New York Cuts Real Rents at Rent-Stabilized Apartments
New York City's Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) voted to cut rents at rent-stabilized apartments yet again, although you might not know that from the press coverage. Earlier this week, the RGB—a city regulator responsible for setting maximum legal rent increases on the city's roughly one million rent-stabilized units—voted to allow rent increases of 2.75 percent for one-year leases and 5.25 percent for two-year leases. Nominally, that is a rent increase. When compared against the year's 3.3 percent inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), that's a real decrease in rents. According...