How Pigeon scores a building
The Building score says what a building’s public record shows about living there, compared with every NYC building of its size.
Updated 2026-10-21
Seven things renters care about
Each is weighted by what renters rank and complain about most and by what harms health:
| Dimension | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Heat and hot water | 22% | The most common HPD complaint: 24% of the problems reported in the past year, or 36% counting repeat reports of the same outage. Heating breakdowns in 10% of apartments in the 2021 Housing and Vacancy Survey. The WHO links indoor cold to respiratory and heart disease. |
| Pests | 18% | Rodents are the most common problem in the survey, in 24% of apartments, and cockroach allergen is tied to childhood asthma. |
| Leaks and mold | 16% | Leaks in 18% of apartments and mold in 9%; the WHO and the city’s health department tie damp and mold to asthma. |
| Repairs that stick | 16% | How well repairs get done is the strongest single driver of renter satisfaction in AppFolio’s 2026 survey of 3,002 renters. |
| Fire and safety | 12% | Rare but deadly: self-closing doors, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, window guards, gas, wiring and lead. |
| Plumbing, power and the elevator | 8% | Elevator breakdowns in 16% of apartments in elevator buildings, toilet breakdowns in 6%. |
| Upkeep | 8% | Paint, doors, floors and garbage: common, and low risk to health per item. |
The energy grade is shown but doesn’t score; there is no evidence renters rank it.
How each one is measured
- Every complaint to HPD from the past two years and every open HPD violation is read into one of the seven, from HPD’s complaint category and problem code, or the violation’s order number and description.
- What counts is the apartments affected, not the number of records. An apartment counts once, at its most recent record: a complaint this past year counts fully and one from the year before at half; a violation from the past two years at 0.6, up to five years at 0.3, older at 0.1. A problem for the whole building, like no heat building-wide, counts once a day, as a tenth of the building.
- Repairs that stick counts an apartment complaining about the same thing again a month or more later, violations HPD marks not complied with, falsely or invalidly certified, or certified late, and complaints that the super can’t be reached.
- The share of apartments affected is compared with every NYC building of the same size (3 to 5, 6 to 19, 20 to 49, 50 to 99, and 100 or more apartments), about 172,000 buildings in all, including those with nothing on record (how they compare by size). Small buildings are pulled toward their peers, so two complaints in a 4-unit building count as weaker evidence than 50 in a 100-unit one.
- A building among the cleanest 40% of its peers scores 10 on that dimension, the median 9, the worst tenth 4 or below.
Putting them together
The seven combine in a way that leans on the low scores, and the total can’t be more than 2.5 above the worst of heat, pests, leaks and mold, safety and repairs. A building that scores 1 on heat and 10 on everything else comes out around 3, where a plain average would give 8. A serious problem in the listing’s own apartment caps the score at 4 for an open violation and 5 for a complaint this past year.
Sources
- 2021 NYC Housing and Vacancy Survey, selected initial findings
- HPD complaints and problems and HPD violations, NYC Open Data
- HPD Alternative Enforcement Program, year 17 report
- NYC Health Department, Asthma and Housing Quality (2021)
- WHO Housing and Health Guidelines and WHO guidelines on dampness and mould
- AppFolio 2026 renter survey
- JustFix Who Owns What building measures
Pigeon does this on every StreetEasy listing.
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