Run your building’s actual numbers
Fill in what you know and leave the rest at the example figures. Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is saved — the arithmetic happens in your browser as you type. If you have never built a spreadsheet for this, that is exactly who it is for.
What the building does
Per year, unless the line says otherwise.
For a sense of scale: the New York City Rent Guidelines Board measured average net operating income in Queens at roughly $620 per unit per month in its 2024 Income and Expense Study, across the rent-stabilized buildings that file income and expense statements. Your building is not that average, and a number above or below it is not by itself good or bad — but it is a real yardstick rather than a made-up one.
This is arithmetic on the figures you typed. It is not an appraisal, a projection or a tax document, it does not model depreciation, capital work, refinancing or your personal tax position, and it assumes every unit is rented at the average you entered. Take it to your accountant before you make a decision with it.
What one change is worth
Three levers, applied to the numbers you just entered. This is the part of the job worth paying for, and it is also the part that is easiest to check — move a slider and watch which one actually moves your cash.
Nothing here is a promise about your building. It is the same arithmetic as above with three inputs changed, so you can see which lever is worth the most before anybody quotes you a fee. On most small buildings it is the vacancy slider, which is the whole argument of this page.
Six things that decide what you net
Not a service list. These are the specific places where money is won or lost on a small residential building in New York.
Price off what has signed, not off what is asking
Listing sites show you the apartments that have not rented yet. That is the wrong sample. The number that matters is what has actually signed within a few blocks, in a comparable line, in the last sixty days. Testing the market a hundred and fifty dollars high usually costs more in empty weeks than it ever recovers in rent, and it is the single most common way an owner loses money while feeling careful.
Days empty are the line item, and three levers move them
Asking price, photography, and how fast an inquiry gets answered. In that order. Amenity lists and listing copy matter at the margin. A unit that is priced right, shown well and answered the same day does not sit, and in Queens it does not need to: the borough’s net rental vacancy rate was measured at 0.88 percent in the most recent city housing survey.
A lease kept is a leasing fee you never pay
Since June 2025, under the FARE Act, the party who hires the broker pays the broker — which for a rental usually means the owner. The leasing fee moved off the tenant’s side of the table and onto yours. That changes the arithmetic of retention permanently: every renewal is now a fee not incurred and a vacancy not suffered. Renewal conversations start early here, not thirty days out.
The fee should ride on rent collected, not rent due
A fee charged on rent due means you pay your manager in exactly the months you are not being paid yourself, and it removes their urgency about collection. Ask any manager you interview which basis they use, and ask what happens to the fee while a unit sits empty. Many will not volunteer either answer.
A markup on every invoice is where a low headline rate comes back
A manager quoting six percent who adds fifteen percent to every plumber’s bill can cost you more across a year than one quoting eight and billing at cost. The number to compare is not the management percentage. It is the total that left your account in twelve months.
A statement your accountant can actually use
Monthly income and expense reporting organized the way Schedule E asks for it, so that April is a filing exercise and not an archaeology project, and so that you can see a roof or a boiler coming before it arrives as an emergency. Confirm the tax treatment with your own accountant — that is their call, not mine.
What getting it wrong costs, in dollars
These are published penalty and cost figures, not estimates. They are the reason a compliance calendar is the cheapest thing on this page.
Per day, heat or hot water
A first heat or hot water violation carries a civil penalty of $250 to $500 per day under Housing Maintenance Code § 27-2115, rising to $500 to $1,000 per day for repeat violations — and it is a Class C condition, the immediately hazardous class. A three-week problem in January is not a maintenance issue. It is a four-figure one.
Allowed increase on a stabilized lease
The Rent Guidelines Board set zero percent for one and two year leases commencing 1 October 2026 through 30 September 2027, while the same board measured building operating costs rising 5.3 percent. If you own regulated units there is no rent headroom next year, which leaves exactly two levers: keep the tenant, and when a unit does turn, lease it fast.
To move a nonpayment case
Housing Court is a cost center, not a remedy. Rent accrues the whole time and is largely uncollectable in practice. Everything that protects you happens before that: screening applied identically to every applicant, a documented file, and a follow-up on day fifteen rather than day ninety.
The two ledgers
A management proposal puts its cost on one line, which makes it feel expensive. Self-managing spreads its cost across your calendar and the city’s penalty schedules, which makes it feel free. Neither impression survives the arithmetic. Fill in your own numbers — I am not going to put a made-up average in your mouth.
| Line item | Running it yourself | Handing it over |
|---|---|---|
| Management fee | None | A percentage of rent collected — quoted on your building, in writing |
| Vacancy loss | Your days, at your daily rent. Use the calculator above. | Same arithmetic, fewer days, and somebody whose job it is to count them |
| Leasing fee | Yours since the FARE Act, whether or not you use a broker | Charged after the tenant takes possession, not for the effort of looking |
| Make-ready | Your quotes, your scheduling, your follow-up | Billed at invoice, scheduled against the lease date rather than around it |
| Emergency coverage | You, at 2 a.m., including the week you are away | Included |
| Compliance exposure | Carried personally, priced per day by the city | Tracked on a calendar; the fee does not move when a filing is due |
| Your hours | Put your own hourly number on it. That is the line most owners never fill in. | Reviewing a statement |
When running it yourself is the right answer
If you live in or near the building, it is two to six units, your tenants have been there for years, you have a plumber and an electrician who pick up, and you genuinely have the hours — you may well be better off keeping it. I would rather say that than take on a building I cannot improve. The honest test is whether you are choosing the work or absorbing it.
What to ask any manager in New York, including me
- Is your fee charged on rent collected or rent due? One of those pays you in the months I am not being paid.
- Does the monthly fee change while a unit is vacant? The answer tells you whose problem the empty unit is.
- Do you mark up vendor invoices, and by how much? That is where a low headline percentage comes back.
- When is the placement fee earned — at signing, or when the tenant takes possession?
- How many buildings does the person handling mine actually carry? Five percent from someone carrying eighty buildings is a worse deal than seven from someone carrying fifteen.
- If I want to end the management agreement, what do I pay and how much notice do I give? Get the actual cancellation clause in writing before you sign — the exact fee and the exact number of days — not a verbal “don’t worry, you can leave anytime.”
- Are you a licensed New York broker? Collecting rent for someone else requires a broker’s license in this state. An unlicensed manager cannot even sue to collect their own fee.
What I manage
One to four family houses, small multifamily buildings, and individual condo and co-op units, concentrated in Queens and reaching across New York City. Owner-occupied two and three family houses get extra attention on references, for the obvious reason: you are going to share a hallway with the outcome.
If your building has rent-stabilized units, say so in the first conversation. Registering a regulated apartment wrong can create an overcharge exposure that follows the building for years, and it is not something to discover later.
Where the numbers on this page come from
- Queens net rental vacancy rate of 0.88 percent — 2023 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey, HPD and the U.S. Census Bureau. Most recent released edition.
- Zero percent allowed increase for leases commencing 1 October 2026 to 30 September 2027, and the 5.3 percent rise in operating costs — NYC Rent Guidelines Board Order 58 and its 2026 Price Index of Operating Costs.
- Heat and hot water civil penalties — New York City Housing Maintenance Code § 27-2115, as amended.
- Broker licensing requirement for collecting rent — New York Real Property Law § 440(1); § 442-d bars an unlicensed party from recovering compensation.
- FARE Act — New York City Local Law 119 of 2024, effective 11 June 2025.
- The vacancy figures in the calculator are arithmetic on the rent you enter. They are not a forecast, a benchmark, or a promise about your building.