WHAT IF WE CUT THE WAIT?
An affordable home. Four months sooner.
A shorter wait can mean less rent to pay—and rental income arriving sooner.
For one household
Illustrative scenario · not a measured LOTB result
more days in an affordable home
119 days. 17 weeks. About four months sooner.
WHAT A SHORTER WAIT COULD MEAN
Less rent to pay. Fewer days sitting empty.
Example: $3,600/month today → $1,800/month in an affordable home. Move in 119 days sooner.
FOR THE HOUSEHOLD
$7,042
less spent on rent
FOR THE OWNER
$7,042
in rent earned before expenses
The same example across 20,000 move-ins in a year
$140.8M less spent on rent
$140.8M in rent earned before expenses
Illustration over 119 days, not measured LOTB results. Household savings and owner rent are separate amounts; they are not added together.
Adjust the example · calculations and sources
Household: ($3,600 − $1,800) × 119 × 12 ÷ 365 = $7,042. Owner: $1,800 × 119 × 12 ÷ 365 = $7,042. Rounded to whole dollars.
Assumes a ready home, fully paid rent and an immediate end to the previous rent, with no overlap. The owner would otherwise collect no rent for these 119 days. Excludes fees, utilities, assistance, moving and operating costs. Annual totals repeat this one move-in window for each household; they are not recurring yearly savings or a return on tax benefits.
The $3,600 starting point rounds Zillow’s $3,623 New York rental-market average, dated September 18, 2026 (all bedrooms and property types). It is a listing-market reference, not the average rent of occupied apartments or a verified household expense. Zillow · New York rental averages ↗
The $1,800 affordable lease is an assumption, not a citywide average or program limit. A household paying less before moving sees an added rent cost instead of savings.
NYC reported 10,336 Housing Connect placements in FY2025. The 20,000 option is hypothetical. Neither volume establishes these households’ rents or waiting times. NYC · FY2025 placement figures ↗
The City reports a 210-day median for FY2025 lottery applicant approvals. Our 140-to-21-day example is a separate assumption, not a measured improvement. NYC · SPEED report, p. 23 ↗
ONE HOME. ONE CONTINUING RECORD.
Keep the promise through every lease.
LOTB proposes linking the public benefit, lease and rent history so each move-in and renewal can start from the same record.
- 01
Know the promise
Connect each public benefit to the homes and rent rules it supports.
- 02
Carry it into the lease
Keep the affordability terms and supporting documents together.
- 03
Keep it through each renewal
Trace rent changes even when the tenant or owner changes.
Under 485-x, affordable units remain permanently affordable. Faster move-ins also depend on agency processes and ready homes; a shared record alone cannot guarantee them.
The bigger picture: homes, public benefits and shared records
One apartment. Many systems.
A tax lot, a building, a rent registration, a deed: each system holds a piece. Answering a simple question about one home means connecting them.
Follow one apartment for thirty-five years.
Public benefits come with housing obligations that need continuing verification.
A household waits while eligibility and lease documents are checked.
An empty home delays the household’s move and the owner’s rental income.
The owner prints the history. The tenant waits for mail.
One home. One shared lifecycle record.
LOTB connects the building, unit, lease, legal rent, public benefit and affordability obligation in one traceable history. The record stays with the home when tenants and owners change.
THE DIGITAL HOUSING RECORD
- Building
- Unit
- Lease
- Legal rent
- Public benefit
- Obligation
One continuing history, with access suited to each role. The rail below illustrates a benefit period; 485-x affordability can continue beyond it.
THE SCALE OF THE RECORD GAP
- rent-stabilized homes in NYC
- 1M+
- 1,023,964 apartments registered in 2025 across the five boroughs.
- HCR · 2025 annual report, p. 5
- in annual 421-a tax benefits
- $2.14B
- FY2026 estimated tax revenue forgone across both 421-a programs.
- NYC DOF · FY2026 report, p. 19
- apartments brought into compliance
- 205K
- HCR reports registration enforcement brought 13,000+ buildings into compliance statewide.
- HCR · 2025 annual report, p. 11
PRIVACY-PRESERVING SIGNALS
Connect the decisions. Protect the details.
DOF holds confidential property income and expense filings (RPIE). The Rent Guidelines Board receives summarized data. A shared record should connect authorized signals while private filings stay with their custodians.
RGB · 2026 study, methodology p. 21Questions an authorized signal could answer
- Is a required rent registration missing?
- Does a public benefit have a matching housing obligation?
- Does financial stress warrant a closer review?
Proposed capabilities, subject to legal authority and access controls. This demo has no access to confidential RPIE filings and produces no real building distress flags.
A useful record for everyone involved.
The outcomes this shared record is designed to support.
01 / Tenant
Understand your rent.
Trace an increase to its source and carry your lease history into the next renewal.
02 / City
See where to look first.
Connect benefits, obligations and compliance signals to prioritize human review.
03 / Owner
Show your compliance.
Keep supporting filings and a consistent history ready for renewals and ownership transfers.
04 / Advocate
Start with evidence.
Trace public obligations and help tenants use the records they choose to share.
The public cannot protect what it cannot trace.
50,830 NYC buildings with rent-stabilized units on record1,555,612 units reported in the tax-bill datasetREAL DATA · TAX-BILL RECORDS · EXPLORE →Real NYC data. DHCR and DOF answered at once, in one lookup.
The +6.00% renewal, decomposed to the filing behind each component. Find the 1.25% with nothing behind it.
The same fact as $276.32 overpaid, a missing-documentation flag, and the top of an enforcement queue.
A +6.00% renewal, decomposed: 2.75% Rent Guidelines Board order, 2.00% verified capital improvements — and 1.25% with no filing at all. Every part carries the document that authorizes it. When a part has none, the record says so.
HPD violations, DOF tax status, DHCR registrations and improvement filings resolve to a single building. Checking a building's standing takes one lookup instead of an afternoon.
The honest owner gets something a fraudster can't fake: a signed, lender-verifiable extract of the building's public history, ready when selling or refinancing. The code is open source and the record is public — HCR can offer instant stabilization lookups as a service, without anyone paying for access to the truth.
Records are only ever appended. A correction is a new entry that cites the old one — nothing is deleted, so the history of the history stays readable.
- HPD’s 2025 421-a audit selected 60 buildings from about 2,000 eligible properties and checked registration, affordability and rent-stabilization requirements.
- The May 2026 NYC SPEED report gives a 210-day median for FY2025 lottery applicant approvals. The opening’s 140-to-21-day comparison is a separate hypothetical scenario.
- Owners print certified rent histories on demand — hcr.ny.gov/foil.
- Tenant requests arrive by post, 2–4 weeks; DHCR does not email — hcr.ny.gov/records-access.
- Lobby notice requirement — Local Law 86 of 2025, effective January 26, 2026; HPD 001-26.
- An estimated ~300,000 regulated apartments lost since 1990 — white paper §1.
- BBL, BIN, docket and lottery reference are legally distinct — white paper §2.2.