New York City’s rental market has rarely been simple to read, but the past year has added a new layer of complexity. A regulatory change, a reshuffled commission structure, and shifting renter preferences have combined to create conditions that differ from what the headlines suggest. On the ground, the picture is more nuanced than most coverage indicates.
At the center of this shift is the FARE Act, a city law that transferred broker fee obligations from tenants to landlords and forced brokers, owners, and renters alike to recalibrate. Noel James Maaba, a licensed real estate salesperson at Elegran, who manages approximately 155 buildings across the city, has a ground-level view of how those adjustments are actually playing out.
When New York City’s Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act took effect, it transferred the responsibility for broker fees from tenants to landlords. For brokers with rental-heavy books of business, the consequences were immediate. Noel James Maaba was running a team of nine brokers doing roughly 250 rental transactions annually when the law changed.
The financial hit was severe and sudden. A team that had generated around $500,000 in gross commission income from rentals found itself targeting $250,000, or even $125,000, after landlords cut broker compensation from one month’s rent to half or a quarter of a month. “Overnight, we lost about half of our revenue,” Maaba explains. Rather than absorb the loss, he pivoted aggressively toward sales through cold calling, outreach, and networking. His team grew from zero sales listings to 15 active listings and 20 buyers under contract, all while maintaining rental volume.
What the FARE Act did not do was trigger the dramatic rent increases many predicted. Across Maaba’s portfolio spanning the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Queens, Brooklyn, and parts of Midtown, rent increases have tracked closer to historical norms. A two-bedroom in Ridgewood that rented for $2,700 last year now lists for $2,900, a modest uptick rather than a spike. “It was a stubborn wake-up call for owners that supply and demand exist,” he says.
The operators under the most pressure are not large property management companies, which can spread costs across hundreds of units, but smaller family landlords. Maaba estimates that 30 to 45 of his 155 buildings are owned by families with just one or two properties. Those owners lack the scale to spread costs and are absorbing the fee burden directly.
Renter preferences are diverging in ways that go beyond price sensitivity. Maaba distinguishes between two types of renters: those arriving in New York for the first time, and those who have lived in the city for two to four years or more.
First-timers remain neighborhood-driven, gravitating toward the East Village, Lower East Side, Upper West Side, and Midtown, drawn by the city’s cultural pull. That pattern is unlikely to change.
Long-term residents are behaving differently. Space, natural light, and convenience have become the primary criteria for renters who know the city well. “Nobody cares about a golf simulator. Nobody cares about a gym on the rooftop,” Maaba observes. This has practical implications for developers investing in elaborate amenity packages. The competition to add premium building features may be losing relevance among renters, making longer-term decisions about where and how they live.
When transactions collapse in today’s rental market, the cause is often not price or inventory. Strict tenant protection laws in New York have made some landlords more cautious than conditions warrant, leading them to pass over qualified applicants who would have been reliable tenants. “The most common thing that kills the deal right now is landlords being too picky,” Maaba says.
His advice to landlords: go beyond the paperwork. A phone conversation before signing can reveal what a financial profile cannot, including personality, communication style, and reliability that income verification alone will not uncover.
While the rental market adjusts to its new regulatory reality, the sales market is presenting a distinct opportunity for first-time buyers in Brooklyn and Queens. Single-family homes and investment properties in neighborhoods like Forest Hills remain firmly in seller’s market territory. Maaba describes listing a home there and receiving offers 15 to 25 percent above the asking price. But condos and co-ops are sitting on the market longer, creating negotiating room for prepared buyers.
Among the 12 first-time buyers Maaba has been working with recently, 10 secured what he considers genuinely good deals among the buyers he represented. Well-priced listings are moving quickly while overpriced ones linger, giving buyers leverage they haven’t had in years. “They’re underestimating the power of the buyer right now,” he says.
The financial case is more accessible than many renters realize. A two- to three-thousand-dollar monthly rental in the outer boroughs is roughly equivalent to the mortgage payment on a $450,000 to $600,000 co-op or condo in neighborhoods like Forest Hills, Rego Park, or Kew Gardens. According to Maaba, the barrier is not income but awareness. Many renters simply don’t know what they can afford and never ask.
His framework for first-time buyers is straightforward: start with what you can afford, not what you ultimately want. The average homeowner sells every seven years, a timeline that makes a 30-year mortgage far less daunting in practice. “Buy where you’re at and level up as you go,” he says.
On the broader question of whether Manhattan rents are truly at all-time highs, Maaba is skeptical of the framing. A five percent annual increase means rents will always technically be at a record. But that statistic obscures what is happening at the transaction level. “A lot of people track what’s active, but they don’t look at what’s transacting,” he points out.
Landlords pricing above what the market will bear are simply sitting on vacant units. The underlying dynamic remains supply and demand. No headline-making asking price changes what tenants are willing and able to pay.
For investors and professionals trying to read New York City’s market accurately, that distinction between listed prices and closed transactions may be the most useful lens available right now. The data that matters is not what landlords ask, but what renters sign. In that gap lies both the story of the current market and the clearest signal of where it is heading next.
About the Expert: Noel James Maaba is a licensed real estate salesperson at Elegran, operating across the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Queens, Brooklyn, and parts of Midtown in New York City. He leads a team that manages approximately 155 buildings and previously completed around 250 rental transactions annually.
This article is based on information provided by the expert source cited above. It is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or real estate advice. Readers should conduct their own research and consult qualified professionals before making any real estate or financial decisions.
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