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Housing experts and politicians agree that New York City needs to add hundreds of thousands of new homes. The Real Estate Board of New York is keeping tally.
Dec. 23, 2025, 3:00 a.m. ET
In 2022, Mayor Eric Adams set a “moonshot” goal of building 500,000 homes over the next decade. With people pouring into New York City from around the world and many locals tired of living in overcrowded apartments, housing experts and other politicians agreed that the need for more housing was urgent.
But it is taking on average more than three years to build a single apartment building and the city is not on track to meet that goal, according to a new report released on Tuesday by the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry’s influential lobbying and advocacy group.
The report, which is intended to be the first in a series of checkups on the progress toward 500,000 new homes, found that the sluggish pace of construction is holding the city back. It estimated that it takes on average 3.4 years to build a new apartment building; in Manhattan, it takes more than four years, the report said.
Since the beginning of 2024, the city has already added some 66,000 units, according to the report, and is adding about 9,450 units per quarter. But it needs to be adding more than 13,100 each quarter to meet the 500,000 unit goal.
The slow going is the result of many factors, including regulations and red tape; zoning restrictions; high interest rates; and the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, when construction ground to a halt, said Basha Gerhards, the board’s executive vice president of public policy.
The report is the latest to underscore the challenges facing New York City, which has an apartment vacancy rate of just 1.4, the lowest in more than 50 years, as rents continue to rise.
