Sell Your Commercial Property In New York

The New York rental market at a glance

New York had 3,525,661 renter households in the Census Bureau's 2020-2024 American Community Survey, or 45.7% of 7,722,646 occupied homes. Owners hold the other 54.3%. Apartment-style stock is substantial: 2,979,279 New York housing units, 34.7% of the total, sit in buildings of five or more units, per ACS table B25024.

New York rental vacancy stood at 3.8% in the 2020-2024 DP04 housing profile. Statewide median household income was $85,974, so the $1,621 median gross rent equals about 22.6% of a typical household's annual gross income. Renters feel more strain: 52.1% of New York renter households paid 30% or more of income on rent, per ACS table B25070.

Five-year trends in New York

New York median gross rent rose 26.6% between the 2015-2019 and 2020-2024 ACS periods, from $1,280 to $1,621 a month. Median household income grew 25.5% over the same span, from $68,486 to $85,974. Rent growth outran income growth by 1.1 percentage points statewide.

New York added 140,229 renter households between the two periods, a 4.1% gain. Units in five-plus buildings rose 6.9%, adding 192,382 units statewide, outpacing renter-household growth.

Growth was uneven across New York. Orange County rents rose 33.4% between the two ACS periods, the fastest of the five counties profiled here, while Nassau County renter households fell 4.3% even as Nassau rents climbed 27.1%.

New York county comparison

Median gross rent among the five New York counties profiled here ranges from $899 in Niagara County to $2,252 in Nassau County. Rental vacancy runs from 2.5% in Westchester County to 4.5% in Nassau County, per each county's 2020-2024 ACS figures.

Westchester County leads this group on both renter share, at 38.2%, and units in five-plus buildings, at 35.3%. Nassau County is the most owner-heavy of the five, with renters in just 18.1% of occupied homes despite the highest median gross rent.

New York landlord, tax and transfer rules

New York rent control and rent stabilization are local, not statewide. NYC and parts of Albany, Erie, Nassau, Rensselaer, Schenectady and Westchester counties apply rent control, and rent stabilization generally reaches pre-1974 buildings of six or more units under the Emergency Tenant Protection Act.

New York caps security deposits at one month's rent under Real Property Law Sections 220-238 and General Obligations Law Section 7-108. A landlord must return the deposit within a reasonable time after move-out, which courts and the Attorney General's office generally treat as 14 days.

New York assesses real property at market value under Real Property Tax Law Article 5, though NYC and some municipalities apply class-based growth caps limiting how fast an assessment can rise even when market value increases faster, under RPTL Section 1805.

New York State levies a real estate transfer tax of $2 per $500 of consideration, or 0.4%, under Tax Law Article 31 Section 1402, generally paid by the seller. New York City and some other localities add their own local transfer tax on top of the state rate.

What this means if you sell in New York

Owners who sell commercial property in New York are priced on rent rolls, vacancy and local assessment rules. A building in Westchester County, at 2.5% vacancy, reads differently to a buyer than one in Nassau County at 4.5%.

Transfer tax deserves a line item: New York's 0.4% state transfer tax under Tax Law Section 1402 applies statewide, and NYC adds its own local tax on top. Because assessment growth caps can lag a fast-rising market, we also model the next reassessment, not just the latest bill.

We review New York buildings of five or more units in the five counties above and across the rest of New York. Send the rent roll and the latest New York tax statement, and we will set the property against these county figures.