NYC Housing Connect Lottery, Explained: A 2026 Guide

TL;DR

• HPD’s own lottery file shows who new units are priced for. Of the 23,820 units advertised in the 591 Housing Connect lotteries that opened from September 2024 through August 2026, 37 percent carried an income limit in the middle-income band (121 to 165 percent of AMI, up to $196,020 for one person) and 2.6 percent in the band at 30 percent of AMI or below. Fewer than 5 percent had three or more bedrooms. Our tables and the download are in the second section.
• Housing Connect is HPD’s centralized lottery portal at housingconnect.nyc.gov for new income-restricted apartments produced by 421-a legacy, 485-x (the April 2024 successor), MIH, inclusionary, LIHTC, HOME, and HDC-financed programs. NYCHA, Mitchell-Lama and the private market each run through their own channels.
• 2024 citywide aggregate: 6 million applications for ~10,000 units across ~300 buildings. That is a 0.2 percent citywide selection probability per applicant per application. Average per development: ~16,000 applicants per building.
• The community preference share is 20 percent. Settled in Noel v. City of New York (January 22, 2024, effective late April 2024), down from 50 percent, and HPD’s file shows the switch: 201 of the 202 lotteries opened since May 2024 that record the share list 20 percent. Steps down to 15 percent on May 1, 2029.
• The 2026 AMI chart (HPD): 100 percent AMI is $118,800 for one person, $152,700 for three, $169,600 for four. 80 percent AMI is $95,040 for one and $135,680 for four.
• The documentation stage rejects ~77 percent of called applicants per NYU Furman Center, April 2026. About half never engage meaningfully; about a quarter engage and are rejected at a median 29 days.
• HPD Commissioner Dina Levy was appointed early January 2026 (announced January 5). The Mamdani administration’s SPEED initiative (announced May 22, 2026) targets a lottery window of 21 days (from 60) and an application-to-approval time under 100 days (from 142) by end of 2026.

Most New Yorkers searching for affordable housing in 2026 land at one of three places: a NYCHA waitlist that NYCHA paused new Section 8 voucher issuance from on August 1, 2025; a Mitchell-Lama waitlist that is per-development and frozen at most buildings; or Housing Connect at housingconnect.nyc.gov. Of those three, Housing Connect is the only realistic near-term path for most income-qualified applicants. It’s also the one 6 million people applied to in 2024 to fill about 10,000 units.

HPD publishes a record of every lottery it has advertised on Housing Connect since July 2020, and we counted every unit in it. The largest block of new lottery apartments went to middle-income households: 8,883 of the 23,820 units advertised in the two years through August 2026 carried income limits between 121 and 165 percent of AMI, which for one person means ceilings between about $144,000 and $196,020. If you earn in that range and assumed the lottery was for someone else, that band is the reason to apply. A household that needs three bedrooms had 1,139 units to compete for across the whole city in those two years.

This guide walks the lottery data, the qualification math, the random log number mechanic, the post-Noel preference structure, the documentation stage that sinks most called applicants, and the 485-x supply pipeline through 2034. For the broader seven-regime architecture (NYCHA, Section 8, Mitchell-Lama, rent stabilization, Good Cause, market-rate, supportive), the parent NYC housing guide is the map. This page picks up at the lottery.

What Housing Connect Is and What It Isn’t

Housing Connect is the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s centralized lottery portal for new income-restricted apartments produced by NYC’s affordable-housing programs. HPD launched it in 2013 and rebuilt it as Housing Connect 2.0 in 2020. The portal aggregates listings from 421-a legacy projects (the program sunset in April 2024 but the pipeline runs for years), the 485-x successor program (April 2024 onward), Mandatory Inclusionary Housing under the December 2024 City of Yes for Housing Opportunity expansion, voluntary inclusionary projects, LIHTC and HOME federally funded buildings, NYC Housing Development Corporation (HDC) financed projects, and supportive housing programs.

The operational architecture has two layers. HPD operates the portal, sets program rules, and supervises managing agents. Each building’s developer contracts with a managing agent who runs day-to-day lottery operations: calling applicants, collecting documentation, signing leases. The documentation review happens at the managing agent. HPD audits; the managing agent is the operational counterparty when you’re called.

Four systems people confuse with Housing Connect, each with its own front door:

• The NYCHA Section 8 voucher waitlist. That waitlist had been closed since December 2009, briefly reopened June 3 through 9, 2024 with 200,000 households selected, and as of August 1, 2025 NYCHA paused new voucher issuance from the general waitlist. About 197,000 households were on the waitlist as of October 2025.
• The NYCHA public housing waitlist. Technically open, practically frozen behind chronically homeless, domestic violence survivors, NYCHA workers’ families, and witness protection priority categories. NYCHA operates 177,565 apartments through its own application channel. For the full NYCHA architecture (public housing vs HCV mechanics, the federal monitor era, the $78.3B PNA capital fight, PACT pipeline), see the NYCHA Public Housing guide.
• Mitchell-Lama. The Mitchell-Lama program, enacted in 1955, has roughly 93,000 units statewide (most in NYC). Each development keeps its own waitlist. HPD administers the city Mitchell-Lama side; NYS HCR administers the state side. Apply through the specific development’s office.
• The private market. Market-rate apartments are searched on StreetEasy, RentHop, and brokerage sites. Housing Connect awards income-restricted leases only.

If you don’t qualify for Housing Connect, the NYC housing guide routes you to the regime that actually does.

What HPD’s Lottery Records Show: 1,741 Lotteries Since July 2020

HPD publishes two files on NYC Open Data that record every lottery advertised on Housing Connect since July 2020, one with a row per lottery and one with a row per building. We pulled both in full on September 25, 2026 (HPD last updated both on September 7, 2026) and counted every unit by income band, bedroom count, borough, neighborhood and set-aside. The files hold 1,741 lotteries and 64,340 units, from lotteries that opened July 30, 2020 through September 3, 2026.

Three limits on what the files say. They count units advertised when a lottery opened, which is a different number from leases signed. HPD leaves out mini-lotteries (re-rentals of vacant units) and Mitchell-Lama waitlist lotteries. And no row carries an application count, so the odds figures elsewhere on this page come from HPD officials and the Furman Center, never from these files.

Download the data: one row per lottery, CSV (1,741 rows, 214 KB) and every aggregate on this page, JSON (12 KB). Free to reuse with a link back to this page.

Who the units are priced for

Every unit in HPD’s file carries an income limit, and HPD sorts those limits into six bands. Here are the last two years of supply.

Units in the 591 Housing Connect lotteries that opened September 1, 2024 through August 31, 2026, counted in the HPD band their income limit falls in. Dollar figures are the top of each band on HPD’s 2026 AMI chart. Sources: HPD, Advertised Lotteries on Housing Connect by Lottery (vy5i-a666), NYC Open Data, pulled September 25, 2026; HPD Area Median Income, 2026 chart.

The middle band is the largest single block of new lottery housing in the city: 8,883 units, more than the two lowest bands, up to 50 percent of AMI, combined (4,492). Just over half of all units, 53.5 percent, carried a limit at or below 80 percent of AMI. The thinnest band outside the two extremes sits in between: a single earner making roughly $96,000 to $142,560 lands in the moderate band, which got 2,128 units in two years. Across the full file since July 2020 the split is almost the same, 53.0 percent at or below 80 percent of AMI and 38.4 percent in the middle band.

The file records the ceiling of each unit’s band and leaves out the floor. Every lottery also posts a minimum income, and the listing page is where you find it.

Year by year

Lotteries by the year they opened for applications. Source: HPD, Advertised Lotteries on Housing Connect by Lottery (vy5i-a666), NYC Open Data, pulled September 25, 2026.

2025 was the biggest year in the file, with 13,681 units in 306 lotteries. The file counts 12,096 units in lotteries that opened in 2024. The “about 10,000 units” HPD officials gave QNS for 2024 is a rounder figure on a basis they did not spell out, and we could not reconcile the two. The 2026 lotteries so far lean lower-income, with 64.4 percent of units at or below 80 percent of AMI, but that is eight months of one pipeline.

Most lotteries are small, and most units sit in the big ones. In the two years through August 2026 the median lottery had 16 units, and 231 of the 591 lotteries (39.1 percent) had 10 or fewer. The 59 lotteries with 100 or more units carried 50.3 percent of all units.

Bedroom sizes

Studios and one-bedrooms were 65.8 percent of the units (15,668). Three-bedroom and larger apartments were 4.8 percent: 1,139 units across the five boroughs in two years, 63 of them with four or more bedrooms. A family of five or six applying through Housing Connect is competing for the smallest slice of the supply.

Where the units are

Lotteries that opened September 1, 2024 through August 31, 2026. Source: HPD, Advertised Lotteries on Housing Connect by Lottery (vy5i-a666), NYC Open Data, pulled September 25, 2026.

The income mix changes by borough. In the Bronx, 77.2 percent of lottery units carried a limit at or below 80 percent of AMI; in Queens it was 41.5 percent and in Brooklyn 47.0 percent. Brooklyn and Queens together held 77.4 percent of the middle-band units (4,096 and 2,776 of 8,883), so a middle-income applicant should expect most of that supply there. Staten Island produced three lotteries and 44 units in two years.

The ten neighborhoods with the most lottery units in lotteries that opened September 1, 2024 through August 31, 2026, by building address. Sources: HPD, Advertised Lotteries on Housing Connect By Building (nibs-na6y), joined to NYC Planning’s 2020 Neighborhood Tabulation Areas (9nt8-h7nd), NYC Open Data, pulled September 25, 2026.

If you already live in the community district around one of these neighborhoods, the 20 percent community preference puts you in the smaller pool for lotteries there. Some of these totals come from a handful of big buildings: Flushing-Willets Point’s 750 units came from two lotteries and Inwood’s 871 from five.

Set-asides, as HPD recorded them

HPD’s file records set-aside shares for a minority of lotteries. 1,329 of the 1,741 lotteries (76.3 percent) leave the community preference field blank; they are mostly small, with a median of 7 units, and hold 47.3 percent of all units. Where a share is recorded, it matches the rules described in the next sections.

All lotteries July 30, 2020 through September 3, 2026. Source: HPD, Advertised Lotteries on Housing Connect by Lottery (vy5i-a666), NYC Open Data, pulled September 25, 2026.

The two rule changes show up in the file on the dates they were reported to take effect: community preference moved from 50 to 20 percent with the Noel settlement, and the municipal employee share doubled to 10 percent with veterans added from November 15, 2025. Senior set-asides are rare. Fourteen of the 591 lotteries in the last two years carried one.

Eligibility: Who Can Apply and Who Can’t

Five tests, all of which must pass for any given lottery.

Test 1: household income falls within the lottery’s AMI band. Every lottery posts an AMI band (e.g., 30 percent to 60 percent AMI, or 100 percent to 130 percent AMI). Both ends are real disqualifiers. Below the floor, applicants are deemed unable to pay the rent. Above the ceiling, applicants are over the income limit. The next section walks the AMI math.

Test 2: household composition matches the unit size. Studios and one-bedrooms have household-size caps (typically one or two for a studio; one to three for a 1BR). Each lottery posts its own composition rules on the listing page. Read each lottery’s table before assuming you fit.

Test 3: credit, rental history, and background check pass. Each managing agent runs a credit check against the lottery’s posted criteria, reviews rental history, and runs a criminal background check subject to the Fair Chance for Housing Act (Local Law 24 of 2024, effective January 1, 2025). The Act bars criminal-history screening until an applicant has been tentatively approved on income, credit, and rental-history grounds. When the check does run, sealed or expunged convictions and older offenses cannot be considered; registered sex offenses, recent misdemeanors (3 years post-release), and recent felonies (5 years post-release) can. Federally funded buildings (LIHTC, HOME, project-based vouchers) have program-specific carve-outs. NYC Commission on Human Rights enforces, $250,000 per-violation penalty cap, 5 business days for applicants to respond.

Test 4: no conflicting NYC housing subsidy. Section 8 voucher holders can typically use the voucher on a Housing Connect-won apartment, but the application must comply with both systems. Check HPD guidance per program.

Test 5: most lotteries do not require U.S. citizenship. One of the largest practical differences from federal NYCHA and Section 8 programs. The non-federally-funded majority of Housing Connect units (421-a legacy, 485-x, MIH, voluntary inclusionary, HDC-financed) is immigration-status-blind. The federally funded subset (LIHTC, HOME, project-based vouchers, some supportive housing) carries federal restrictions.

Before applying, pull your last two to three years of federal tax returns, gather the last two months of pay stubs and bank statements for every adult, and list every household member by age and relationship. The full document inventory is in the documentation section below.

The 2026 AMI Chart: What 60%, 80%, 100%, and 130% Mean in Dollars

AMI is Area Median Income for the New York City region, set each year by HUD. HPD publishes the chart Housing Connect lotteries use on its Area Median Income page. The 2026 chart puts 100 percent of AMI at $152,700 for a three-person household, and each column is a straight multiple of the 100 percent row.

Source: HPD, 2026 New York City Area AMI chart, retrieved September 25, 2026. HPD’s full chart runs to 12-person households and adds 20, 40, 70, 90, 110, 120 and 175 percent columns.

The chart tells you where you land. The listing decides whether you qualify: every lottery posts its own income table with a minimum and a maximum by household size, and that table is the one the managing agent checks.

Where some New York incomes land on the 2026 chart:

• A single person earning $60,000 is at about 51 percent of AMI.
• A single person earning $85,000 is at about 72 percent.
• A single person earning $130,000 is at about 109 percent.
• A household of three earning $100,000 is at about 65 percent.
• A couple earning $200,000 together is at about 147 percent, inside the middle band.

Real NYC households fall at every tier of the chart, and the lottery supply follows. The middle band, 121 to 165 percent of AMI, carried 37.3 percent of the units advertised in the two years through August 2026 (see the income-band table above), so a household earning six figures should read the middle-income listings before assuming Housing Connect is for someone else.

The Lottery Mechanic: Random Log Numbers, Preferences, and the Selection-Odds Reality

Four steps take an application from submitted to called.

Step 1: lottery opens, applications collected. Each lottery has an application window. Pre-SPEED standard: 60 days. Post-SPEED target: 21 days (the Mamdani administration’s compression, announced May 2026 and rolling out through end of 2026). One profile per household; one application per lottery; the portal blocks duplicate applications.

Step 2: random log numbers assigned at close. When the application window closes, HPD’s portal scrambles all complete applicant profiles and assigns each applicant a random log number. This happens within roughly two to three weeks of the deadline. Log number 1 means first in line for processing; log number 50,000 means likely never called for a 200-unit building.

Step 3: preference categories sort the queue ahead of the random log number. Within the log-number order, applicants are sorted by preference category. Higher-preference applicants are processed first regardless of log number. The current preference structure, post-Noel settlement (effective late April 2024) and post-Adams “Housing Week” expansion (effective November 15, 2025):

The 20 percent figure is the correction most guides still miss. Many commercial guides and much NYC media coverage still cite “50 percent community preference,” and that number expired in 2024. The Noel v. City of New York settlement was filed January 22, 2024 by attorney Craig Gurian and the Anti-Discrimination Center on behalf of plaintiffs Shauna Noel and Emmanuella Senat. The city did not admit liability and agreed not to seek a return to 50 percent. The 20 percent took effect late April 2024; the step-down to 15 percent hits May 1, 2029; a federal court retains oversight through April 2036.

Step 4: selection in order. The managing agent calls applicants in preference plus log-number order until the building is leased. Agents call well past the unit count, because most called applicants drop out at the document stage (next section).

The selection-odds reality. The citywide aggregate for 2024, per HPD Acting Commissioner Ahmed Tigani and the NYU Furman Center’s April 2026 report: 6 million applications for about 10,000 units across roughly 300 buildings, a 0.2 percent citywide selection probability per applicant per application. Average applications per development: about 16,000. HPD’s public lottery file carries no application counts, so per-lottery odds come from reported cases:

• Bronx Point Phase 1 (575 Exterior St, Mott Haven, L+M Development Partners with Type A Projects and BronxWorks): 542 affordable units across a 30 percent to 120 percent AMI range. More than 63,000 applications at the Phase 1 close, about 116 applications per unit.
• Bedford Union Armory (1101 President St, Crown Heights, BFC Partners): 160 affordable units across a 30 to 60 percent AMI range, application window closed August 13, 2025. Built into the 20 percent community preference for Brooklyn Community District 9.
• Plank Road / 662 Pacific (Prospect Heights, the Brodsky Organization): 94 middle-income units in the Pacific Park footprint, 130 percent AMI band only, a single-band middle-income lottery of the kind that made up 37 percent of recent supply.

Applying broadly is the strongest move available. Each application costs little once your profile is saved, and with selection odds near 0.2 percent per application, the number of lotteries you enter is the one variable you control.

The Documentation Moment: What HPD and the Managing Agent Actually Ask For

The most-blown stage of the entire process. When the managing agent calls you for verification, you have 14 to 30 days to produce:

• Federal tax returns (Form 1040, all schedules), last 2 to 3 years, every adult. Self-employed: full Schedule C with profit-and-loss. Extensions accepted but disfavored.
• Pay stubs, last 2 months, every employed adult. Bonuses and commissions are scrutinized.
• Bank statements, last 2 months, every account. Large recent deposits trigger source-of-funds questions.
• Government-issued ID, Social Security cards or ITIN documentation, every adult.
• Birth certificates for household members under 18.
• Marriage, divorce, or custody paperwork as applicable.
• Current lease and landlord reference letters for the past 2 to 3 years.
• Self-employment business documentation (licenses, articles of incorporation, P&L) if applicable.
• Asset documentation for retirement, brokerage, and real estate. Some buildings have asset caps; check the listing.
• Citizenship or immigration documentation only at federally funded buildings.

Per the NYU Furman Center’s April 2026 report The House Doesn’t Always Win: Understanding NYC’s Housing Connect Lottery System and How to Improve It, roughly 77 percent of called applicants end up in rejected status. Breaking that down: about 50 percent (nearly 32,000 in the sample) do not engage meaningfully with the verification process; about 27 percent (roughly 17,000) engage and are rejected after a median of 29 days in the documentation stage.

Common failure modes: income above the band cap between application and verification (single most common kill); income below the band floor; bank statement deposits the applicant can’t document (gift funds need gift letters); self-employed applicants without clean Schedule C, P&L, or business licenses; and the 14-to-30-day window simply running out. The applicants who get leases are the ones who can document inside the window.

The single most useful preparation move: gather the full document inventory the day you submit any application. Store it in one folder. If called, respond within 48 hours.

What Happens If You Decline, Get Denied, or Miss the Window

Four scenarios after the call.

You decline an offered unit. Your application stays active for future lotteries. No penalty. Decline through the managing agent’s channel; don’t ghost (creates a paper trail).

You fail income verification, above the band cap. Application terminated for that lottery; reapply to higher-AMI lotteries where your income matches. No penalty.

You fail income verification, below the band floor. Application terminated; reapply to lower-AMI lotteries.

You miss the documentation window. Application rolled past; the managing agent moves to the next applicant. No penalty for future applications. Some buildings allow extensions for documented hardship, and that policy is set building by building under HPD supervision.

Waitlist dynamics. Most Housing Connect lotteries that fully lease a building generate a post-lottery waitlist that managing agents draw from for future vacancies (typically two to three years of turnover). Eligible-but-not-placed applicants may be placed on that waitlist. A meaningful share of placements come from waitlist movement, though HPD does not publish an aggregate figure.

Applications are tied to your household and income at the time of application. If either changes substantially between application and call, update your profile or face termination at verification.

If you win a 485-x lottery, you’re entering the rent-stabilized regime; see how rent stabilization works in NYC for the protections that attach to your lease. If your building isn’t stabilized, Good Cause Eviction is the floor.

How to Actually Improve Your Selection Odds

Five strategies that work and two that don’t.

Strategy 1: apply to every lottery you qualify for. The per-application time cost is low (a saved profile autofills most fields), and exposure compounds across 30, 50, 200 applications. HPD’s file had 591 lotteries open in the two years through August 2026, roughly 25 a month.

Strategy 2: include the middle-income lotteries if your income reaches them. The 121 to 165 percent AMI band carried 37.3 percent of units in the last two years, more than any other band, and 77.4 percent of that band’s units were in Brooklyn and Queens. A single person earning about $144,000 to $196,020 is in range for it on the 2026 chart.

Strategy 3: apply where you have community preference. The 20 percent community-preference subset of units is reserved for applicants in the building’s community district. If you live in a CD where a Housing Connect lottery is opening, you compete inside that smaller pool as well as the general one. Confirm your community district at nyc.gov/communityboards before assuming.

Strategy 4: apply to mobility, visual/hearing, or municipal employee plus veterans preference categories if eligible. The smaller-share preference categories (about 5 percent mobility, 2 percent visual/hearing, 10 percent combined municipal-employee-plus-veterans) materially shift placement when applicable.

Strategy 5: follow the supply. Brooklyn produced 39.1 percent of lottery units in the last two years and Queens 23.4 percent. Staten Island produced 44 units in three lotteries, so a plan built around an overlooked borough has little to apply to there. The neighborhood table above shows where the units have been going: Fort Greene, the Gowanus and Red Hook area, Long Island City, Inwood and Flushing-Willets Point led the list.

Two strategies that do NOT work. Re-applying multiple times to the same lottery: the portal blocks duplicates. “Polishing” the application at the open stage: there is no review of applications at the open stage. Log numbers are random. Submission quality matters only at the documentation-review stage, after you’re called.

The Supply Pipeline: 485-x and What Housing Connect Will Look Like Through 2034

485-x is the New York State property-tax exemption program that replaced 421-a in April 2024. It is the supply side of Housing Connect for the next decade. The detail that matters:

The statute. New York State Real Property Tax Law Section 485-x, Affordable Neighborhoods for New Yorkers. Adopted April 20, 2024 in the FY25 state budget. Construction window: after June 15, 2022 and on or before June 15, 2034. Completion deadline (first temporary or permanent CO): before June 15, 2038. Tax-benefit length for the Modest Rental option (6 to 99 units, post-June 30, 2026 commencement): 35 years.

Five affordability options. The largest-project option (150+ units in Zone A or B): 25 percent affordable at 60 percent AMI weighted average. Large Rental (100+ units citywide): 25 percent at 80 percent AMI weighted average. Modest Rental (6 to 99 units): 20 percent at 80 percent AMI weighted average. Small Rental (6 to 10 units outside Manhattan): no affordability requirement, but 50 percent of units permanently rent-stabilized. Homeownership (6+ units outside Manhattan): 100 percent owner-occupied 5+ years, assessed value capped at $89 per square foot.

The structural change from 421-a. 485-x income-restricted units are permanently affordable and permanently rent-stabilized. They do not revert to market rate when the tax window ends. That permanence is what makes 485-x the long-horizon supply pipeline; 421-a units rolled to market on a 25- or 35-year clock.

The wage requirement. 100+ unit projects citywide: $35.00 per hour in 2024, escalating to $45.05 by 2033. Zone A 150+ unit projects (Manhattan below 96th Street plus selected outer NTAs): lesser of $72.45/hour or 65 percent of prevailing rate, +2.5 percent annually. Zone B 150+ unit projects: lesser of $63.00/hour or 60 percent prevailing.

The pipeline-performance question, June 2026 state. HPD does not publish a clean citywide 485-x unit count; the data.gov 485-x registrations dataset was last updated April 3, 2026. What is verified: per Bisnow March 2026, HPD’s vacancy rate sits at about 14 percent (three times the citywide average); per the New York Housing Conference’s November 2025 developer survey, 62 percent of developers blame HPD staffing for project delays; HPD’s legal team has 2 to 3 attorneys approving all preconstruction plans and TCOs.

The Mamdani response. HPD Commissioner Dina Levy was appointed early January 2026 (announced January 5; prior role: NYS HCR Senior Vice President of Homeownership and Community Development). Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg is the cabinet principal. The SPEED initiative, announced May 22, 2026, targets pre-certification compression from 2 years to 6 months, lottery window from 60 days to 21, application-to-approval from 142 days (FY25) to under 100 by end of 2026, and the same 100-day target for selection-to-lease. The LIFT Task Force (city-owned land for housing, deliverable July 1, 2026) is the other lever. The first Mamdani-era public engagement kickoff: Fulton-Howard West at 1958 Fulton St in Bedford-Stuyvesant, 100 percent affordable, launched May 7, 2026.

The November 4, 2025 Charter Revision Commission ballot amendments (AHFT, ELURP, Affordable Housing Appeals Board) also reshape the upstream pipeline by bypassing the Council vote for qualifying affordable-housing rezonings; see NYC rezoning and ULURP, explained.

Housing Connect is the only realistic near-term affordable path for most income-qualified New Yorkers in 2026. The portal handled 6 million applications for about 10,000 units in 2024. The biggest block of recent supply, 37 percent of units, went to the 121 to 165 percent AMI band, and fewer than 5 percent had three or more bedrooms. Community preference is 20 percent. The documentation stage rejects 77 percent of called applicants. And the 485-x pipeline runs through June 15, 2034.

Read Next

• NYC Housing Guide. The parent pillar. The seven-regime decision tree that routes every renter to their regulatory frame: NYCHA, Section 8, Mitchell-Lama, rent stabilization, Good Cause, market-rate, supportive.
• How Rent Stabilization Works in NYC. The sibling spoke. 485-x units enter the stabilized regime, so winning a Housing Connect lottery on a 485-x building means you are a stabilized tenant from day one.
• NYC Good Cause Eviction Law, Explained. The sibling spoke. Good Cause is the floor for tenants whose units aren’t stabilized; some Housing Connect leases land there.
• NY State Budget 2026: What It Means for NYC. The cross-cluster bridge. Albany sets the state-housing money flow that funds NYC’s affordable-housing programs, including the HAVP and 485-x infrastructure.
• About NYC Daily TL;DR. Our reporting principles and editorial standards.

Sources

• HPD, Advertised Lotteries on Housing Connect by Lottery (NYC Open Data dataset vy5i-a666), every lottery advertised on Housing Connect since July 2020: 1,741 lotteries opened July 30, 2020 through September 3, 2026, with unit counts by bedroom size and income band and recorded set-aside shares. Pulled in full through the Socrata API on September 25, 2026; HPD’s last update was September 7, 2026. data.cityofnewyork.us/d/vy5i-a666.
• HPD, Advertised Lotteries on Housing Connect By Building (NYC Open Data dataset nibs-na6y), 2,131 building rows with address, community district and 2020 Neighborhood Tabulation Area, joined to lotteries by lottery ID. Pulled September 25, 2026. data.cityofnewyork.us/d/nibs-na6y. Neighborhood names from NYC Planning’s 2020 Neighborhood Tabulation Areas (9nt8-h7nd), data.cityofnewyork.us/d/9nt8-h7nd. Our aggregates: CSV and JSON.
• NYC Housing Connect portal, the operational anchor: housingconnect.nyc.gov; portal launched 2013, rebuilt as Housing Connect 2.0 in 2020. Per HPD and The Real Deal, March 24, 2026.
• NYC HPD Area Median Income page, the 2026 New York City area AMI chart (100 percent AMI $118,800 for one person, $135,700 for two, $152,700 for three, $169,600 for four; columns from 20 to 175 percent as straight multiples) and HPD’s income-band definitions (six bands from 0-30 percent through 121-165 percent, which the lottery dataset uses). Retrieved September 25, 2026. nyc.gov/site/hpd/services-and-information/area-median-income.page.
• Noel v. City of New York settlement, January 22, 2024 (effective late April 2024): community preference share reduced from 50 percent to 20 percent, with a further reduction to 15 percent on May 1, 2029, and federal court oversight of NYC’s implementation through April 2036. Plaintiffs Shauna Noel and Emmanuella Senat; lead attorney Craig Gurian (Anti-Discrimination Center); co-counsel Cuti Hecker Wang. Per THE CITY, January 22, 2024 (“Lawsuit Deal Downsizes Local-Resident Preference in Affordable Housing Lottery”), Nixon Peabody January 30, 2024, GlobeSt January 24, 2024, and Citizens Housing & Planning Council. thecity.nyc.
• Adams “Housing Week” announcement, November 2025, doubling the municipal employee preference from 5 percent to 10 percent and expanding it to include military veterans, effective November 15, 2025. Per nyc.gov Mayor’s Office, HPD news 054-25, and BKReader (“City Workers And Veterans Get Boost in NYC Housing Lottery”).
• NYC Fair Chance for Housing Act, Local Law 24 of 2024, effective January 1, 2025, enforced by NYC Commission on Human Rights with a $250,000 per-violation penalty cap; applicants get at least 5 business days to respond; background checks permitted only after tentative approval on other criteria; sealed and expunged convictions and older offenses excluded. Per Holland & Knight (February 2025), Jackson Lewis, Norris McLaughlin, and the Fair Chance for Housing coalition.
• NYU Furman Center, The House Doesn’t Always Win: Understanding NYC’s Housing Connect Lottery System and How to Improve It, April 2026: 77 percent of called applicants end up in rejected status; about 50 percent never engage meaningfully; about 27 percent engage and are rejected at a median 29 days at the documentation stage. furmancenter.org.
• QNS, May 22, 2025, citing HPD Acting Commissioner Ahmed Tigani, NYC Housing Conference Executive Director Rachel Fee, and Council Member Pierina Sanchez (D-14, Bronx): 6 million applications for about 10,000 units in 2024 across roughly 300 buildings; average ~16,000 applications per development; FY25 median application-to-approval time 142 days (down from 190+ in FY23-24); median application-to-move-in 12-15 months. qns.com.
• Commercial Observer, April 2026, Carlina Rivera op-ed on Housing Connect reform; Commercial Observer, May 22, 2026, “Mamdani Administration to Reduce Construction Timelines, Overhaul Housing Lottery.” SPEED initiative targets: pre-certification 2 years to 6 months, lottery window 60 days to 21 days, application-to-approval time under 100 days by end of 2026.
• The Real Deal, January 5, 2026 (“Zohran Mamdani Taps Dina Levy for HPD Commissioner”); February 3, 2026 (Levy Q&A); March 24, 2026 (“HPD Pledges Overhaul of Housing Lottery System”). Levy’s prior role: NYS HCR Senior Vice President of Homeownership and Community Development.
• NYC.gov Mayor’s Office, January 2026 announcement of Commissioner Levy’s appointment (announcement date January 5; appointment effective early January 2026); NYC.gov Mayor’s Office, May 7, 2026, public engagement kickoff for Fulton-Howard West at 1958 Fulton St in Bedford-Stuyvesant (former P.S. 28 site), the first Mamdani-era affordable-housing public engagement process.
• Bisnow, March 3, 2026, “Chronic HPD Staff Shortage Could Hamstring Mamdani’s Housing Goals”: HPD vacancy rate at about 14 percent, three times the citywide average. New York Housing Conference, November 2025 developer survey: 62 percent of developers blame HPD staffing for project delays.
• New York State Real Property Tax Law Section 485-x (Affordable Neighborhoods for New Yorkers), adopted April 20, 2024 in the FY25 state budget. Construction window June 15, 2022 through June 15, 2034; completion deadline before June 15, 2038; five affordability options by project size and zone, from the 150-plus-unit rental option to homeownership; wage requirements: $35.00/hour for 100+ unit projects citywide escalating to $45.05/hour by 2033, $72.45/hour Zone A 150+ units, $63.00/hour Zone B 150+ units. Per Nixon Peabody developer guide January 16, 2025 (“The Developers’ Guide to Affordable Neighborhoods for New Yorkers”), HPD 485-x program page, and NYS Senate. nixonpeabody.com.
• Bronx Times and CityLife, Bronx Point Phase 1: 575 Exterior St, Mott Haven; 542 affordable units (135 studios + 192 1BR + 122 2BR + 93 3BR); 30 percent to 120 percent AMI band; more than 63,000 applications; L+M Development Partners with Type A Projects and BronxWorks.
• 6sqft, brooklynpaper, and brownstoner, Bedford Union Armory: 1101 President St, Crown Heights; 160 affordable units; 30 to 60 percent AMI; application window closed August 13, 2025; BFC Partners; 20 percent community preference for Brooklyn CD9.
• 6sqft, brodsky.com, and brownstoner, Plank Road / 662 Pacific: 94 middle-income units in the Pacific Park footprint, Prospect Heights; 130 percent AMI band only; the Brodsky Organization.
• NYCHA, Section 8 voucher waitlist paused for new issuance from the general waitlist effective August 1, 2025; about 197,000 households on the waitlist as of October 2025; 177,565 NYCHA apartments. Per parent pillar coverage and NYCHA.
• NYS Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, March 2026 audit, Mitchell-Lama oversight; roughly 93,000 Mitchell-Lama units statewide (most in NYC). osc.ny.gov.
• NYC Council Housing & Buildings Committee Chair Pierina Sanchez (D-14, Bronx) and Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg, the cabinet-level housing principals. Per parent pillar coverage and NYC.gov.

Last updated: September 25, 2026. This update adds our analysis of HPD’s Housing Connect lottery records and replaces the 2025 AMI figures with HPD’s 2026 chart. Correction: earlier versions of this guide gave $75,950 as the one-person 80 percent AMI limit and called straight multiplication an error. HPD’s lottery chart is built as straight multiples of 100 percent AMI, and its 2026 one-person 80 percent figure is $95,040. The guide is updated at each annual AMI revision, HPD administrative reform, and refresh of the lottery data. For our editorial standards and reporting principles, see About NYC Daily TL;DR; for our curation and verification methodology, see How we curate.