[HN Gopher] Show HN: An interactive dashboard to explore NYC ren...
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Show HN: An interactive dashboard to explore NYC rentals data
historically, rentals in NYC have been pretty wild. the median 1BR
in West Village as of July 2025 cost $5,750/month. about a month
ago, NYC passed a law to ban broker fees which many predicted would
have increased rents. I realized I had access to some original data
from a previous project so I built a dashboard to help me visualize
the changes and see for myself. you can filter by neighborhoods,
bedrooms, original source where the rentals were posted, and select
a timeframe. this is still a work in progress, so apologies in
advance for any issues you encounter. I would love any feedback on
how to improve it and/or what other visualizations i should add.
known issues include: - some neighborhoods like Prospect Park will
also automatically select other, unrelated, neighborhoods when
selected - sometimes even when you filter by 1BR it will also
include some 2BR - some units might have been listed on multiple
platforms, effectively counting as duplicates
Author : giulioco
Score : 65 points
Date : 2025-07-30 03:33 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (leaseswap.nyc)
(TXT) w3m dump (leaseswap.nyc)
| jeffbee wrote:
| Excellent presentation. NY and every other city should have a
| lease registry so you don't have to guess from advertisements.
| cuuupid wrote:
| The average 2br rent for the last 2 years was $4,536
|
| The average for the last month is is $5,738
|
| This is a 25%+ increase, let's say around 10% of that can be
| accounted for via seasonal increases.
|
| The almost certain incoming mayor has pushed for rent
| stabilization/control/freeze. Let's assume this restricts
| increases to 10% Y/Y similar to cities like Seattle, this would
| cause at least a 5% recessionary pressure for housing suppliers.
|
| The big question - is the increase due to greed among the supply
| (i.e. this pressure is good for the market), due to existing
| market pressures (i.e. this pressure may cause a wider recession
| in the housing market), or due to a bubble (i.e. this pressure
| may pop it, for better or worse)?
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| Certain units in NYC (about 1mm) are always rent stabilized.
| They're rent stabilized because that was the agreement the
| developer made when getting permissions to build the apartments
| or more likely because they took advantage of tax abatements
| and benefits that required a certain percentage of rent
| stabilized apartments.
|
| Mamdani's stated policy is to set the y/y increase in rent for
| already stabilized apartments to 0% as opposed to the 3%
| average over the past 4 years. And in recent interviews he also
| has clarified he's only promising it for the first year to
| counteract historically high rent increases over the past few
| years and subsequent years will be addressed like they always
| are, based on an analysis of the rental market.
|
| Btw, the rent freeze was done at least 3 times in the 2010s
| with a 0% increase y/y, so this is not even new policy.
| jeffbee wrote:
| For most Mamdani policies you can find a closely
| corresponding Bloomberg policy. The man is not a Molotov-
| throwing revolutionary.
| underlipton wrote:
| You still have to explain the elite freakout, if he's just
| Bloomberg Lite. His tone is important. He's getting people
| used to the idea that they can ask for these things, and
| that politicians can run on them without obfuscating, for
| fear of the always-anti-socialist crowd. He's shifting the
| Overton window.
| rangestransform wrote:
| Trumpian campaign tactics perhaps, campaigning on
| populist rhetoric while the actual policies leave a lot
| of populism to be desired. Can't say it isn't effective
| screye wrote:
| The issue is their track record. No one believes election
| campaign promises.
|
| Bloomberg is a centi-billionaire with a track record of
| loving the free market. His mayoral terms were known for
| fiscal discipline (vs social welfare spending), hard-on-
| crime stances (vs. abolish police) and a strong focus on
| data driven outcomes (vs. intent).
|
| Mamdani is a member of the DSA, which has a track record of
| being anti-business (Amazon HQ2), pro-regulation (making
| housing expensive) and pro-union (IMO, NYC unions are a
| cartel keeping housing & transit more expensive than they
| need to be).
|
| On paper, they might endorse similar policies, but
| politicians are judged by their track record and immediate
| association.
| Eawrig05 wrote:
| That's all fair context, but rent stabilization as a policy
| goal has real trade-offs. Freezing rents might offer short-
| term relief, but long term it disincentivizes new
| construction.
| personjerry wrote:
| > let's say around 10% of that can be accounted for via
| seasonal increases.
|
| Summer inflation is much more than that
| screye wrote:
| Some of it has to do with the FARE bill making broker fees
| illegal. That should account for a 5% of the increase.
|
| NYC has negligible vacancy rates and airbnbs are already
| illegal. Sounds like a supply problem. The supply problem gets
| clearer when you realize how quickly the jersey side has grown.
| It's because NYC has no supply.
|
| I have no proof for this, but lots of influencer types, nepo
| babies and people with remote jobs moved to NY during covid and
| didn't leave. NY Metro population never saw a covid dip, has
| been steadily growing and RTO mandates are probably causing
| suburbanites to consider moving back into the city. We are
| seeing price increases from a repressed real estate market
| that's finally making bank from the supply crunch.
|
| Compare NYC metro area to SF metro area. NYC saw smaller covid
| drop, larger subsequent pct growth and a much much larger
| absolute growth rate. Rent control won't fix anything. They
| need to start approving market-rate housing at a mad rate.
| Austin is a great reference.
|
| [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-
| metrics/cities/23083/new-...
|
| [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-
| metrics/cities/23130/san-...
| harmmonica wrote:
| Just to piggyback some info onto the FARE Act that the NYC
| City Council passed because I think it's interesting when
| talking about the second-order effects of some regulations.
|
| For those of you who aren't familiar with this Act, NYC has
| been an outlier in the US where the tenant would pay a broker
| fee to rent apartments that were listed by a broker. The odd
| thing about it has been that it's not the tenant who would
| historically "hire" the broker, but instead the
| landlord/owner. And the benefit to the landlord/owner is
| obvious: they didn't need to expend any resources/energy to
| market the property for lease and then once a tenant was
| found the tenant would take care of paying for the broker's
| efforts through a fee that would range from, say, 8% up to
| 15% or more of the annual lease rate (e.g., $3000 per month
| apartment minimum fee would be $3k and sometimes a _multiple_
| of that if the broker could get away with it). With the FARE
| Act this practice where the landlord hired the broker and the
| tenant pays the fee was banned. You may see where this is
| going...
|
| For some reason, the NYC City Council thought (and still does
| think because you can't admit a potential mistake) that the
| landlord was going to now eat the broker's fee without
| raising the rent to offset that additional cost. So far?
| Landlords are not eating the fee and instead are raising the
| rents. And the worst of it is that the broker fee was always
| a one-time fee meaning that if the tenant stayed in place
| they wouldn't be paying the fee again upon lease renewal.
| Now? The tenant is paying the increased rent to offset the
| landlord having to pay the fee and that is now the baseline
| of all future rent increases.
|
| Still early days for the FARE Act, but any reasonable person
| would've understood that landlords would not eat the broker
| fee and that this would cause an overnight increase in rents,
| which... it did (literally overnight once the Act was in
| effect).
| screye wrote:
| Thanks for adding context. On the balance, I think it's a
| good bill.
|
| Like tariffs, all taxes are eventually paid by the
| customer. But landlords are more capable of applying price
| pressure on brokers than random renters. It incentivizes
| landlords to hand out longer leases, which gives renters
| more security and fewer avenues for eviction. Won't be
| surprised if a software company (like streeteasy) takes
| over the ops side of the brokering business and drives the
| per-sale price waay down. Seems like an obvious startup
| idea.
| harmmonica wrote:
| Appreciate the optimism and I think what you're saying
| could happen, and I hope it does, but the flip side is
| the landlords don't exert that pressure, they bake the
| fees into the rental rate, and so the new reality is a
| stepped-up market rate caused by the legislation. If the
| landlords can just pass the fee on as a rent increase
| there's not really an incentive for them to offer longer
| leases so it will all come down to whether the rental
| rate increase (if there is one long term) sticks. Then I
| feel like the only thing the FARE Act will have done is
| raise the baseline rent and therefore the overall cost of
| housing for tenants (some argue that it's also better to
| amortize the "fee" over the lease term instead of having
| to pay it up front, but if the net result is more cost to
| tenants that seems like a bum deal).
|
| Re the startup idea, agree fully. Zumper sort of tried
| what you're describing on the lease side in NYC. I
| interacted with them around the time they launched that
| effort and thought it was a bit rough around the edges
| (when is it not when you try something new?). Not sure if
| they're still doing it or how the FARE Act would've
| impacted them because I don't quite remember how/if they
| were using the software/marketplace to drive down the
| broker fee or just trying to capture the fee as-is (I
| think the former but not sure).
| djsavvy wrote:
| left this comment on another comment in this thread, so
| copying it here:
|
| This is all true, but removing the broker fees and
| replacing it with a rent hike is still better for the
| market overall, since the broker fees simply artificially
| dampen liquidity. You only paid them when you moved into
| a new place, but that meant that if you are stuck with a
| crappy landlord you might not move out because the
| marginal cost of moving anywhere else in NYC is much
| higher.
| e1g wrote:
| At least in Manhattan, no one will give you a contract
| for more than a year - they will want to renegotiate in a
| year and demand is high enough to not worry about having
| no tenants. In Europe multi-year contracts are somewhat
| typical, but never heard of that in NYC. Similarly, very
| few will do a contract for less than a year. So the one-
| time broker fee gets amortized over 12 months, but the
| net effect is a wealth transfer from long-term tenants to
| landlords (because they continue paying that increase in
| perpetuity).
| screye wrote:
| This is a new phenomenon. I moved places after the FARE
| act, and for the first time, we were offered a 24 month
| lease.
|
| May be a one off anecdote. But, it's a data point.
| codedokode wrote:
| > For those of you who aren't familiar with this Act, NYC
| has been an outlier in the US where the tenant would pay a
| broker fee to rent apartments that were listed by a broker.
|
| It might be unusual in US, but it is a standard thing in
| Russia: a tenant pays the fee and landlord pays nothing. I
| always thought it was the same everywhere. However, when
| selling the property then the seller pays the fee.
|
| As for high prices, isn't it caused by the fact that
| everybody wants to live there but there is not enough
| properties for everyone? If the rent in place A is 3 times
| higher than in place B it means that people want to live in
| A and whoever lives in B is there only because they cannot
| afford living in A.
| harmmonica wrote:
| Interesting. Is it the case the landlord hires the broker
| in that situation? Like the landlord hires the broker,
| the broker lists it and then the tenant pays the broker?
| One thing that's still true in NYC is if the tenant hires
| the broker the tenant still pays the broker, but that's a
| tiny occurrence relative to the broader practice.
|
| Totally true on high prices. I was only trying to point
| out that the goal of that FARE Act, or at least _a_ major
| goal of it, was to keep tenants from having to pay junk
| broker fees, with the assumption that would _lower_ the
| overall cost of housing. It might actually be doing the
| exact opposite, though still too early to tell (only went
| into effect in June).
| codedokode wrote:
| > Is it the case the landlord hires the broker in that
| situation? Like the landlord hires the broker, the broker
| lists it and then the tenant pays the broker?
|
| Yes. It costs nothing to the landlord in this case.
| However some landlords prefer to post the ad themselves
| and do not want to deal with the brokers, as well as some
| tenants avoid them too.
| djsavvy wrote:
| This is all true, but removing the broker fees and
| replacing it with a rent hike is still better for the
| market overall, since the broker fees simply artificially
| dampen liquidity. You only paid them when you moved into a
| new place, but that meant that if you are stuck with a
| crappy landlord you might not move out because the marginal
| cost of moving anywhere else in NYC is much higher.
| codingwagie wrote:
| theres alot of wealthy people in NYC and its only increasing.
| in neighborhoods like west village or soho, the majority of
| people are not working corporate jobs. they are paying 7.5-20k
| a month in rent out of their pockets.
| msukkarieh wrote:
| I've never lived in NYC - are median studio apts in West Village
| really $6k? Website looks awesome but I'm hoping that the data
| isn't true
| jeffbee wrote:
| That is completely true, unfortunately. There are a lot of
| people in NY. All the demand components -- longevity/natural
| increase, wages, net migration -- are increasing and the supply
| is in stasis, so the price has to rise. Under these conditions
| you should expect surprisingly non-linear behavior of the
| market price.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Housing in Greenwich Village (the broader area including the
| West Village) has become outrageous in recent decades. A
| significant reason, but not the only reason, is because the
| main NYU campus is located in the middle of the small area and
| doesn't provide nearly enough housing (only ~20%) for the on-
| campus enrollment.
|
| NYU's on-campus enrollment is also roughly 50% foreign
| students. I don't have any data about it, but just from
| experience I've suspected that foreign students are willing and
| able to pay higher prices for housing.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > I've never lived in NYC - are median studio apts in West
| Village really $6k? Website looks awesome but I'm hoping that
| the data isn't true
|
| The West Village is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in
| the country. In around 2010, it was _the_ most expensive zip
| code in the country.
|
| That's due to a combination of: old buildings, very little new
| construction, extremely gentrified neighborhood, and NYU eating
| up all of the real estate in the neighborhood.
|
| That said, the map is slightly mislabeled: what's labeled as
| the West Village is actually _Greenwich Village_ , and the West
| Village is a subset of that. This map labels places as far east
| as Astor Place as the West Village, which is not correct.
| harmmonica wrote:
| Saw this too and to reinforce your point about the West
| Village the conflation of Greenwich with West is actually
| decreasing the actual severity of the rents in the West
| Village (since Greenwich Village, on average, is cheaper).
|
| Not sure where creator is getting their neighborhood data
| from, but if you're reading this a) great job and b) if you
| can find a more accurate neighborhood source the utility and
| credibility of what you've created will go up (that's not a
| knock, but if New Yorkers love one thing it's knowing their
| city and so as soon as they see data/info that doesn't match
| the reality on the ground they might bail before giving this
| a chance).
| ghaff wrote:
| As a relatively poor student, I actually lived in the West
| Village for a summer internship in the mid-80s in an NYU law
| school dorm. Pretty cool place to be.
| reactordev wrote:
| Ever since sex and the city of the 90s, rent in NYC has
| skyrocketed more than anywhere else in the world. $6k is cheap.
| There's places that are $20k...
|
| (no correlation with the show, just ironic)
| jeffbee wrote:
| Not sure why you are dating it there. For one thing, housing
| prices in NY fell from 2007-2012 so it hasn't been monotonic
| since the 90s to today. Secondly, housing costs in NY tripled
| from 1980-1988, which is the same ratio as 2000-2025, but in
| a third the time.
| reactordev wrote:
| I know, I'm joking about the tv series having anything to
| do with it. In reality, it's because NYC is a city that
| never sleeps, financial markets call home, immigrants land
| there, it's a city of opportunity and the rents reflect
| that. It's been going up and up since 1900s.
|
| My tongue in cheek joke was because most of the audience
| here doesn't really know NYC history (they should, it's
| fascinating) and doesn't understand that a young quant
| hedge fund person has no problems paying $10k/mo in rent
| for a shoebox they'll never be in. Just to have the NYC
| address, to be able to work _within_ NYC. Any sane person
| would look towards Staten Island or Jersey, but even then
| the rent prices along the transit lines are double what's
| available further out.
|
| But I could be wrong and all the history buffs will rebuke
| me with facts about how commissioners in the 50s did this
| or that, or that some policy in the 70s created it.
| colechristensen wrote:
| >Secondly, housing costs in NY tripled from 1980-1988
|
| Doesn't this correlate with the steep drop in crime around
| that same time period?
| jeffbee wrote:
| No, crime rose dramatically to a peak in 1990. Housing
| costs in NYC were stable throughout the 1990s while crime
| fell by 90%. Pretty much the opposite of what you just
| suggested.
| screye wrote:
| NYC is deceptive. It's dense, so you don't realize you're
| crossing a city's worth of people in a 10 minute walk. Median
| studios in Beverly hills being $6k wouldn't surprise anyone.
| The Tribeca-Greenwich-West village-Chelsea stretch effectively
| the same.
|
| Walk a few minutes north from there, and you'll reach hell's
| kitchen. Much much cheaper.
| ghaff wrote:
| Is it these days? It's gentrified a lot. Not staying there on
| my next trip, in part because I sort of fell out of love with
| the place I was accustomed to staying. But I've stayed around
| 10th and 42nd a lot.
| mbStavola wrote:
| Amusingly, selecting Bay Ridge in Brooklyn also seems to select
| Westerleigh in Staten Island; I know Bay Ridge shares a
| congressional district with Staten Island, but I assure you we're
| still a part of Brooklyn.
| suncemoje wrote:
| Lovable?
| asdev wrote:
| you should use multimodal AI to filter out apartments that are
| below minimum living standards(fake 1 beds, heinous layouts,
| apartments with 0 light etc) which there are a lot of. I think
| prices would be more accurate that way.
| rprend wrote:
| I think it's important to note that this is asking rent, not what
| people are paying on average. Landlords do tricks to make rental
| history appear more expensive than it was, and every online
| posting should be read as aspirational price, not a real one.
| Listing inflation helps increase price expectations for the
| future, and has helped drive the crazy rent inflation NYC has
| seen post covid (exceeding other expensive metros like SF).
|
| For example- my current apartment had a crazy high lease
| concession. The paper rent is 30% higher than what I pay. The
| only inconvenience is that i had to pay a security deposit at the
| paper rent, not actual rent. It's like a software business giving
| 2 months free then multiplying MRR by 12, not taking churn into
| account. I am moving out after a year.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I wish lease concessions were also illegal. They've always come
| with extra gotchas to get them which wouldn't be included in a
| normal lease, and like you say, encourage this false history.
| underlipton wrote:
| This is a widespread issue and one of the sources of the major
| dislocation between theory (supply-and-demand) and practice
| (rents effectively never drop, on paper). It needs to be
| outlawed. If you have to lower your rate, you (should) have to
| actually lower your rate. The rent is (should be) what tenants
| pay, full stop.
| msgodel wrote:
| I'm sure the people underwriting the loans will catch on as
| long as we're not dumb enough to bail them out a second time.
| Eawrig05 wrote:
| Realtors pull a similar trick: instead of dropping the price on
| Zillow (which flags it), they delist and relist at a lower
| price. Zillow treats it like a new listing, so the price
| history looks clean. Totally skews market transparency.
| solumos wrote:
| Something seems off with this data. Specifically, DUMBO-Vinegar
| Hill--Downtown Brooklyn--Boerum Hill has a median rent of $2600,
| which seems very suspicious.
|
| Also, there's no data for Crown Heights North.
| oltmang wrote:
| The neighborhood map seems a little busted. Selecting Fort
| Greene searches for Elmhurst for some reason. Also, most of
| Williamsburg is labelled "North Side-South Side" and selecting
| it searches for Kew Gardens Hills.
| AvAn12 wrote:
| This was on The NY Times website's real estate section for many
| years.
| kevin11111 wrote:
| Woah this looks really cool!
| cyberax wrote:
| So NYC needs more density to lower down housing costs, right?
| Right?
|
| Just build more. Sure.
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