UNHP Community Resource Guide

Introduction: What Can You Learn About a Building?

There is a relatively large amount of building information available for properties. This is especially true as, in recent years, the city has made a push to make data from various agencies accessible to the public. Many agencies now have portals to access information on their individual sites as well as on the city’s Open Data portal in tabular form.

There are three main categories of information available about a building: geographic & size, physical condition, and financial condition. Geographic and size information refers to the basic information about a building – where it is, how many units there are, etc. Information about the physical condition of a building can tell you whether or not the building is being maintained – is the boiler working, is there mold in tenants’ apartments, etc. Information about the financial condition of the building can give you some insight into the landlord’s operations – is there a lot of debt on the property, is there adequate money for needed repairs and maintenance, etc.

While it is exciting that this information is becoming accessible, it is always important to keep in mind the fact that no data is ever perfect. There can be many issues with available data – typos due to a data entry error, inaccurate information due to self reporting, etc. In other cases the data may be accurate, but need context in order to be accurately interpreted. For example, tenants can call in complaints about the condition of their buildings to 311. This is the first step of an HPD violation being issued. However, some tenants may feel uncomfortable calling 311 due to fear of their landlord finding out and retaliating. In this case there may not be many complaints or violations connected to a building despite it having serious issues that need remedying. Throughout this guide we will do our best to provide this context, but nothing can beat actually talking to the residents when trying to understand the information available about a building.

Also, while we believe that it is best to start off by only looking into a single building, if you find that the landlord in question owns multiple properties, doing some research on the entire portfolio will help you better understand what is happening. Landlords think in terms of their whole portfolio of buildings, as the finances of their different properties are, in practice, often intertwined. Additionally, landlords likely have a similar pattern of behavior, or business strategy, across their buildings. In other words, if they are neglecting repairs in one building and/or harassing tenants, they are likely doing the same in their other properties. Thinking through how a landlord treats their entire portfolio, then, can add important context about what might be going on in a specific building. See our Research a Portfolio Guide [LINK] for more on this.

Basic Building Information

  • Tax Lot Identifier (BBL)

BBL stands for borough, block, lot. It is a 10 digit tax lot identifier. The first digit represents the borough, the next five the block, and the last four the lot. Many city datasets are organized by BBL – it is the most commonly used way to identify buildings throughout the city.

Borough     

Manhattan     

1

The Bronx     

2

Brooklyn     

3

Queens     

4

Staten Island     

5

Below is a screenshot of the OASIS Map website showing the tax lot map for the area around the UNHP office. The block number is indicated in red. The lot numbers are indicated in black. The office is located in the Bronx, so the first digit of the BBL is 2. The block is 3315. As this is only a four digit number, we will add a leading zero when writing out the BBL. The building is marked as lot 1 – we will add three leading zeros to this to achieve a 4 digit lot value. This gives us a BBL of 2033150001.

In most cases, there is only one building per BBL (one building on the actual lot); however this is not always the case. With NYCHA properties, for instance, all of the buildings in a particular development will have the same BBL. When there is more than one building per BBL, you can distinguish between them with the BIN number. If you do determine that there are multiple buildings within the same tax lot, you will need to decide if you want to try to treat the buildings differently or as a unit. Importantly, if there are multiple buildings within one lot they will have the same owner. One thing to consider here is that much of the available data does not include BIN information, rather it will only have BBL level information.

You can look up a building’s BBL in a few ways. One option is to use the DOF BBL Lookup site. Click ‘Property Address Search’ and enter the address you are interested in. The search results will include the BBL in the top right hand corner. You will also be able to see who is on file as the owner of the property as well as the property’s tax bills. We will explain how to understand this additional information later on. Another way to find a building’s BBL is to use the OASIS Map website. Search for the address you are interested in, then click on the ‘Location Report’ tab on the right. In addition to returning the BBL, OASIS Map will tell you the number of buildings on the tax lot, the number of units in the building, and the political districts that the building falls within. Additionally, the website provides links to other useful websites we will discuss later such as ACRIS, HPD, DOB, and DOF. There are also many data tools that have been developed that enable you to search by address – more on this in the Tools for Building Research section.

  • Building and Internet Searches

Another good way to get some basic information about the building is to see if you can find previous reporting on it, or if the owner has been included on any watch lists. In other words, look to see what information you can find on the internet beyond what is available on city sites. There are a few angles and sites we recommend checking which we will outline below.

  • Helpful Keywords: tenants, landlord, organizing, issues

  • Reporting

Search the building address and check if it is mentioned in any articles. Have there been previous organizing drives in the building? What issues were the tenants facing then? Has there been a change in ownership since? Have many of the original tenants left the building?

  • Streeteasy & Zillow

These sites can be used to get an idea of what rents are like in a building. On both you are able to scroll down and look at past rentals. Even if there is no information available for individual units in the property, there will still be information about the building as a whole such as the number of floors, units, the year the building was built, and districting information.

While there is often only information available for a few of the units, you are able to see the size of the unit, when it was rented, and what the rent level was. This can help shed some light on the types of units in the building (studios, 1 beds, etc.) as well as what the rent levels have looked like over the years. Actual rent rolls are often very hard to find for a building unless it is being sold, this method allows you to start to estimate how much the landlord is collecting through the rent roll.

  • Google Maps

Google Maps has a history view feature where you can look at old street view images. This allows you to see what the exterior of the building has looked like over the years, starting around 2007 or so. You will be able to see if the building was developed recently, or if it looks like the exterior of the building has visibly deteriorated. You may also be able to get a feel for how the block around the building has changed – has a large, new development gone up? Was there scaffolding that suggested a major renovation?

To look back in time, search the building’s address and go to the street view. There will be a dark gray box in the top left corner. At the bottom of the box it will tell you the month and year that the photo is from. You can click on this text to toggle through the images that are available from previous years as highlighted by the red box in the image below.

Information on Physical Conditions

Now that you have gathered basic information on the building you are interested in, you can start to dig into its physical condition. There are two main sources of information on the physical condition of a building – the Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) and the Department of Buildings (DOB). HPD is charged with developing and maintaining the city’s stock of affordable housing; it also enforces the City’s Housing Maintenance Code. DOB issues building permits and enforces the City’s zoning regulations; it also carries out building inspections to ensure safety. In this step we will discuss how to analyze the information that they track. Below is information about the different types of violations that can be issued and a brief explanation of the penalties the landlord faces if they fail to address them.

Both HPD and DOB violations are initiated by 311 complaints. Depending on the type of condition described, the complaint will be routed to either HPD or DOB.

It is important to keep in mind that the violation system is imperfect in many ways when analyzing the data. Low levels of violations, or lack entirely thereof, may not mean that a building is in good condition. There may be serious issues in the building that are going unreported due to tenants fearing harassment or retaliation. There could also be violations that were issued years ago and subsequently rectified yet they still appear as open in the data. For this reason, we tend to think of more recently issued violations, those issued within the past 12 months, as more relevant. However at the end of the day, the best way to really understand what conditions are like in a building is to speak with the tenants who live there.

  • HPD Violations

When a complaint about building conditions is called into 311, it will be routed to HPD. Inspectors will then be sent to the building to determine whether or not a violation should be issued. They can also write violations for other conditions they see while they are in the building. Once a violation has been issued, the landlord has a set amount of time to certify the correction of the condition before penalties are given.

There are 4 classes of HPD violations that indicate different levels of severity. They have different certification timeframes and potential penalties for failure to correct. Click here to see a list of what types of conditions may constitute the different classes of violations. You can read more about the actual dollar amounts associated with different violations here.

  1. A – Non-Hazardous: Landlords can have between 14 and 90 days to correct non-hazardous conditions. If they fail to do so they can face civil penalties and litigation.

  2. B – Hazardous: Landlords have between 5 and 30 days to correct hazardous conditions within their buildings. Failure to do so may result in civil penalties and/or litigation.

  3. C – Immediately Hazardous: For hazardous conditions, landlords have 24 hours to 5 days to correct the issue. If the violation is issued due to the presence of lead or a lack of window guards, the landlord has 21 days. If the violation was issued due to a lack of heat and hot water, the landlord must correct it immediately. Heat and hot water violations carry a penalty of $250 per day. All immediately hazardous conditions are eligible for the Emergency Repair Program (ERP).

  4. I: These violations are issued when there is an underlying condition in the building such as mold or water leaks. They can also be issued when the building owner fails to register with HPD.

  • DOB & ECB Violations

When a complaint is related to construction, the structure of a building, or equipment within the building such as the boiler or the elevator, it will be routed to DOB. Click here to see a list of complaint categories and their priority levels. DOB can also issue violations without a complaint being logged if buildings fail to file all of their required paperwork.

Sometimes, DOB will issue violations in conjunction with the Environmental Control Board (ECB). These violations typically come with a fine. In order for a landlord to clear a DOB-ECB violation they must submit a certificate of correction to DOB as well as address the ECB fine and hearing (this hearing is referred to as an OATH hearing). There are 3 classes of DOB-ECB violations

  1. Class 1 – Immediately Hazardous

  2. Class 2 – Major/Hazardous

  3. Class 3 – Lesser

Both Class 2 and 3 violations are issued with cure dates. If the landlord certifies the correction of the condition by the cure date, they can avoid the ECB hearing and the paying of additional fines. Class 1 violations, however, do not have a cure date. This means that regardless of how quickly the landlord addresses the condition they must attend the hearing and face fines from ECB in order to close the violation. You can read more about how different conditions are classified and the penalties associated with them here. Notably, increased aggregated penalties may be imposed if the landlord has received a violation for the same condition previously.

Now that you have some background on the different types of violations, let’s look at how you can find data for specific buildings.

  1. HPD – HPD violation data is available in two places. The first is the HPD website. Once you search for your BBL of interest, you will land on a page with lots of information. Warning: the website is often really slow, but it has a lot of useful information!

In the middle of the page the current registered owner’s information will be displayed. If the owner has not registered with HPD, or their registration has expired there will be a message stating so. Registering with HPD is important because without doing so a landlord is unable to certify the correction of violations. For some buildings there will be a message at the top of the page stating that the building may contain rent stabilized units.

On the left hand side of the page there are various topics you can choose from. If you select ‘All Open Violations’ you can look at all of the violations the building currently has. It will give you a description of the condition, the violation class, and its current status. You may notice that there are some really old violations still hanging around that may not be relevant/still an issue. If you want to get a better picture of what is happening in the building right now, you can look at ‘prior year open violations’. This tab will show you all of the open violations that were issued in the past 12 months. You can also look at complaint information under ‘complaint history’.

Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself as you look at these pages:

  • Does the building have a really high number of open violations per unit?

  • How many of the violations are class C?

  • Were a lot of violations opened in the past year? What percentage of the total open violations are from the past 12 months?

  • Does it seem like there are a lot of complaints being made by tenants in the building?

The second place that you can find HPD violation data is the Open Data portal where HPD furnishes the Housing Maintenance Code Violations table. Click on ‘view data’ and you will be able to filter and export rows from the table. To read more on how to use the Open Data website, go to the Tools for Building Research section of this guide.

DOB – DOB violations are available in two places. The first option is to look up the BBL on the DOB BIS website. Here you will be able to see violations data as well as information about complaints.

Once you enter your building’s BBL, you will be able to see the total number of violations issued against the building, both DOB and ECB violations, as well as the number of violations that are currently open. This information will be displayed in the bottom left corner of the page in a table. You can click in and read additional information about the violations such as the date it was filed and the specific type of violation that was issued.

You can find this same information in tabular form in the DOB Violations table on Open Data.

Legal and Regulatory Information

  • Rent Stabilization

About 1 million units in NYC are considered rent stabilized. Rent stabilization is one of two types of rent regulation in the city, the other being rent control. When a unit is rent stabilized, rents can only increase as prescribed by the Rent Guideline Board (RGB).

The best way to determine if a unit is rent stabilized is for the tenant to request the rental history. However, when researching a building, it can be challenging to find data on whether or not there are rent stabilized units in a building. One way to find an estimate of the number of rent stabilized units in a building is to look at the tax bill. Landlords are supposed to register rent stabilized units yearly. They are then billed a per unit fee which appears on their tax bill.

Frustratingly, the city does not make rent stabilization data accessible. It is possible to see how much was billed per building on tax documents, but these are only accessible via pdf. There has been an effort to gather this data in a tabulated form from taxbills.nyc who have scraped the tax bill pdfs going back to 2007. This data allows you to get an estimate for how many rent stabilized units there have been in a building overtime. Importantly, this will be an estimate as it is not uncommon for landlords to decide not to register or to stop registering rent stabilized units even if the unit has not technically come out of stabilization.

An easy way to access this information is through the Who Owns What website which pulls from this datasource as well as NYC Doffer to provide information about the change in the number of rent stabilized units per building. You can also download a CSV of the scraped information from the taxbills.nyc GitHub linked above.

  • Housing Court Data

There are two sources of data available related to Housing Court. The first is the Evictions dataset from the Department of Investigations (DOI) on Open Data. This dataset provides information on eviction cases where a warrant has been issued. You are able to see the address; whether the execution of the warrant (a marshall actually going to the apartment) is pending, scheduled, or has occurred; and some other information. Notably, this dataset only accounts for a small number of the total evictions that occur as it does not capture informal evictions or evictions where a court proceeding is initiated but the tenant leaves before a warrant is issued.

Unfortunately, informal evictions – those where no court proceedings ever take place – are not tracked. However, accounting for instances where court proceedings are started but no warrant is issued allows for a more accurate count of the number of evictions in a building as it is common for tenants to move out before reaching that stage. For a long time this was not possible; however, through the efforts of the Housing Data Coalition (HDC), we can now access anonymized filling information from the Office of Court Administration (OCA) from 2016 on.

Filing data is available on two levels. The first is at the zip code level to which there is free access. This level of data will allow you to determine the number of eviction filings per zip code over time. The second level of data requires permission to access. This level of data includes BBLs for buildings with 11 or more units. In other words, for larger multifamily buildings you are able to see eviction filings over time; however, apartment numbers are not included. Importantly, for both levels of this data the court filing numbers (referred to as indexnumberids in the datasets) are randomly generated so that the tabular data cannot be used in conjunction with the Court website to create tenant blacklists.

In terms of accessing either level of data, one will need to be able to use SQL. If one is unfamiliar with database querying, they can make a data request to HDC given capacity. Additionally, if one wants access to the BBL level data, they will have to make a request to HDC and be approved.

  • Attorney General Real Estate Finance Bureau

Buildings throughout the city sometimes undergo either condo or co-op conversions. When a building is converted, the ownership structure changes. In the case of condos, individual tenants will own their own units; in the case of co-ops, tenants will own a number of shares in the building relative to the size of their unit. These conversions can be spurred by various factors, one being that the current owner of the building is not collecting as much in rent as they would like relative to the operating expenses of the building. While condos and co-ops are a way of increasing homeownership rates in the city and can, therefore, contribute to wealth accumulation, displacement and increased levels of distress have been known to occur when these conversions take place specifically in buildings where rent controlled or rent stabilized tenants live.

The Real Estate Finance Bureau regulates the offer and sale of real estate securities. When an owner wants to initiate either a condo or co-op conversion, they must submit an offering plan to the Bureau. These offering plans, as well as any subsequent amendments to them, are available through the Real Estate Finance Database.

This HPD program is aimed at addressing serious violations in buildings that landlords are not correcting. HPD will oversee the repairs and then charge the landlord for the work done through DOF. If the landlord does not pay these charges, a lien will be placed on the property. If the debt remains unpaid, it may be included in the city’s lien sale.

In order to identify if there are charges on a property from the Emergency Repair Program, you will need to look at DOF’s CityPay site. You can read how to do this in the Financial Conditions section of this guide.

  1. Alternative Enforcement Program (AEP)

This HPD program targets buildings with high levels of violations. Once a building is included in the program, there will be more frequent inspections. HPD can also issue Orders to Correct to force the owner to deal with conditions in the building. If the conditions specified in the Order to Correct are not remedied, HPD is able to make the repairs themselves and place a lien on the building for the costs incurred.

There are two ways to look at AEP data. The first are the PDF lists on the HPD website. These PDFs are organized by Fiscal Year and include the buildings’ addresses; the borough, Council District, and Community District they are located in; and the number of units. The second way to access AEP data is through Open Data. This table compiles all of the Fiscal Year lists, it also includes more information than the PDF building lists. In addition to the address and number of units the table has BBLs, the number of B&C HPD violations that were open when the building was selected, and whether or not the building has since been discharged from the program.

  1. Certification of No Harassment (CONH)

A building’s inclusion in the CONH program means that the owner must get a Certification of No Harassment before they can apply for a permit to change the use or occupancy of a building. Buildings must meet this requirement if they are a single room occupancy, are a multifamily building within specified areas, or were included in the Pilot Program Building List.

CONH data can be accessed in two ways similar to AEP data. The first is a PDF of the Pilot Program Building List on the HPD website linked above. This PDF includes BBL information; addresses; columns indicating why the building has been included in the program – AEP, HPD Vacate Order, DOB Vacate Order, and Harassment Finding; and the date that the building was added to the list. The second way to view CONH information is through Open Data. The Open Data table includes the same information as the PDF with some additional geographic columns.

  • Tax Breaks and Subsidies

Below we will walk through some of the main tax breaks and subsidies that are utilized throughout the city. This is by no means a comprehensive list. To learn more about the different programs available, visit the Furman Center’s Directory of NYC Housing Programs.

  1. J51

This tax abatement program came into existence in 1955. In its current form, it can be applied to residential buildings that are undergoing rehabilitation as well as nonresidential buildings that are being converted to residential properties. Properties can receive either a 34- or 14- year long tax abatement meaning that the real estate tax due on the property will not increase due to the rehabilitation of conversion for that amount of time. This program does come with the stipulation that all rental units in the building must be treated as rent stabilized for the length of the abatement period.

There has been controversy about the widely used program. Tenants have reported poor building conditions during the abatement period, and many have faced displacement due to large rent increases after the abatement period – and required rent stabilization of units – has ended. Additionally, the advocacy group Housing Rights Initiative has discovered through class-action lawsuits that apartments are frequently illegally deregulated even while landlords receive J51 tax abatement.

You can find buildings included in the program on DOF’s website. Another way to find properties benefiting from this exemption is through the Furman Center’s CoreData.nyc application. Historical data is available on Open Data along with updating information in the Property Exemption Detail table; note this table includes information about multiple exemption programs.

  1. 421-a

This program extends a partial real estate tax exemption for the new construction of residential units. The exact exemption a building is eligible for depends on when its construction occurred. To read about the specifics of the sub-programs see HPD’s site. In general, buildings receive a 35 year long partial tax exemption in exchange for making 25% – 30% of the units in the development affordable.

The program is widely used, with the bulk of new residential projects taking advantage of the large savings it offers. It is highly controversial as it costs the city billions of dollars in lost tax revenue and does not yield many truly affordable apartments – many of the units counted as affordable target tenants making over $100,000. Brad Lander, the City’s Comptroller, issued a report investigating the efficacy of the program which found that the forgone tax revenue was not justified by the housing created – far too few ‘affordable’ units were developed and most were out of reach for those in need.

You can find lists of properties with the exemption on HPD’s website. You can also filter for this program on Furman Center’s CoreData.nyc application.

  1. Article XI

This program allows for either a partial or total tax exemption from real estate taxes for up to 40 years for the rehabilitation of or construction of affordable housing by a Housing Development Fund Corporation (HDFC). HDFCs must be chartered by either HPD or the State Department of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR).

  1. LIHTC

This program was originally enacted in 1986 in order to incentivize investment in less lucrative affordable housing by private entities. In its current form, it allows for developers of rental housing that serves very low- and low- income households to sell tax credits to investors. These tax credits allow investors to lower their taxable income, effectively letting them pay less in federal income tax. There are two types or levels of LIHTC: 4% and 9%. These percentages refer to the amount of development costs that can be considered when calculating the tax credit. In other words, buildings with the 9% credit generate a relatively larger tax credit for investors than buildings with the 4% credit.

You can find properties with either the 4% or the 9% credit on Furman Center’s CoreData.nyc.

  1. Project Based Section 8

This program is part of the Housing Choice Voucher program. It is similar to tenant based section 8 in that it serves very low- and low- income tenants by capping rent at 30% of their income, but it differs in the fact that the subsidy is tied to the unit instead of the tenant. Because of this, potential tenants must meet income requirements in order to move into the subsidized unit.

You can see a list of developments that are a part of the program here.

Financial Conditions

Information about a building’s property tax payments and other DOF charges is available through the DOF website. You can simply enter the building’s address into their look up tool. This will allow you to view a few different things which we will walk through below.

Property Tax Bill

You can view the quarterly property tax bills that are mailed to building owners by clicking on ‘Property Tax Bills’ on the left hand side of the webpage. Click into the quarter you are interested in to see the PDF of the bill – you will be able to see how much is owed and when it is due. Information about who DOF has registered as the owner can also be found on the PDF. You will also be able to see whether or not the building is receiving some sort of tax abatement as it will be subtracted from the total amount due.

Notices of Property Value

These documents are sent to owners in January with updated information about both market and assessed values. Market value refers to the price that the property would likely be able to sell for. Assessed value is calculated from the market value and then used to determine how much is owed in property taxes. You can view these yearly notices by clicking on ‘Notices of Property Value’ on the left hand side of the website.

Payment History

If you click into the ‘Payment History’ section on the left hand side of the page, you will be able to view a list of the payments the owner has made to DOF. This includes property taxes as well as charges that DOF collects for other agencies.

City Pay

This website allows you to look up DOF charges that are due as well as past due. Search for the BBL you are interested in to see the itemized list of charges – if there are no charges currently due for a building, no search results will be returned. For buildings that do have charges with upcoming or past due dates, you will be able to see the type of charge in the ‘Tax Type’ column, the amount the original charge was for in the ‘Liability’ column and the interest that has accrued in the ‘Interest’ column.

A sample of common Charge types you may see:

  • Property Tax – Property taxes are paid on either a quarterly or biannual basis depending on the assessed value of the property. Properties worth more than $250,000 are billed twice a year while those worth less are billed four times a year.

  • DHCR Rent Stabilization Fee – This fee is charged when the owner has registered unit(s) in the buildings with DHCR. It is a flat fee of $20 per registered apartment.

  • HPD Emergency Repair – When an owner continues to neglect dangerous conditions in a building, HPD can make emergency repairs. When this happens HPD will charge the owner for the cost of the repairs via this charge type.

  • DOHMH Extermination – This type of charge is leveled when the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene comes in to try and abate a pest infestation in the building that the owner has not addressed.

  • DOB Elevator Charge – This charge type is leveled when an owner fails to register an annual elevator inspection. The fee increases in amount based on the length of the delinquency.

You can see other types of charges collected by DOF on behalf of other City and State agencies here.

NYC holds a yearly tax lien sale. The city identifies unpaid charges and places them into a trust. This trust then sells the liens to third parties who then hold the right to collect the debt and charge interest. Owners who have debt sold in the lien sale are at risk of these third parties charging high interest rates causing the amount owed to balloon. Having liens sold is often an indication of a building experiencing financial difficulties.

You can view the list of properties eligible for the upcoming lien sale as well as archived lists for previous years on the DOF website. There is a separate list that you can download for each borough. Importantly, this is a list of all eligible properties. Buildings included in these lists may be able to prevent being included in the sale by entering into a payment plan with the City. In order to determine if the lien on a property was sold and the amount of the lien you will need to look up the BBL on another site, taxliensupport.com. To use this site, select New York City then click on ‘Lien Search’ at the top of the page.

From here, enter the BBL that you are interested in, fill out the Captcha at the bottom and hit ‘Search’. Note, you need to type out the full BBL here. If your search does not return any results then the building was able to prevent their lien from being included in the sale. If the lien was sold, you will see a table of different liens as shown below.

To see the actual amount of the charges, click on one of the MTAG IDs in the left most column. This will take you to a table with more information about the actual liens that have been sold such as the original amount, the interest due, and the date that the lien was purchased.

Building Ownership

Frustratingly, it can be hard to tell who actually owns a building. There are two main sources that you can use to try and determine the owner – HPD Registration and ACRIS. These sources will not always provide the same information depending on how the owner has chosen to register and finance the property so it is important to look at both. By gathering a list of names and addresses associated with the property, you can search online to see if they are a known landlord and/or potentially own more buildings.

Oftentimes individuals and companies will create a limited liability company (LLC) when buying a building. For smaller landlords, LLCs provide financial protection; for larger landlords the LLC structure provides financial protection as well, but it also helps obscure who actually owns the property. You will very likely come across LLC names in both ACRIS and HPD. While this can sometimes feel like a deadend, there is a New York State dataset of LLCs which we discuss below. This dataset will not necessarily crack the question of who is behind the LLC, rather it is another source that may provide new information.

  • HPD Registration

Every residential building in NYC is required to register with HPD. If a building owner does not register with HPD or lets their registration expire they will be unable to clear any violations issued and they will be subject to civil penalties ranging from $250-$500. Importantly, failure to register with HPD could impact an owner’s ability to evict a tenant.

You can look up HPD registration information on the HDP Online website or through the Open Data portal – the data is stored across two tables Multiple Dwelling Registrations and Registration Contacts. There are multiple types of registrations, typically buildings will only have a few.

  • Individual Owner: This can be the name of the owner or someone who works with/in the corporation that owns the building.

  • Corporate Owner: This can be the name of the corporation that owns the building and/or the name of the management company.

  • Managing Agent: This can be the information about someone who works for the management company, or the name of someone associated with the owner/corporation.

  • Head Officer: This can be the name of the owner or someone who works for the corporation or LLC that owns the building.

  • Officer: This can be the name of the owner or someone who works for the corporation or LLC that owns the building.

  • Shareholder: This can be the name of the owner or someone who works for the corporation or LLC that owns the building.

Once you find these names you can try googling them with keywords like ‘real estate’ to try and determine companies / other individuals they are associated with.

To view the information on the HPD Online site simply enter your BBL and then click on Property Owner Registration Information on the left hand side. If the owner has not registered, or has allowed their registration to expire there will be a disclaimer. If you want to access the data in a tabular format, you will need to pull information from the two Open Data tables. First, use the Multiple Dwellings Registrations table to identify the ‘RegistrationID’ associated with your BBL. Then filter for that ID in the Registration Contacts table to find information on the different parties associated with the building.

  • ACRIS

ACRIS stands for the Automated City Register Information System. It allows you to look at property records for all NYC buildings except for those in Staten Island. The ACRIS Document Control Codes show the various document types available. To see what document types we find most useful see the Important/Main Types of Documents section in our ACRIS Guide [LINK].

When looking at documents you may see that there are multiple BBLs listed. This means that the owner has more than one property. Depending on your interests, you may want to look at the other buildings in the owner’s portfolio to get a fuller picture of the financing at play. A great way to get an initial feel for the other buildings within a portfolio is the Who Owns What tool developed by JustFix. If you are interested in further information about how to approach researching portfolios see the Research a Portfolio Guide [LINK].

 

  • Debt Level

Understanding the debt level of a building is key to understanding a building’s finances. When buildings have high levels of debt, they are responsible for high monthly mortgage payments – these debt service payments are often equal to 75% of a building’s net operating income (NOI) and assume that expenses will be very low. Owners will prioritize fulfilling their debt service as they could face foreclosure if they do not. This often means that there will not be enough money left to cover maintenance needs – hazardous conditions can develop and quality of life for the building’s tenants can deteriorate.

We have created more in depth resources on how to use ACRIS as well as how to understand landlords’ finances. We strongly recommend reading through them both to better orient yourself and paint a fuller picture of the building’s finances, but below we will briefly walk through how to locate the current mortgage on a property so that you can determine the current debt level. Knowing the current debt level is important because it can help you estimate the monthly debt service owed by the landlord.

Search property records using the parcel identifier, or BBL, on ACRIS. Find the most recent document with a document type of either ‘MTGE’ or ‘AGMT’. You can click on the gray ‘IMG’ button in the leftmost column to view the PDF of the document. There are a few useful pieces of information to note which we will walk through below.

Importantly, sometimes looking at the financing documents can allow you to figure out who actually owns a building. Many landlords will not include their name in a building’s HPD registration, but oftentimes they are the signatory on mortgages and agreements.

  • Current Lender

The lender will be listed as Party 2 for mortgages and agreements. It is good to know who is lending on a property because, with the high levels of debt on multifamily buildings in NYC that are rarely paid down, they are often in effect the landlord’s business partner. If an owner is neglecting the property and not responding to tenants, involving their lender may be an effective way to apply pressure and force them to make some improvements to the building.

  • Debt Level

The document amount will tell you how much debt is being taken on in the transaction. Recall, knowing the current debt level of a building is key to understanding how much money the landlord has to make repairs. If the building is saddled with debt, and therefore a high monthly debt service, the landlord most likely does not have much money left to actually maintain the building.

Note, sometimes these documents cover multiple buildings. Click into the PDF to see whether or not there are multiple properties listed on the cover page. If there is more than one, you can use the number of units in the building you are researching divided by the total number of units involved in the document to determine the correct percentage of the total document amount you should use in your analysis.

Also, if there are other buildings on the document, then they are also owned by the same landlord. If this is the case, it is a good idea to spend some time digging into their portfolio – all of the buildings that they own – in order to better understand their business strategy and their financial standing.

This database, maintained by the NYS Division of Corporations, allows you to search for a variety of corporations and businesses formed within the state. Importantly you are able to search for LLCs. This database can be useful when you are struggling to determine ownership as it can sometimes give you a new related address or, in rarer cases, a related name.

To use the database, simply enter the LLC name you are interested in – one that you found either through HPD Registration or ACRIS information – into the EntityName box. Select LimitedLiabilityCompany from the Entity list and search. You will then be taken to a list of results. Click on the matching name in order to see more detailed information. Hopefully, there will be an address that is associated with the entity. Sometimes there will be information about the people associated with the entity, but this is rare. Keep in mind, the information that you find through this database might not differ from what you were able to find via HPD Registration or ACRIS, but it is worth it to double check regardless. If you are able to find a new related name or address it could help you as you search for who the actual owner of the building is.

Tools for Building Research

The Building Indicator Project is a database developed by UNHP to identify NYC multifamily properties in physical and/or financial distress. In its current form, BIP has aggregated more than a decade of data for all 60,000+ rental buildings in NYC, tracking more than 120 data-points for each building.

BIP can be very useful when you are interested in looking at what has happened in a building over a long period of time. The database helpfully combines multiple data sources with information about the physical and financial characteristics of a building as well as information about who the owner of the building may be. BIP can also be useful if you want to look at the buildings within a specific geography such as zip code or community district. It’s flexible formatting allows you to slice or filter the data in a variety of ways.

WhoOwnsWhat is a tool developed by JustFix.nyc to track landlords’ portfolios. You enter the property that you are interested in, and it will retrieve other buildings that are likely owned by the same person. You can export this information as a csv by clicking on the “portfolio” tab at the top of the page. It will also provide you with building violation, eviction, and rent stabilization information. You can even start to look at this information overtime by navigating to the “Timeline” tab at the top of the page.

The website also has a “Useful links” section which you can use to quickly navigate to city sites – ACRIS, HPDOnline, DOB, etc – in order to find additional information.

WhoOwnsWhat can be a great jumping off point if you are looking to find out who owns the building you are interested in, or if you are interested in starting to research the landlord’s portfolio.

DAP allows you to search in two ways. You can look up information for a specific address or for a specific geography (community district, zip code, etc.). When searching for a specific property you will be able to view and download a variety of information as a csv. DAP pulls information from ACRIS, HPD, and DOB. It also gathers information about evictions executed by a marshal and legal actions that have been taken against the landlord. On the left hand side of the page you can find basic information about the building as well as information about rent stabilization and whether the building is a part of any special programs (J5a, 421a, etc.).

When you search by geography you will be taken to the “District Dashboard”. Here you can view the buildings in an area by housing type – rent stabilized, subsidized, etc. You can then use the sliders next to the different datasets to filter your results. For example, you can filter for properties with 5 or more HPD Complaints as shown below. Note, if you want to use more than one dataset at a time, you will need to pay attention to whether you want to use “AND” or “OR” logic. If you choose AND then a building will have to meet all of your filter criteria in order to be included in the results; if you choose OR it must only meet one. You can export your results as a csv by clicking on the “TABLE” button on the right hand side above the map. Do note that you can choose the time range of the data included in the District Dashboard view in the top left hand corner.

DAP is really helpful if you want to quickly pull together spreadsheets with historical data from a variety of sources for a specific building. It is also a good place to look if you are starting broader and trying to find a building that meets certain criteria or determine statistics about the state of the housing stock in a certain area.

  • Open Data

Open Data is NYC’s initiative to make data from a variety of agencies easily accessible to the public. Through the website you are able to view a variety of data sets in a tabular form. You can easily write your own conditions to filter the data and export it as a CSV. You can also create visualizations and complete aggregate analysis. For more information about how to use the more advanced aspects of Open Data see their How To section here.

  • Furman Center Subsidized Housing Database and CoreData.nyc

The NYU Furman Center has created CoreData.nyc, an interactive tool that allows users to interact with a variety of datasources. Importantly, information about building subsidies such as 421a, J51, and LIHTC is accessible through CoreData. Click here to read through their User Guide which includes a How To section as well as a Data Dictionary. You can also learn more about the various types of Housing Programs via the Directory of NYC Housing Programs. Another helpful part of this website is the Neighborhood Profiles section. Here you can view and download data by borough or neighborhood regarding demographics, the housing market and conditions, land use and development, neighborhood services and conditions, and renters.

  • Public Lists

There are a few lists published with the goal of identifying landlords who are bad actors in NYC. These lists are helpful as they allow you to quickly find out whether or not the building’s owner is known for their bad behavior. These lists also are helpful because they take into account landlords’ full portfolios, not just one building. In other words they show landlords who have a pattern of bad behavior.

  1. Worst Landlords Watchlist

This list is published annually by the City Public Advocate. It ranks landlords based on the number of open Immediately Hazardous and Hazardous (HPD C & B) violations in their buildings. You can read more about how the list is created here.

You can see portfolio wide statistics for each landlord as well as information on the individual buildings that are included. While DOB violations, evictions, and tax liens do not affect a landlord’s inclusion on the list, data on them is included on the list.

  1. Worst Evictors List

The Worst Evictors List tracks landlords with the greatest number of evictions executed in their buildings. It also takes into account the number of evictions that the landlord filed across their portfolio. This is important as filings better capture the full picture of evictions. Many times tenants “self evict” meaning they vacate the apartment before a marshall comes to remove them which is when an eviction is technically considered to have been executed.

There is also a mapping component to the list. You can view where the evictions carried out by the worst evictors are taking place in NYC. This can be really helpful in understanding where tenants who may be experiencing similar problems are located.

The list is created through a joint effort of the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition, JustFix.nyc, and the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project. The site includes information about the proportion of rent stabilized tenants as well as the lenders, lawyers, and eviction marshalls that the landlords work with.

Talk to Your Neighbors and Fellow Tenants

Looking up information online is a great way to start. However, if you really want to capture the full picture of what is going on in your building, the best thing to do is talk with the other people who live there. They may be able to corroborate and add to experiences you have found – it is important to remember that many things occur in buildings without ever being recorded or tracked. Ultimately, data will never be able to tell the full story – seeing that there is a violation for mold in an apartment is not the same as hearing from the tenant who is having to live with mold in their home. Data is often best used as a support for storytelling and lived experience.

Introduction: What Can You Learn About a Building?

There is a relatively large amount of building information available for properties. This is especially true as, in recent years, the city has made a push to make data from various agencies accessible to the public. Many agencies now have portals to access information on their individual sites as well as on the city’s Open Data portal in tabular form.

There are three main categories of information available about a building: geographic & size, physical condition, and financial condition. Geographic and size information refers to the basic information about a building – where it is, how many units there are, etc. Information about the physical condition of a building can tell you whether or not the building is being maintained – is the boiler working, is there mold in tenants’ apartments, etc. Information about the financial condition of the building can give you some insight into the landlord’s operations – is there a lot of debt on the property, is there adequate money for needed repairs and maintenance, etc.

While it is exciting that this information is becoming accessible, it is always important to keep in mind the fact that no data is ever perfect. There can be many issues with available data – typos due to a data entry error, inaccurate information due to self reporting, etc. In other cases the data may be accurate, but need context in order to be accurately interpreted. For example, tenants can call in complaints about the condition of their buildings to 311. This is the first step of an HPD violation being issued. However, some tenants may feel uncomfortable calling 311 due to fear of their landlord finding out and retaliating. In this case there may not be many complaints or violations connected to a building despite it having serious issues that need remedying. Throughout this guide we will do our best to provide this context, but nothing can beat actually talking to the residents when trying to understand the information available about a building.

Also, while we believe that it is best to start off by only looking into a single building, if you find that the landlord in question owns multiple properties, doing some research on the entire portfolio will help you better understand what is happening. Landlords think in terms of their whole portfolio of buildings, as the finances of their different properties are, in practice, often intertwined. Additionally, landlords likely have a similar pattern of behavior, or business strategy, across their buildings. In other words, if they are neglecting repairs in one building and/or harassing tenants, they are likely doing the same in their other properties. Thinking through how a landlord treats their entire portfolio, then, can add important context about what might be going on in a specific building. See our Research a Portfolio Guide [LINK] for more on this.

Basic Building Information

  • Tax Lot Identifier (BBL)

BBL stands for borough, block, lot. It is a 10 digit tax lot identifier. The first digit represents the borough, the next five the block, and the last four the lot. Many city datasets are organized by BBL – it is the most commonly used way to identify buildings throughout the city.

Borough     

Manhattan     

1

The Bronx     

2

Brooklyn     

3

Queens     

4

Staten Island     

5

Below is a screenshot of the OASIS Map website showing the tax lot map for the area around the UNHP office. The block number is indicated in red. The lot numbers are indicated in black. The office is located in the Bronx, so the first digit of the BBL is 2. The block is 3315. As this is only a four digit number, we will add a leading zero when writing out the BBL. The building is marked as lot 1 – we will add three leading zeros to this to achieve a 4 digit lot value. This gives us a BBL of 2033150001.

In most cases, there is only one building per BBL (one building on the actual lot); however this is not always the case. With NYCHA properties, for instance, all of the buildings in a particular development will have the same BBL. When there is more than one building per BBL, you can distinguish between them with the BIN number. If you do determine that there are multiple buildings within the same tax lot, you will need to decide if you want to try to treat the buildings differently or as a unit. Importantly, if there are multiple buildings within one lot they will have the same owner. One thing to consider here is that much of the available data does not include BIN information, rather it will only have BBL level information.

You can look up a building’s BBL in a few ways. One option is to use the DOF BBL Lookup site. Click ‘Property Address Search’ and enter the address you are interested in. The search results will include the BBL in the top right hand corner. You will also be able to see who is on file as the owner of the property as well as the property’s tax bills. We will explain how to understand this additional information later on. Another way to find a building’s BBL is to use the OASIS Map website. Search for the address you are interested in, then click on the ‘Location Report’ tab on the right. In addition to returning the BBL, OASIS Map will tell you the number of buildings on the tax lot, the number of units in the building, and the political districts that the building falls within. Additionally, the website provides links to other useful websites we will discuss later such as ACRIS, HPD, DOB, and DOF. There are also many data tools that have been developed that enable you to search by address – more on this in the Tools for Building Research section.

  • Building and Internet Searches

Another good way to get some basic information about the building is to see if you can find previous reporting on it, or if the owner has been included on any watch lists. In other words, look to see what information you can find on the internet beyond what is available on city sites. There are a few angles and sites we recommend checking which we will outline below.

  • Helpful Keywords: tenants, landlord, organizing, issues

  • Reporting

Search the building address and check if it is mentioned in any articles. Have there been previous organizing drives in the building? What issues were the tenants facing then? Has there been a change in ownership since? Have many of the original tenants left the building?

  • Streeteasy & Zillow

These sites can be used to get an idea of what rents are like in a building. On both you are able to scroll down and look at past rentals. Even if there is no information available for individual units in the property, there will still be information about the building as a whole such as the number of floors, units, the year the building was built, and districting information.

While there is often only information available for a few of the units, you are able to see the size of the unit, when it was rented, and what the rent level was. This can help shed some light on the types of units in the building (studios, 1 beds, etc.) as well as what the rent levels have looked like over the years. Actual rent rolls are often very hard to find for a building unless it is being sold, this method allows you to start to estimate how much the landlord is collecting through the rent roll.

  • Google Maps

Google Maps has a history view feature where you can look at old street view images. This allows you to see what the exterior of the building has looked like over the years, starting around 2007 or so. You will be able to see if the building was developed recently, or if it looks like the exterior of the building has visibly deteriorated. You may also be able to get a feel for how the block around the building has changed – has a large, new development gone up? Was there scaffolding that suggested a major renovation?

To look back in time, search the building’s address and go to the street view. There will be a dark gray box in the top left corner. At the bottom of the box it will tell you the month and year that the photo is from. You can click on this text to toggle through the images that are available from previous years as highlighted by the red box in the image below.

Information on Physical Conditions

Now that you have gathered basic information on the building you are interested in, you can start to dig into its physical condition. There are two main sources of information on the physical condition of a building – the Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) and the Department of Buildings (DOB). HPD is charged with developing and maintaining the city’s stock of affordable housing; it also enforces the City’s Housing Maintenance Code. DOB issues building permits and enforces the City’s zoning regulations; it also carries out building inspections to ensure safety. In this step we will discuss how to analyze the information that they track. Below is information about the different types of violations that can be issued and a brief explanation of the penalties the landlord faces if they fail to address them.

Both HPD and DOB violations are initiated by 311 complaints. Depending on the type of condition described, the complaint will be routed to either HPD or DOB.

It is important to keep in mind that the violation system is imperfect in many ways when analyzing the data. Low levels of violations, or lack entirely thereof, may not mean that a building is in good condition. There may be serious issues in the building that are going unreported due to tenants fearing harassment or retaliation. There could also be violations that were issued years ago and subsequently rectified yet they still appear as open in the data. For this reason, we tend to think of more recently issued violations, those issued within the past 12 months, as more relevant. However at the end of the day, the best way to really understand what conditions are like in a building is to speak with the tenants who live there.

  • HPD Violations

When a complaint about building conditions is called into 311, it will be routed to HPD. Inspectors will then be sent to the building to determine whether or not a violation should be issued. They can also write violations for other conditions they see while they are in the building. Once a violation has been issued, the landlord has a set amount of time to certify the correction of the condition before penalties are given.

There are 4 classes of HPD violations that indicate different levels of severity. They have different certification timeframes and potential penalties for failure to correct. Click here to see a list of what types of conditions may constitute the different classes of violations. You can read more about the actual dollar amounts associated with different violations here.

  1. A – Non-Hazardous: Landlords can have between 14 and 90 days to correct non-hazardous conditions. If they fail to do so they can face civil penalties and litigation.

  2. B – Hazardous: Landlords have between 5 and 30 days to correct hazardous conditions within their buildings. Failure to do so may result in civil penalties and/or litigation.

  3. C – Immediately Hazardous: For hazardous conditions, landlords have 24 hours to 5 days to correct the issue. If the violation is issued due to the presence of lead or a lack of window guards, the landlord has 21 days. If the violation was issued due to a lack of heat and hot water, the landlord must correct it immediately. Heat and hot water violations carry a penalty of $250 per day. All immediately hazardous conditions are eligible for the Emergency Repair Program (ERP).

  4. I: These violations are issued when there is an underlying condition in the building such as mold or water leaks. They can also be issued when the building owner fails to register with HPD.

  • DOB & ECB Violations

When a complaint is related to construction, the structure of a building, or equipment within the building such as the boiler or the elevator, it will be routed to DOB. Click here to see a list of complaint categories and their priority levels. DOB can also issue violations without a complaint being logged if buildings fail to file all of their required paperwork.

Sometimes, DOB will issue violations in conjunction with the Environmental Control Board (ECB). These violations typically come with a fine. In order for a landlord to clear a DOB-ECB violation they must submit a certificate of correction to DOB as well as address the ECB fine and hearing (this hearing is referred to as an OATH hearing). There are 3 classes of DOB-ECB violations

  1. Class 1 – Immediately Hazardous

  2. Class 2 – Major/Hazardous

  3. Class 3 – Lesser

Both Class 2 and 3 violations are issued with cure dates. If the landlord certifies the correction of the condition by the cure date, they can avoid the ECB hearing and the paying of additional fines. Class 1 violations, however, do not have a cure date. This means that regardless of how quickly the landlord addresses the condition they must attend the hearing and face fines from ECB in order to close the violation. You can read more about how different conditions are classified and the penalties associated with them here. Notably, increased aggregated penalties may be imposed if the landlord has received a violation for the same condition previously.

Now that you have some background on the different types of violations, let’s look at how you can find data for specific buildings.

  1. HPD – HPD violation data is available in two places. The first is the HPD website. Once you search for your BBL of interest, you will land on a page with lots of information. Warning: the website is often really slow, but it has a lot of useful information!

In the middle of the page the current registered owner’s information will be displayed. If the owner has not registered with HPD, or their registration has expired there will be a message stating so. Registering with HPD is important because without doing so a landlord is unable to certify the correction of violations. For some buildings there will be a message at the top of the page stating that the building may contain rent stabilized units.

On the left hand side of the page there are various topics you can choose from. If you select ‘All Open Violations’ you can look at all of the violations the building currently has. It will give you a description of the condition, the violation class, and its current status. You may notice that there are some really old violations still hanging around that may not be relevant/still an issue. If you want to get a better picture of what is happening in the building right now, you can look at ‘prior year open violations’. This tab will show you all of the open violations that were issued in the past 12 months. You can also look at complaint information under ‘complaint history’.

Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself as you look at these pages:

  • Does the building have a really high number of open violations per unit?

  • How many of the violations are class C?

  • Were a lot of violations opened in the past year? What percentage of the total open violations are from the past 12 months?

  • Does it seem like there are a lot of complaints being made by tenants in the building?

The second place that you can find HPD violation data is the Open Data portal where HPD furnishes the Housing Maintenance Code Violations table. Click on ‘view data’ and you will be able to filter and export rows from the table. To read more on how to use the Open Data website, go to the Tools for Building Research section of this guide.

DOB – DOB violations are available in two places. The first option is to look up the BBL on the DOB BIS website. Here you will be able to see violations data as well as information about complaints.

Once you enter your building’s BBL, you will be able to see the total number of violations issued against the building, both DOB and ECB violations, as well as the number of violations that are currently open. This information will be displayed in the bottom left corner of the page in a table. You can click in and read additional information about the violations such as the date it was filed and the specific type of violation that was issued.

You can find this same information in tabular form in the DOB Violations table on Open Data.

Legal and Regulatory Information

  • Rent Stabilization

About 1 million units in NYC are considered rent stabilized. Rent stabilization is one of two types of rent regulation in the city, the other being rent control. When a unit is rent stabilized, rents can only increase as prescribed by the Rent Guideline Board (RGB).

The best way to determine if a unit is rent stabilized is for the tenant to request the rental history. However, when researching a building, it can be challenging to find data on whether or not there are rent stabilized units in a building. One way to find an estimate of the number of rent stabilized units in a building is to look at the tax bill. Landlords are supposed to register rent stabilized units yearly. They are then billed a per unit fee which appears on their tax bill.

Frustratingly, the city does not make rent stabilization data accessible. It is possible to see how much was billed per building on tax documents, but these are only accessible via pdf. There has been an effort to gather this data in a tabulated form from taxbills.nyc who have scraped the tax bill pdfs going back to 2007. This data allows you to get an estimate for how many rent stabilized units there have been in a building overtime. Importantly, this will be an estimate as it is not uncommon for landlords to decide not to register or to stop registering rent stabilized units even if the unit has not technically come out of stabilization.

An easy way to access this information is through the Who Owns What website which pulls from this datasource as well as NYC Doffer to provide information about the change in the number of rent stabilized units per building. You can also download a CSV of the scraped information from the taxbills.nyc GitHub linked above.

  • Housing Court Data

There are two sources of data available related to Housing Court. The first is the Evictions dataset from the Department of Investigations (DOI) on Open Data. This dataset provides information on eviction cases where a warrant has been issued. You are able to see the address; whether the execution of the warrant (a marshall actually going to the apartment) is pending, scheduled, or has occurred; and some other information. Notably, this dataset only accounts for a small number of the total evictions that occur as it does not capture informal evictions or evictions where a court proceeding is initiated but the tenant leaves before a warrant is issued.

Unfortunately, informal evictions – those where no court proceedings ever take place – are not tracked. However, accounting for instances where court proceedings are started but no warrant is issued allows for a more accurate count of the number of evictions in a building as it is common for tenants to move out before reaching that stage. For a long time this was not possible; however, through the efforts of the Housing Data Coalition (HDC), we can now access anonymized filling information from the Office of Court Administration (OCA) from 2016 on.

Filing data is available on two levels. The first is at the zip code level to which there is free access. This level of data will allow you to determine the number of eviction filings per zip code over time. The second level of data requires permission to access. This level of data includes BBLs for buildings with 11 or more units. In other words, for larger multifamily buildings you are able to see eviction filings over time; however, apartment numbers are not included. Importantly, for both levels of this data the court filing numbers (referred to as indexnumberids in the datasets) are randomly generated so that the tabular data cannot be used in conjunction with the Court website to create tenant blacklists.

In terms of accessing either level of data, one will need to be able to use SQL. If one is unfamiliar with database querying, they can make a data request to HDC given capacity. Additionally, if one wants access to the BBL level data, they will have to make a request to HDC and be approved.

  • Attorney General Real Estate Finance Bureau

Buildings throughout the city sometimes undergo either condo or co-op conversions. When a building is converted, the ownership structure changes. In the case of condos, individual tenants will own their own units; in the case of co-ops, tenants will own a number of shares in the building relative to the size of their unit. These conversions can be spurred by various factors, one being that the current owner of the building is not collecting as much in rent as they would like relative to the operating expenses of the building. While condos and co-ops are a way of increasing homeownership rates in the city and can, therefore, contribute to wealth accumulation, displacement and increased levels of distress have been known to occur when these conversions take place specifically in buildings where rent controlled or rent stabilized tenants live.

The Real Estate Finance Bureau regulates the offer and sale of real estate securities. When an owner wants to initiate either a condo or co-op conversion, they must submit an offering plan to the Bureau. These offering plans, as well as any subsequent amendments to them, are available through the Real Estate Finance Database.

This HPD program is aimed at addressing serious violations in buildings that landlords are not correcting. HPD will oversee the repairs and then charge the landlord for the work done through DOF. If the landlord does not pay these charges, a lien will be placed on the property. If the debt remains unpaid, it may be included in the city’s lien sale.

In order to identify if there are charges on a property from the Emergency Repair Program, you will need to look at DOF’s CityPay site. You can read how to do this in the Financial Conditions section of this guide.

  1. Alternative Enforcement Program (AEP)

This HPD program targets buildings with high levels of violations. Once a building is included in the program, there will be more frequent inspections. HPD can also issue Orders to Correct to force the owner to deal with conditions in the building. If the conditions specified in the Order to Correct are not remedied, HPD is able to make the repairs themselves and place a lien on the building for the costs incurred.

There are two ways to look at AEP data. The first are the PDF lists on the HPD website. These PDFs are organized by Fiscal Year and include the buildings’ addresses; the borough, Council District, and Community District they are located in; and the number of units. The second way to access AEP data is through Open Data. This table compiles all of the Fiscal Year lists, it also includes more information than the PDF building lists. In addition to the address and number of units the table has BBLs, the number of B&C HPD violations that were open when the building was selected, and whether or not the building has since been discharged from the program.

  1. Certification of No Harassment (CONH)

A building’s inclusion in the CONH program means that the owner must get a Certification of No Harassment before they can apply for a permit to change the use or occupancy of a building. Buildings must meet this requirement if they are a single room occupancy, are a multifamily building within specified areas, or were included in the Pilot Program Building List.

CONH data can be accessed in two ways similar to AEP data. The first is a PDF of the Pilot Program Building List on the HPD website linked above. This PDF includes BBL information; addresses; columns indicating why the building has been included in the program – AEP, HPD Vacate Order, DOB Vacate Order, and Harassment Finding; and the date that the building was added to the list. The second way to view CONH information is through Open Data. The Open Data table includes the same information as the PDF with some additional geographic columns.

  • Tax Breaks and Subsidies

Below we will walk through some of the main tax breaks and subsidies that are utilized throughout the city. This is by no means a comprehensive list. To learn more about the different programs available, visit the Furman Center’s Directory of NYC Housing Programs.

  1. J51

This tax abatement program came into existence in 1955. In its current form, it can be applied to residential buildings that are undergoing rehabilitation as well as nonresidential buildings that are being converted to residential properties. Properties can receive either a 34- or 14- year long tax abatement meaning that the real estate tax due on the property will not increase due to the rehabilitation of conversion for that amount of time. This program does come with the stipulation that all rental units in the building must be treated as rent stabilized for the length of the abatement period.

There has been controversy about the widely used program. Tenants have reported poor building conditions during the abatement period, and many have faced displacement due to large rent increases after the abatement period – and required rent stabilization of units – has ended. Additionally, the advocacy group Housing Rights Initiative has discovered through class-action lawsuits that apartments are frequently illegally deregulated even while landlords receive J51 tax abatement.

You can find buildings included in the program on DOF’s website. Another way to find properties benefiting from this exemption is through the Furman Center’s CoreData.nyc application. Historical data is available on Open Data along with updating information in the Property Exemption Detail table; note this table includes information about multiple exemption programs.

  1. 421-a

This program extends a partial real estate tax exemption for the new construction of residential units. The exact exemption a building is eligible for depends on when its construction occurred. To read about the specifics of the sub-programs see HPD’s site. In general, buildings receive a 35 year long partial tax exemption in exchange for making 25% – 30% of the units in the development affordable.

The program is widely used, with the bulk of new residential projects taking advantage of the large savings it offers. It is highly controversial as it costs the city billions of dollars in lost tax revenue and does not yield many truly affordable apartments – many of the units counted as affordable target tenants making over $100,000. Brad Lander, the City’s Comptroller, issued a report investigating the efficacy of the program which found that the forgone tax revenue was not justified by the housing created – far too few ‘affordable’ units were developed and most were out of reach for those in need.

You can find lists of properties with the exemption on HPD’s website. You can also filter for this program on Furman Center’s CoreData.nyc application.

  1. Article XI

This program allows for either a partial or total tax exemption from real estate taxes for up to 40 years for the rehabilitation of or construction of affordable housing by a Housing Development Fund Corporation (HDFC). HDFCs must be chartered by either HPD or the State Department of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR).

  1. LIHTC

This program was originally enacted in 1986 in order to incentivize investment in less lucrative affordable housing by private entities. In its current form, it allows for developers of rental housing that serves very low- and low- income households to sell tax credits to investors. These tax credits allow investors to lower their taxable income, effectively letting them pay less in federal income tax. There are two types or levels of LIHTC: 4% and 9%. These percentages refer to the amount of development costs that can be considered when calculating the tax credit. In other words, buildings with the 9% credit generate a relatively larger tax credit for investors than buildings with the 4% credit.

You can find properties with either the 4% or the 9% credit on Furman Center’s CoreData.nyc.

  1. Project Based Section 8

This program is part of the Housing Choice Voucher program. It is similar to tenant based section 8 in that it serves very low- and low- income tenants by capping rent at 30% of their income, but it differs in the fact that the subsidy is tied to the unit instead of the tenant. Because of this, potential tenants must meet income requirements in order to move into the subsidized unit.

You can see a list of developments that are a part of the program here.

Financial Conditions

Information about a building’s property tax payments and other DOF charges is available through the DOF website. You can simply enter the building’s address into their look up tool. This will allow you to view a few different things which we will walk through below.

Property Tax Bill

You can view the quarterly property tax bills that are mailed to building owners by clicking on ‘Property Tax Bills’ on the left hand side of the webpage. Click into the quarter you are interested in to see the PDF of the bill – you will be able to see how much is owed and when it is due. Information about who DOF has registered as the owner can also be found on the PDF. You will also be able to see whether or not the building is receiving some sort of tax abatement as it will be subtracted from the total amount due.

Notices of Property Value

These documents are sent to owners in January with updated information about both market and assessed values. Market value refers to the price that the property would likely be able to sell for. Assessed value is calculated from the market value and then used to determine how much is owed in property taxes. You can view these yearly notices by clicking on ‘Notices of Property Value’ on the left hand side of the website.

Payment History

If you click into the ‘Payment History’ section on the left hand side of the page, you will be able to view a list of the payments the owner has made to DOF. This includes property taxes as well as charges that DOF collects for other agencies.

City Pay

This website allows you to look up DOF charges that are due as well as past due. Search for the BBL you are interested in to see the itemized list of charges – if there are no charges currently due for a building, no search results will be returned. For buildings that do have charges with upcoming or past due dates, you will be able to see the type of charge in the ‘Tax Type’ column, the amount the original charge was for in the ‘Liability’ column and the interest that has accrued in the ‘Interest’ column.

A sample of common Charge types you may see:

  • Property Tax – Property taxes are paid on either a quarterly or biannual basis depending on the assessed value of the property. Properties worth more than $250,000 are billed twice a year while those worth less are billed four times a year.

  • DHCR Rent Stabilization Fee – This fee is charged when the owner has registered unit(s) in the buildings with DHCR. It is a flat fee of $20 per registered apartment.

  • HPD Emergency Repair – When an owner continues to neglect dangerous conditions in a building, HPD can make emergency repairs. When this happens HPD will charge the owner for the cost of the repairs via this charge type.

  • DOHMH Extermination – This type of charge is leveled when the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene comes in to try and abate a pest infestation in the building that the owner has not addressed.

  • DOB Elevator Charge – This charge type is leveled when an owner fails to register an annual elevator inspection. The fee increases in amount based on the length of the delinquency.

You can see other types of charges collected by DOF on behalf of other City and State agencies here.

NYC holds a yearly tax lien sale. The city identifies unpaid charges and places them into a trust. This trust then sells the liens to third parties who then hold the right to collect the debt and charge interest. Owners who have debt sold in the lien sale are at risk of these third parties charging high interest rates causing the amount owed to balloon. Having liens sold is often an indication of a building experiencing financial difficulties.

You can view the list of properties eligible for the upcoming lien sale as well as archived lists for previous years on the DOF website. There is a separate list that you can download for each borough. Importantly, this is a list of all eligible properties. Buildings included in these lists may be able to prevent being included in the sale by entering into a payment plan with the City. In order to determine if the lien on a property was sold and the amount of the lien you will need to look up the BBL on another site, taxliensupport.com. To use this site, select New York City then click on ‘Lien Search’ at the top of the page.

From here, enter the BBL that you are interested in, fill out the Captcha at the bottom and hit ‘Search’. Note, you need to type out the full BBL here. If your search does not return any results then the building was able to prevent their lien from being included in the sale. If the lien was sold, you will see a table of different liens as shown below.

To see the actual amount of the charges, click on one of the MTAG IDs in the left most column. This will take you to a table with more information about the actual liens that have been sold such as the original amount, the interest due, and the date that the lien was purchased.

Building Ownership

Frustratingly, it can be hard to tell who actually owns a building. There are two main sources that you can use to try and determine the owner – HPD Registration and ACRIS. These sources will not always provide the same information depending on how the owner has chosen to register and finance the property so it is important to look at both. By gathering a list of names and addresses associated with the property, you can search online to see if they are a known landlord and/or potentially own more buildings.

Oftentimes individuals and companies will create a limited liability company (LLC) when buying a building. For smaller landlords, LLCs provide financial protection; for larger landlords the LLC structure provides financial protection as well, but it also helps obscure who actually owns the property. You will very likely come across LLC names in both ACRIS and HPD. While this can sometimes feel like a deadend, there is a New York State dataset of LLCs which we discuss below. This dataset will not necessarily crack the question of who is behind the LLC, rather it is another source that may provide new information.

  • HPD Registration

Every residential building in NYC is required to register with HPD. If a building owner does not register with HPD or lets their registration expire they will be unable to clear any violations issued and they will be subject to civil penalties ranging from $250-$500. Importantly, failure to register with HPD could impact an owner’s ability to evict a tenant.

You can look up HPD registration information on the HDP Online website or through the Open Data portal – the data is stored across two tables Multiple Dwelling Registrations and Registration Contacts. There are multiple types of registrations, typically buildings will only have a few.

  • Individual Owner: This can be the name of the owner or someone who works with/in the corporation that owns the building.

  • Corporate Owner: This can be the name of the corporation that owns the building and/or the name of the management company.

  • Managing Agent: This can be the information about someone who works for the management company, or the name of someone associated with the owner/corporation.

  • Head Officer: This can be the name of the owner or someone who works for the corporation or LLC that owns the building.

  • Officer: This can be the name of the owner or someone who works for the corporation or LLC that owns the building.

  • Shareholder: This can be the name of the owner or someone who works for the corporation or LLC that owns the building.

Once you find these names you can try googling them with keywords like ‘real estate’ to try and determine companies / other individuals they are associated with.

To view the information on the HPD Online site simply enter your BBL and then click on Property Owner Registration Information on the left hand side. If the owner has not registered, or has allowed their registration to expire there will be a disclaimer. If you want to access the data in a tabular format, you will need to pull information from the two Open Data tables. First, use the Multiple Dwellings Registrations table to identify the ‘RegistrationID’ associated with your BBL. Then filter for that ID in the Registration Contacts table to find information on the different parties associated with the building.

  • ACRIS

ACRIS stands for the Automated City Register Information System. It allows you to look at property records for all NYC buildings except for those in Staten Island. The ACRIS Document Control Codes show the various document types available. To see what document types we find most useful see the Important/Main Types of Documents section in our ACRIS Guide [LINK].

When looking at documents you may see that there are multiple BBLs listed. This means that the owner has more than one property. Depending on your interests, you may want to look at the other buildings in the owner’s portfolio to get a fuller picture of the financing at play. A great way to get an initial feel for the other buildings within a portfolio is the Who Owns What tool developed by JustFix. If you are interested in further information about how to approach researching portfolios see the Research a Portfolio Guide [LINK].

 

  • Debt Level

Understanding the debt level of a building is key to understanding a building’s finances. When buildings have high levels of debt, they are responsible for high monthly mortgage payments – these debt service payments are often equal to 75% of a building’s net operating income (NOI) and assume that expenses will be very low. Owners will prioritize fulfilling their debt service as they could face foreclosure if they do not. This often means that there will not be enough money left to cover maintenance needs – hazardous conditions can develop and quality of life for the building’s tenants can deteriorate.

We have created more in depth resources on how to use ACRIS as well as how to understand landlords’ finances. We strongly recommend reading through them both to better orient yourself and paint a fuller picture of the building’s finances, but below we will briefly walk through how to locate the current mortgage on a property so that you can determine the current debt level. Knowing the current debt level is important because it can help you estimate the monthly debt service owed by the landlord.

Search property records using the parcel identifier, or BBL, on ACRIS. Find the most recent document with a document type of either ‘MTGE’ or ‘AGMT’. You can click on the gray ‘IMG’ button in the leftmost column to view the PDF of the document. There are a few useful pieces of information to note which we will walk through below.

Importantly, sometimes looking at the financing documents can allow you to figure out who actually owns a building. Many landlords will not include their name in a building’s HPD registration, but oftentimes they are the signatory on mortgages and agreements.

  • Current Lender

The lender will be listed as Party 2 for mortgages and agreements. It is good to know who is lending on a property because, with the high levels of debt on multifamily buildings in NYC that are rarely paid down, they are often in effect the landlord’s business partner. If an owner is neglecting the property and not responding to tenants, involving their lender may be an effective way to apply pressure and force them to make some improvements to the building.

  • Debt Level

The document amount will tell you how much debt is being taken on in the transaction. Recall, knowing the current debt level of a building is key to understanding how much money the landlord has to make repairs. If the building is saddled with debt, and therefore a high monthly debt service, the landlord most likely does not have much money left to actually maintain the building.

Note, sometimes these documents cover multiple buildings. Click into the PDF to see whether or not there are multiple properties listed on the cover page. If there is more than one, you can use the number of units in the building you are researching divided by the total number of units involved in the document to determine the correct percentage of the total document amount you should use in your analysis.

Also, if there are other buildings on the document, then they are also owned by the same landlord. If this is the case, it is a good idea to spend some time digging into their portfolio – all of the buildings that they own – in order to better understand their business strategy and their financial standing.

This database, maintained by the NYS Division of Corporations, allows you to search for a variety of corporations and businesses formed within the state. Importantly you are able to search for LLCs. This database can be useful when you are struggling to determine ownership as it can sometimes give you a new related address or, in rarer cases, a related name.

To use the database, simply enter the LLC name you are interested in – one that you found either through HPD Registration or ACRIS information – into the EntityName box. Select LimitedLiabilityCompany from the Entity list and search. You will then be taken to a list of results. Click on the matching name in order to see more detailed information. Hopefully, there will be an address that is associated with the entity. Sometimes there will be information about the people associated with the entity, but this is rare. Keep in mind, the information that you find through this database might not differ from what you were able to find via HPD Registration or ACRIS, but it is worth it to double check regardless. If you are able to find a new related name or address it could help you as you search for who the actual owner of the building is.

Tools for Building Research

The Building Indicator Project is a database developed by UNHP to identify NYC multifamily properties in physical and/or financial distress. In its current form, BIP has aggregated more than a decade of data for all 60,000+ rental buildings in NYC, tracking more than 120 data-points for each building.

BIP can be very useful when you are interested in looking at what has happened in a building over a long period of time. The database helpfully combines multiple data sources with information about the physical and financial characteristics of a building as well as information about who the owner of the building may be. BIP can also be useful if you want to look at the buildings within a specific geography such as zip code or community district. It’s flexible formatting allows you to slice or filter the data in a variety of ways.

WhoOwnsWhat is a tool developed by JustFix.nyc to track landlords’ portfolios. You enter the property that you are interested in, and it will retrieve other buildings that are likely owned by the same person. You can export this information as a csv by clicking on the “portfolio” tab at the top of the page. It will also provide you with building violation, eviction, and rent stabilization information. You can even start to look at this information overtime by navigating to the “Timeline” tab at the top of the page.

The website also has a “Useful links” section which you can use to quickly navigate to city sites – ACRIS, HPDOnline, DOB, etc – in order to find additional information.

WhoOwnsWhat can be a great jumping off point if you are looking to find out who owns the building you are interested in, or if you are interested in starting to research the landlord’s portfolio.

DAP allows you to search in two ways. You can look up information for a specific address or for a specific geography (community district, zip code, etc.). When searching for a specific property you will be able to view and download a variety of information as a csv. DAP pulls information from ACRIS, HPD, and DOB. It also gathers information about evictions executed by a marshal and legal actions that have been taken against the landlord. On the left hand side of the page you can find basic information about the building as well as information about rent stabilization and whether the building is a part of any special programs (J5a, 421a, etc.).

When you search by geography you will be taken to the “District Dashboard”. Here you can view the buildings in an area by housing type – rent stabilized, subsidized, etc. You can then use the sliders next to the different datasets to filter your results. For example, you can filter for properties with 5 or more HPD Complaints as shown below. Note, if you want to use more than one dataset at a time, you will need to pay attention to whether you want to use “AND” or “OR” logic. If you choose AND then a building will have to meet all of your filter criteria in order to be included in the results; if you choose OR it must only meet one. You can export your results as a csv by clicking on the “TABLE” button on the right hand side above the map. Do note that you can choose the time range of the data included in the District Dashboard view in the top left hand corner.

DAP is really helpful if you want to quickly pull together spreadsheets with historical data from a variety of sources for a specific building. It is also a good place to look if you are starting broader and trying to find a building that meets certain criteria or determine statistics about the state of the housing stock in a certain area.

  • Open Data

Open Data is NYC’s initiative to make data from a variety of agencies easily accessible to the public. Through the website you are able to view a variety of data sets in a tabular form. You can easily write your own conditions to filter the data and export it as a CSV. You can also create visualizations and complete aggregate analysis. For more information about how to use the more advanced aspects of Open Data see their How To section here.

  • Furman Center Subsidized Housing Database and CoreData.nyc

The NYU Furman Center has created CoreData.nyc, an interactive tool that allows users to interact with a variety of datasources. Importantly, information about building subsidies such as 421a, J51, and LIHTC is accessible through CoreData. Click here to read through their User Guide which includes a How To section as well as a Data Dictionary. You can also learn more about the various types of Housing Programs via the Directory of NYC Housing Programs. Another helpful part of this website is the Neighborhood Profiles section. Here you can view and download data by borough or neighborhood regarding demographics, the housing market and conditions, land use and development, neighborhood services and conditions, and renters.

  • Public Lists

There are a few lists published with the goal of identifying landlords who are bad actors in NYC. These lists are helpful as they allow you to quickly find out whether or not the building’s owner is known for their bad behavior. These lists also are helpful because they take into account landlords’ full portfolios, not just one building. In other words they show landlords who have a pattern of bad behavior.

  1. Worst Landlords Watchlist

This list is published annually by the City Public Advocate. It ranks landlords based on the number of open Immediately Hazardous and Hazardous (HPD C & B) violations in their buildings. You can read more about how the list is created here.

You can see portfolio wide statistics for each landlord as well as information on the individual buildings that are included. While DOB violations, evictions, and tax liens do not affect a landlord’s inclusion on the list, data on them is included on the list.

  1. Worst Evictors List

The Worst Evictors List tracks landlords with the greatest number of evictions executed in their buildings. It also takes into account the number of evictions that the landlord filed across their portfolio. This is important as filings better capture the full picture of evictions. Many times tenants “self evict” meaning they vacate the apartment before a marshall comes to remove them which is when an eviction is technically considered to have been executed.

There is also a mapping component to the list. You can view where the evictions carried out by the worst evictors are taking place in NYC. This can be really helpful in understanding where tenants who may be experiencing similar problems are located.

The list is created through a joint effort of the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition, JustFix.nyc, and the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project. The site includes information about the proportion of rent stabilized tenants as well as the lenders, lawyers, and eviction marshalls that the landlords work with.

Talk to Your Neighbors and Fellow Tenants

Looking up information online is a great way to start. However, if you really want to capture the full picture of what is going on in your building, the best thing to do is talk with the other people who live there. They may be able to corroborate and add to experiences you have found – it is important to remember that many things occur in buildings without ever being recorded or tracked. Ultimately, data will never be able to tell the full story – seeing that there is a violation for mold in an apartment is not the same as hearing from the tenant who is having to live with mold in their home. Data is often best used as a support for storytelling and lived experience.