There is one definitive answer and a set of useful clues. The definitive answer is free and official; the clues start with your address.
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New York State keeps the registration record for every stabilized apartment. Request your unit's rent history free through the Ask HCR portal, run by NYS Homes and Community Renewal. It shows every registered rent for your apartment, which answers the question and often more.
Buildings built before 1974 with six or more units are commonly stabilized. Buildings that took certain tax benefits must register units for the benefit period. And the registration record itself is a signal: In 2023, the most recent registration year PulseCities holds, 884,441 stabilized units were registered across 32,599 NYC buildings. The state withdrew its annual snapshot dataset in April 2026, so nothing newer is published here. A building that stops registering units year over year is a building worth watching, which is exactly how PulseCities uses the data on every neighborhood page.
The same address search shows who took the deed on your building, the eviction record, and open violations. Who owns my building → Look up an eviction case →
The definitive answer is your rent history, free from New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Request it through the Ask HCR portal. Building-level clues help too: buildings built before 1974 with six or more units are commonly stabilized, and buildings receiving certain tax benefits must register stabilized units.
DHCR publishes building-level registration lists, but they lag and a building's presence or absence is not conclusive for any single apartment. That is why the rent history request exists.
A sale does not end stabilization; the status attaches to the apartment, not the owner. Since the 2019 housing law, most paths that removed apartments from stabilization are closed, though earlier deregulations still stand. If your rent jumped after a renovation, the rent history shows how the increases were registered.
Neighborhood pages track registered stabilized-unit counts year over year as a displacement signal: a building that stops registering units is a building worth watching.
PulseCities reads public registration data; it does not determine any apartment's legal status. For a binding answer, request your rent history from DHCR. How PulseCities reads the record →