In New York City, a 24-unit apartment building is listed for sale at $1.3 million, which works out to about $54,000 per apartment. Kenny Burgos represents the owners of buildings like that one, and his advice is simple: don’t buy it. The reason comes down to rent stabilization.
Kenny grew up in the Bronx, raised by a single mom alongside three sisters. He represented the Southeastern Bronx in the New York State Assembly from 2020 to 2024. Today he’s CEO of the New York Apartment Association, which means he walks through empty apartments every week.
At least 60,000 of those apartments are sitting empty, in a city that’s short roughly half a million homes. Under the 2019 rent laws, bringing a vacant unit under rent stabilization up to code can cost six figures, and an owner will likely never earn that money back.
Kenny explains how rent stabilization actually works and who it protects, and why the average three-bedroom rents for less than the average one-bedroom. He also explains why those bargain-basement building prices, in his words, “are not an advertisement. They are a warning.”
The lessons reach well beyond New York. Averages can hide the real story, and a cheap price is often a red flag. When the math doesn’t work, changing the people involved won’t fix it.
Key Takeaways
The biggest ideas from the conversation
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- The 2019 rent laws made empty apartments rational: The 2019 HSTPA ended the rent reset after a tenant moves out. Owners must still renovate vacant units to current code, often a six-figure job, with no way to recoup it. So at least 60,000 apartments under rent stabilization sit empty.
- Frozen rents push costs onto someone else: When rents can’t rise to cover taxes, insurance, and water bills, costs don’t disappear. In mixed buildings, market-rate tenants absorb them. In fully regulated ones, owners defer maintenance, patching boilers and delaying elevator repairs, until the building starts to fail.
- A bargain price often comes with a warning label: Under rent stabilization, some buildings sell for $50,000 per apartment, and a few for as little as $10,000. The price is low because regulation caps future cash flow. Whether it’s a rental property or a laundromat, a cheap asset usually signals trouble with the income it can produce.
- Averages can hide the real story: Manhattan’s $5,500 median asking rent grabs headlines, but the median rent New Yorkers actually pay is closer to $1,600. Before trusting any average, whether it’s a rent report or a salary survey, ask who’s in the sample and check the median too.
- Changing the tenant doesn’t change the math: Rent stabilization has no income limit, but Kenny argues means testing wouldn’t fix it. If an apartment brings in $700 a month and costs more to run, the building loses money no matter who lives there.
Resources
Links, tools and references mentioned
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Your First Rental Property Waitlist
Ready to buy your first rental property, or get more out of the one you already own? Join the waitlist for Your First Rental Property, the course that’s helped 5,000+ students invest in real estate. You’ll be the first to know when enrollment opens:
courses.affordanything.com
Kenny Burgos on X
Kenny’s posts on rent stabilization, vacant apartments, and New York City housing policy.
@KennyBurgosNY
New York Apartment Association (Housing NY)
Kenny leads this organization, which represents owners and managers of rent-stabilized housing in New York City. It posts weekly content, and he mentioned it on the show, noting its handle is @housingny on social media.
housingny.org
Free Guide: 7 Costly Mistakes Beginner Rental Property Investors Make
Paula’s free guide to the most common, and most expensive, mistakes new landlords make, including forgetting to count your own time as a real cost.
affordanything.com/rent
Chapters
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Note: Timestamps are approximate and may vary across listening platforms due to dynamically inserted ads.
| 3:44 |
Why New York’s 1969 emergency rent rules never ended |
| 4:58 |
The surprisingly low rent most New Yorkers actually pay |
| 23:33 |
Why buildings now sell for $50,000 an apartment |
| 25:12 |
Costs rose 4.5%. Rents were frozen at 0%. |
| 31:39 |
The rent-freeze program that actually works |
| 39:38 |
Who really pays when rents are frozen |
| 47:13 |
Why 60,000 apartments sit empty during a shortage |
| 1:01:53 |
Buyout or pressure? The $150,000 question |
| 1:06:52 |
What Vienna gets right that New York doesn’t |
| 1:16:18 |
Should you buy a rental in New York? |
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