Why It’s So Hard to Find an Affordable Apartment in New York

But the problems reflect a national phenomenon and are further fueled by the popularity of New York City itself. More people want to live here than the city can accommodate, driving up prices for the housing that is available.

The New York metropolitan area needed more than 340,000 additional homes in 2019, according to a May analysis by Up For Growth, a Washington policy and research group. The city has issued fewer building permits per resident over most of the past decade than Boston, Austin and San Francisco, according to a study from the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit research group. And new housing is not keeping up with new job growth.

At the same time, the number of homes that rent at less than $1,500 is shrinking, and the median rent on Manhattan apartments newly leased in June reached a staggering $4,000, the real estate firm Douglas Elliman reported.

There are numerous barriers to increasing the supply of housing to meet the demand, including:

● Zoning restrictions that limit the size of buildings and enable many neighborhoods to all but shut out new development;

● The cost of building, and particularly the cost of subsidizing and supporting affordable homes;

● The inability of state and local politicians to agree on meaningful solutions.