NYC apartment buildings by the numbers
What HPD’s records say about all 172,485 NYC buildings with 3 or more apartments: how many had heat, pest and leak complaints this past year, and how that changes with size.
Updated 2026-10-21
The short version
- NYC has 172,485 buildings with 3 or more apartments, holding 2,868,881 apartments.
- 26% of them had at least one complaint to HPD in the past year, and 18% had a heat or hot water complaint in the 2025–26 heating season.
- In buildings of 20 or more apartments, 57% had a heat or hot water complaint that season and 35% a pest complaint in the past year.
- 34% have an open class C violation on the record, but only 16% had one written in the past year. Old violations stay open when owners don’t certify the repair.
- Heat and hot water is the most common thing renters report: 24% of the 818,785 problems reported to HPD in the past year.
Which buildings get complaints, by size
The share of buildings with at least one complaint of each kind. Heat counts the 2025–26 heating season (October 1, 2025 to May 31, 2026); the others count the year to October 21, 2026.
| Apartments | Any complaint | Heat | Pests | Leaks or mold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 to 5 | 9% | 5% | 2% | 3% |
| 6 to 19 | 37% | 23% | 11% | 15% |
| 20 to 49 | 69% | 53% | 31% | 37% |
| 50 to 99 | 77% | 65% | 42% | 48% |
| 100 or more | 72% | 57% | 37% | 44% |
| All | 26% | 18% | 10% | 12% |
Bigger buildings have more people to call, so they get more complaints; a 100-apartment building with one heat complaint is not worse than a 4-apartment one with none. That is why Pigeon compares a building only with buildings of its own size.
Class C violations, by size
Class C is HPD’s “immediately hazardous” class, with a 24-hour deadline for most. How many buildings had one written in the past year, and how many have one still open on the record, of any age.
| Apartments | Buildings | Class C in the past year | Open class C |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 to 5 | 104,016 | 4% | 21% |
| 6 to 19 | 40,987 | 22% | 46% |
| 20 to 49 | 15,660 | 49% | 66% |
| 50 to 99 | 7,197 | 59% | 70% |
| 100 or more | 4,625 | 46% | 56% |
| All | 172,485 | 16% | 34% |
What renters report to HPD
The 818,785 problems reported to HPD from October 21, 2025 to October 21, 2026, not counting repeat reports of a problem already open.
| Problem | Reports | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Heat and hot water | 192,492 | 24% |
| Pests, mold and garbage | 156,954 | 19% |
| Plumbing | 91,834 | 11% |
| Paint and plaster | 81,457 | 10% |
| Doors and windows | 64,890 | 8% |
| Water leaks | 53,315 | 7% |
| General | 42,882 | 5% |
| Electric | 40,103 | 5% |
| Floors and stairs | 36,664 | 4% |
| Appliances | 29,213 | 4% |
| Safety | 22,250 | 3% |
| Elevator | 2,369 | under 1% |
| Outside the building | 2,301 | under 1% |
| Hallways and exits | 2,061 | under 1% |
How NYC buildings score
Pigeon’s Building score, from HPD complaints and open violations alone, across all 172,485 buildings: the median building scores 6.8 out of 10, a quarter score 5.9 or less and a quarter 8 or more. About 21% score 9 or 10, and 1 in 10 scores 4 or less. How the score works.
How these were counted
- A building is a tax lot with 3 or more residential units in the city’s PLUTO file. A lot can hold more than one building, so a few large complexes count once.
- A complaint is a problem reported to HPD, from its complaints dataset. Problems HPD marks as duplicates of one already open are left out, so one outage that 20 tenants report counts once.
- The heating season is October 1 to May 31, when the city’s heat law applies. Hot water complaints count with heat, as HPD files them.
- Pests are HPD’s pests category, mostly mice and roaches, then flies and bedbugs; rats mostly go to the Health Department through 311. Leaks or mold is the water leak category plus mold.
- Counts are as of October 21, 2026. The figures are also available as JSON.
Sources
- Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output (PLUTO), NYC Department of City Planning
- Housing Maintenance Code Complaints and Problems, HPD
- Housing Maintenance Code Violations, HPD
To cite: Pigeon, “NYC apartment building statistics,” October 21, 2026, https://pigeon.iuxta.app/guides/nyc-apartment-building-statistics.
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