Research Guides: Data & Statistics for Journalists: Property / Housing

General

Looking for the value of a specific property, want to check if a building owner has paid their taxes, or view sales data for a neighborhood? Check the links below for ways to pull up property data for New York City.

NYC Housing & Vacancy Survey

Survey of NYC housing, both rental and owned, gathered by the US Census Bureau. HPD has a report on some past data.

NYC Dept. of Buildings

Use the DOB's Buildings Information System to find actions (including new building permits), complaints, violations, alterations, CoOs, # buildings on lot, tax block/lot, landmark status, zoning documents, etc. Can also look up a block (or community district) for new buildings or alterations.

NYC Finance: Property Records

Looking for data on a specific property?

How to find the building owner of record
ACRIS (deeds, mortgages)
Property Tax Bill & Information System includes market value history, building classification, owner & billing address, tax charges, exemptions, abatements & any credits.

Looking for data for a neighborhood or borough?

Rolling 12-month period sales
Annualized sales data (by year)

Research Guide to NYC Buildings (from Columbia’s Avery Library)

NYC Dept. of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD)

NYC Dept. of Planning – Land Use

Land Use Application Search
Land Use Maps (boroughs)

NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission: Publications

Emergency Housing Services in NYC (for displaced persons)

Related Columbia Library Guides:

Federal Government Data on Housing

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) expenditures data.
Family data on public and Indian housing and microdata.
Fair-market rents data, covering the years 2000 to 2015.
Government-sponsored enterprise data. Data sets can be ordered providing information on single-family and multifamily mortgage purchases by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Government-Sponsored Enterprises, or “GSEs”).
Metropolitan area quarterly residential and business vacancy report data. Residential and business vacancies, based on data from the US Postal Service, aggregated to the census-tract level. Designed to supplement vacancy data from the American Community Survey (ACS), Housing Vacancy Survey (HVS) and American Housing Survey (AHS).
National Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) database. The LIHTC program allows the issuing of tax credits for the acquisition, rehabilitation, or construction of rental housing for lower-income households. The database includes the project year, address, number of units, bedrooms, and other characteristics.
Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) data. The Neighborhood Stabilization Program provides assistance to state and local governments to acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties that might otherwise be abandoned.
Program Income Limits Data.