New York Moves From Price Controls to Supply Expansion in Major Housing Policy Shift

Written by:

Rudi Davis

Date:

06 Feb 2026

Share

Share via Facebook

Share via Linkedin

Share via X

Copy to clipboard

New York State is changing its approach to housing affordability, shifting from direct price controls to removing barriers to new construction. According to Jared Antin, Executive Director at Brown Harris Stevens, this marks a significant departure from years of policy focused on regulating what landlords can charge, in favor of addressing the underlying housing shortage.

“The governor’s proposal, Let Them Build, is one of the first steps in recent memory that focuses on reducing barriers to building,” Antin says. He argues that this shift is notable because it targets the root cause of New York’s affordability crisis: insufficient housing to meet demand.

How New York’s Policy Got Here

Antin traces the evolution of New York’s housing policy to explain why the conversation has changed. In 2019, the state enacted the Tenant Protection Act, which capped move-in costs and limited how much landlords could recoup from renovations in rent-stabilized buildings.

The law restricted landlords from collecting more than one month’s rent as a security deposit and capped application and credit check fees. “It limited the amount of money that a tenant would be able to pay to move into a property,” Antin explains. Landlords could no longer require multiple months’ rent up front, and the fees tenants paid to secure a lease were sharply reduced.

In 2024, New York City passed the FARE Act, which took effect in June 2025. The law requires that anyone who hires a broker pay the broker’s fee. Previously, landlords often hired brokers to fill vacancies and shifted the broker fee to incoming tenants, taking advantage of the city’s low vacancy rates. Now, the law holds landlords responsible for broker fees when they hire an agent.

Both policies attempted to make renting more affordable by shifting costs or restricting landlord revenue. But Antin says these efforts did not address the underlying shortage. “We were trying to reallocate costs rather than focus on the root issue,” he says. “The root issue, in New York City and New York State, is that we don’t have enough housing.”

Why Expanding Supply Is the Only Long-Term Solution

Antin cites other U.S. cities as evidence that increasing housing supply is the only way to reduce prices at scale. “If you look at some of the headlines nationwide, rents have hit a four-year low,” he says, referencing recent coverage. “As you build more property, you increase the supply, and that brings prices down.”

The logic is straightforward: more apartments available means less competition per unit, which lowers rents. But Antin notes New York faces unique constraints due to density and geography. “New York is harder because it’s dense and, in much of the city, built on an island,” he says. “But there are ways to facilitate building, whether that’s through tax incentives or by reducing some of the environmental review and other hurdles that slow down projects.”

The governor’s Let Them Build proposal aims to streamline approval and review processes. By reducing the time from project conception to occupancy, the state hopes to make it easier — and potentially less costly — for developers to build where demand is highest.

“We need to make it easier, and in some cases more affordable, for developers to build much-needed housing,” Antin says. “If we can increase the supply, we can better balance between supply and demand, which in itself will reduce the price.”

Slow Timeline, Big Stakes

Antin is clear that this policy shift will not deliver immediate relief. “It still can take two to three years from conception to being ready,” he says. “This doesn’t solve the affordability crisis tomorrow. This is really building for what may come online at the end of this decade.”

The proposal still needs to pass the New York State Assembly before becoming law. “I don’t know exactly the time frame for this actually to get approved,” Antin says. “It has to move through the typical government process, but at least it shows that the governor is looking at the problem differently.”

For Antin, the focus on expanding supply rather than regulating prices is what makes this moment notable, regardless of how long implementation takes.

Tax Incentives Are Still Essential

While faster approvals can help, Antin argues they don’t fundamentally change the economics of building new housing. “The tax incentives are significant to affect the calculus for a developer — what type of product they can build,” he says.

Construction costs remain high, Manhattan land is expensive, and tight lending conditions limit which projects can move forward. Tax abatements or other incentive structures, Antin explains, often determine whether a developer can build housing that is both affordable and financially viable.

“You still have to acquire the land at a certain price and build at a certain cost,” Antin says. “So the tax incentives are an essential thing.”

Political Realities Behind the Shift

Antin attributes the policy change to the apparent failure of price controls to address affordability. Years of regulations limiting fees, restricting landlord revenue, and shifting costs between landlords and tenants did not make housing noticeably more affordable.

“We’ve been focusing on figuring out how to assign who could pay what,” Antin says of past approaches. “We were trying to reallocate costs rather than focus on the root issue.”

This inability to bring down prices created political space for a different conversation. With price controls failing to produce enough affordable housing, policymakers are now turning to supply as the central problem. Whether this shift results in meaningful new supply will depend on how the policies are implemented, the design of any tax incentives, and whether political will can overcome opposition from community boards and environmental groups.

According to Antin, however, the direction has changed — from regulating prices to enabling more construction. “Let’s build smartly, and we can build more affordably, and we can build the much-needed housing that will increase the supply and try to offset some of the upward pressure on rents,” he says. That approach, he argues, is the only way to address the fundamental reality: when supply is limited, and demand is high, prices rise. No amount of price regulation changes that dynamic.

What This Means for New York’s Future

This pivot toward supply-side solutions comes after years of rising rents and stagnant housing growth. The urgency is apparent: unless the state makes it easier and more cost-effective to build, affordability will remain out of reach for many New Yorkers. The proposed policy shift signals a willingness to address the core of the problem, even if the results will not be immediate.

For developers, the combination of streamlined approvals and targeted tax incentives could finally make new projects viable, especially in high-demand areas. For tenants and buyers, it offers the prospect of relief — but only if the political momentum behind these changes holds and the state follows through on implementation.

The lesson from other markets is clear: only by increasing the number of homes can prices come down sustainably. New York’s move to prioritize supply over regulation marks a notable change in direction — one that will define the city’s housing landscape for years to come.