For NYC Renters
Know what you're signing.
A showing tells you how an apartment looks for twenty minutes. The city's record tells you what the last five years in that building were actually like.
760K
NYC buildings covered
10M
Violation records
6.0M
Tenant complaints
$0
To read any building
What a showing can't tell you
The things renters find out in month three
It all sits in city records under the building's address.
The neighbor nobody mentions
The showing was at 10am on a Tuesday. The building was quiet. What the showing can't tell you is how many times someone in it has called the city about noise at 2am — and whether the calls cluster on one line, one floor, or the block outside.
Noise complaints, by type and by year
Music, parties, construction, street noise — separated out, with when they were filed.
The construction that starts at 7am
A permit for the lot next door is filed months before anything visible happens. By the time the scaffolding goes up you've signed a year lease. The filing was public the whole time — it just isn't on the listing.
Active permits on and near the block
What's filed, what kind of work it is, and how close it is to the building.
The heat that never came on
Heat works fine in September. The record that matters is the previous two winters — how many heat and hot water complaints came out of the building, whether they turned into violations, and how long the landlord took to close them. The listing said "well-maintained."
Heat and hot water history
Winter-by-winter complaints, the violations they became, and how fast they were cured.
What's on the record for the address you're considering?
This information exists. It's just not on the listing.
Read it before the lease, not after.
Search an addressWhat's on every building page
Free to read, for any address in the five boroughs.
Open violations
Mold, pests, heat, structural — what's still open, and what the landlord already fixed.
Complaint history
Noise, heat, pests, construction — what tenants have been reporting, going back years.
Who actually owns it
The LLC on the lease traced back to a real name, plus every other building they hold.
Rent stabilization status
Whether the unit is registered as stabilized, and whether the count has been shrinking.
Construction permits
Work filed inside the building and on the block that will affect how it feels to live there.
What's on the block
The corridor around the address — noise patterns, staging, and the things you only learn after moving in.
The renter's guide to building history and housing filings
What to check before signing an NYC lease
A showing at 10 a.m. on a quiet Tuesday won't show you night noise or a slow landlord. City inspection records show open violations, recent repair orders and tenant complaints across several seasons.
Spotting chronic heat and hot water problems
Winter heat outages are among the most disruptive problems tenants face. When heat or hot water fails, inspectors issue urgent Class C violations. How fast those close, compared with the 111-day city norm, shows whether the landlord takes repairs seriously.
Finding the landlord behind the LLC
Most buildings are registered to their own LLC, which hides who's in charge. Looking up the company links the building to the landlord's other buildings, so you can see whether repairs get handled across all of them.
Read the building before you sign.
Free building page. No account needed.