on property tax. There's no freeze on the wages paid to landscapers, plumbers, electricians, drywallers, flooring installers. There's no freeze on the cost of lumber, copper, baseboard, quarter rounds, flashing, siding, window treatments. There's no freeze on the wages paid to janitors or porters. There's no freeze on utilities -- on electric, gas, water, sewer (building-paid utilities in hallways, lobbies, maintenance corridors; most buildings pay water and sewer for tenants). There are currently 57,421 units sitting vacant in NYC because it's more cost-effective to leave them empty than it is to rent them out. If you're wondering: "How that could be possible? Wouldn't making anything be better than making nothing?" -- the answer is no, because of the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act. The HSTPA mandated a certain level of renovation for a vacant unit, but did not allow landlords to raise the rent enough to be able to recoup those costs. If a long-term tenant moves out after decades, the apartment often requires $50,000 to $100,000 in lead abatement, new wiring, plumbing, and structural renovations. Because the law heavily restricts how much of that cost can be passed to the next tenant. The HSPTA eliminated the "vacancy bonus" (which allowed automatic 20% rent increases when a tenant left) and heavily capped Individual Apartment Improvements (IAIs). This means landlords who want a renovation loan would be rejected by a bank, because the landlord would not be able to show that they could repay that loan. Landlords who pay out-of-pocket would end up losing money, underperforming even what they could get by putting their money in a U.S. Treasury or gov't bond. Therefore, it's more cost-effective to just leave the unit vacant. That's why we have 57,421 vacant units across New York right now. That number is about to get much worse.