REBNY may support hike in city’s $2,000 rent deregulation threshold

The Real Estate Board of New York is warming to the idea of an increase in the city’s $2,000 rent deregulation limit after years of opposing rent regulations altogether, according to the Wall Street Journal. “We are prepared to look at a higher number,” Steven Spinola, REBNY’s president, told the Journal. “It depends what the rest of the package is.” The stance represents a major shift for the real estate industry’s leading trade association, which has long been fighting off efforts by advocacy groups to limit landlords’ ability to charge market-rate rents in vacant rent-regulated apartments once their rents reached the a certain rent threshold. That threshold, which affects some 1 million New York City apartments, has been set at $2,000 a month since 1993. It’s the first time since 2003 that the city’s rent regulation laws are up for renewal, and with Gov. Andrew Cuomo having indicated that he won’t support an end to rent regulation altogether, as the industry has previously pushed for, the debate has shifted to how, rather than whether, to extend the laws. [WSJ]