Shocking statistic
I knew that rent controls have frozen a great deal of New York's housing stock, but I had no idea how much. From the WSJ:
Today, there are 43,317 apartments where tenants (or their heirs) pay rents first frozen in 1947. There are another 1,043,677 units covered by rent stabilization. All told, about 70% of the city's rental apartments are either rent controlled or rent stabilized.
Every new entrant into the New York rental market is competing for just 30% of the available housing stock. This explains a lot about New York's rental culture. Also why so much rental housing is being converted into condos or co-ops.