Rent-Stabilized Apartments in Brooklyn: Where to Find Them

Brooklyn has more registered rent-stabilized apartments than any borough. Where new listings cluster, why brownstones rarely qualify and how to check a unit.

By Ilias Miraoui

Updated Oct 27, 20269 min read

About 1,230 of the 4,730 apartments newly listed in Brooklyn in September 2026 (26.0%) were in buildings on New York's rent-stabilization registry. Williamsburg and Bushwick had the most likely-stabilized listings, while a quarter of the borough's registry buildings sit in southern ZIP codes where few listings appear. RentReboot is the best choice for the search: one saved search watches 900+ NYC rental sources and flags listings that match rent-stabilization records. Confirm any apartment with its lease rider and HCR rent history.

Published October 27, 2026. Listing figures come from the RentReboot NYC Rental Index, October 2026 edition: apartments first listed in Brooklyn from September 1 to 30, 2026, each counted once however many sites posted it. Registry counts come from New York State's registration records.

Brooklyn has the city's largest stock of stabilized housing. The state counted 303,598 registered rent-stabilized apartments in Brooklyn in 2025, about 30% of the five boroughs' total, and RentReboot's copy of the state registry holds 16,144 Brooklyn building records, more than any other borough. Brooklyn produced 31% of the city's new listings in September but only about 24% of those in registry buildings, so a Brooklyn search has to reach past the neighborhoods that list the most.

Where Brooklyn's stabilized listings are

Of September's 4,730 new Brooklyn listings, 26.0% were in registry buildings, and RentReboot's own rating, which also weighs building age and size, put 18.6% as likely stabilized. Only 1.7% of listings said the apartment itself was rent-stabilized.

The table covers every Brooklyn neighborhood with at least 50 new listings in September, sorted by the share RentReboot rated likely stabilized. "On the registry" is the share in buildings on the state's rent-stabilization registry. Rents are medians for all new listings in the neighborhood, stabilized or not.

Neighborhood	New listings	On the registry	Likely stabilized	1BR median	2BR median
Clinton Hill	65	52.3%	36.9%	–	–
Bushwick	462	37.9%	30.2%	$3,369	$3,795
Stuyvesant Heights	167	22.2%	28.9%	$3,013	$3,598
Williamsburg	522	27.4%	27.0%	$4,500	$5,335
Park Slope	251	18.1%	26.0%	$4,124	$5,600
Prospect Heights	59	54.0%	26.0%	–	–
Flatbush	395	40.0%	22.1%	$3,066	$3,500
Bedford-Stuyvesant	421	18.8%	21.7%	$3,308	$3,700
Fort Greene	164	27.2%	20.7%	–	–
Crown Heights	305	21.3%	19.1%	$3,428	$4,400
DUMBO	89	32.8%	18.0%	–	–
Ocean Hill	50	8.0%	14.0%	–	–
Greenpoint	176	33.5%	12.6%	$4,633	$6,500
East Flatbush	84	19.2%	11.0%	–	–
Downtown Brooklyn	350	40.6%	8.3%	$4,505	$5,999
East New York	204	4.4%	5.1%	–	$2,800
Gowanus	333	1.3%	0.3%	$4,525	$6,900

A dash means fewer than 50 new listings of that size. Bedford-Stuyvesant includes Stuyvesant Heights and Ocean Hill. No single building counts for more than 10% of a neighborhood's shares; in Park Slope, Fort Greene and East New York, sampling down large buildings left a third or more of the new listings out of the share calculations.

Williamsburg (about 140 of 522) and Bushwick (about 140 of 462) had the most likely-stabilized new listings, followed by Bedford-Stuyvesant (about 90 of 421). Clinton Hill stands out for a different reason: 10 of its 65 new listings, 15.4%, said in the listing that the apartment was rent-stabilized, the highest share in Brooklyn.

New towers on the registry

In Downtown Brooklyn, 40.6% of new listings were in registry buildings but RentReboot rated only 8.3% likely stabilized. Greenpoint showed the same split, 33.5% against 12.6%. Almost all the registry matches in Downtown Brooklyn, and most of them in Greenpoint, were buildings finished in 1974 or later. Newer buildings usually reach the registry through tax-benefit programs such as 421-a, which set their own rules for which apartments are covered and for how long, so the building match says less about any one apartment. How 421-a buildings work covers what to ask.

Gowanus barely registered on either signal: 1.3% and 0.3% of 333 new listings. The registry is a snapshot of past filings, so a recently finished building may not appear on it yet. Ask the landlord directly.

Where the registry buildings are

The neighborhoods that list the most are not the whole story. Grouped by the city health department's ZIP code neighborhoods, Brooklyn's 16,144 registry building records break down like this:

ZIP code neighborhood	ZIP codes	Registry building records	Share of Brooklyn
Bedford Stuyvesant–Crown Heights	11212, 11213, 11216, 11233, 11238	2,846	17.6%
Williamsburg–Bushwick	11206, 11221, 11237	2,574	15.9%
East Flatbush–Flatbush	11203, 11210, 11225, 11226	1,933	12.0%
Downtown–Heights–Park Slope	11201, 11205, 11215, 11217, 11231	1,914	11.9%
Greenpoint	11211, 11222, 11249	1,779	11.0%
Borough Park	11204, 11218, 11219, 11230	1,334	8.3%
Bensonhurst–Bay Ridge	11209, 11214, 11228	1,045	6.5%
Sunset Park	11220, 11232	998	6.2%
East New York	11207, 11208	858	5.3%
Coney Island–Sheepshead Bay	11223, 11224, 11229, 11235	742	4.6%
Canarsie–Flatlands	11234, 11236, 11239	119	0.7%

The groups follow the health department's table; 11249, created later from part of 11211, is counted with Greenpoint. Two records with invalid ZIP codes are left out.

Bushwick's 11237 has 1,054 registry building records, the most of any Brooklyn ZIP code. The bigger gap is in the south. Borough Park, Bensonhurst–Bay Ridge, Sunset Park and Coney Island–Sheepshead Bay together hold 4,119 records, about a quarter of the borough's, yet none of their neighborhoods had the 50 new listings the index needs to publish figures. Few new listings of any kind appear there on the sites the index tracks, so search those neighborhoods building by building.

What Brooklyn stabilized listings ask

Across all new Brooklyn listings in September, the median ask was $3,375 for a studio, $3,785 for a one-bedroom and $4,350 for a two-bedroom. Those medians include market-rate apartments. The lowest published one-bedroom medians were in Stuyvesant Heights ($3,013), Flatbush ($3,066) and Bedford-Stuyvesant ($3,308); the highest were in Greenpoint ($4,633), Gowanus ($4,525), Downtown Brooklyn ($4,505) and Williamsburg ($4,500).

RentReboot's August 15, 2026 analysis of active listings found the smallest stabilized discount of the four large boroughs in Brooklyn: a median ask of $3,850 for likely stabilized listings against $4,000 for the rest, $150 or about 4% less. The comparison mixes apartment sizes, and the borough comparison explains its limits. In Brooklyn, the case for a stabilized apartment rests less on the opening rent than on what follows it: the right to renew the lease and yearly increases set by the Rent Guidelines Board.

How to search Brooklyn for a stabilized apartment

Count the apartments in the building. Rent stabilization generally applies to buildings with six or more apartments built before 1974. Much of brownstone Brooklyn is two- to four-family row houses, which generally fall outside it, so a floor-through in a three-family house is almost never stabilized. Look for the walk-ups and elevator buildings on the same blocks.
Start with the neighborhoods that list the most. Williamsburg, Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant produced the most likely-stabilized listings in September, and Bushwick and Stuyvesant Heights had one-bedroom medians well under the borough's.
Go building by building in the south. For Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, Kensington, Midwood or Sheepshead Bay, find addresses on the stabilized-buildings map, then look up each building's managing agent (how to find an NYC building's owner) and ask about vacancies. Bay Ridge has its own building list.
Use the neighborhood building lists. Park Slope and Prospect Heights have building-by-building pages, and building alerts follow the addresses you pick.
Let the address check run for you. Only 1.7% of Brooklyn listings say the apartment is stabilized. RentReboot's rent-stabilized apartment alerts check each new listing's address against the registry and flag likely and verified matches across 900+ NYC rental sources.
Ask newer buildings about their program. In Downtown Brooklyn, Greenpoint and other newer buildings, ask which tax-benefit program covers the apartment and when its benefit period ends.

The citywide method is in how to find rent-stabilized apartments in NYC, and the search tips guide covers paperwork and speed. For apartments of any kind, see finding an apartment in Brooklyn.

Checking a Brooklyn apartment before you sign

A registry building can hold market-rate apartments next to stabilized ones, and a listing's claim is still the landlord's claim. Before you pay, ask for the complete lease with the Rent Stabilization Lease Rider and the legal regulated rent in writing, and confirm the number of apartments in the building if it looks small. Once you are the tenant, request the apartment's rent history through Ask HCR, which mails its answer to the apartment.

The full workflow is in how to check if an apartment is rent-stabilized, and what to look for in a rent-stabilized lease lists the documents.

About these numbers

The Rental Index counts apartments first listed in September 2026 that no tracked source had shown in the previous 60 days: whole apartments from studios to four bedrooms, asking $1,000 to $25,000 a month, from rental marketplaces, brokerage websites and landlord and building websites. Classified-board posts are left out because they rarely carry an address that can be matched across sites.

On the registry: the building appears in New York's rent-stabilization registry records. Those buildings can also hold market-rate apartments.
Said so in the listing: the listing text states that the apartment is rent-stabilized. RentReboot labels these matches "verified," but the claim still needs the lease and HCR records behind it.
Likely: RentReboot's own rating, which weighs the registry match with building age and size. It is a search signal, not legal status.

Counts such as "about 1,230" multiply a published share by the number of apartments it covers and are rounded. The 303,598 figure is New York State HCR's count of registered rent-stabilized apartments in Kings County for the 2025 registration year; the five boroughs together had 1,023,964. Registry building records are from RentReboot's copy of the state registry (47,601 NYC records), checked October 27, 2026. The six-apartment, pre-1974 rule is from the city's 2023 Housing and Vacancy Survey; buildings with tax benefits follow their own programs' rules.

Also see the guides for Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, and the full building directory at rent-stabilized buildings in NYC.

FAQ

How many rent-stabilized apartments are in Brooklyn?

New York State HCR counted 303,598 registered rent-stabilized apartments in Brooklyn for the 2025 registration year, the most of any borough and about 30% of the five boroughs' 1,023,964. RentReboot's copy of the state registry lists 16,144 Brooklyn building records.

Which Brooklyn neighborhoods have the most rent-stabilized apartments for rent?

In September 2026, Williamsburg and Bushwick had the most new listings that RentReboot rated likely stabilized, about 140 each, followed by Bedford-Stuyvesant. Clinton Hill (36.9%), Bushwick (30.2%) and Stuyvesant Heights (28.9%) had the highest shares. The registry's buildings are densest in the Bedford-Stuyvesant–Crown Heights and Williamsburg–Bushwick ZIP codes.

Is a brownstone apartment in Brooklyn rent-stabilized?

Usually not. Rent stabilization generally covers buildings with six or more apartments built before 1974, and most brownstones and row houses have fewer. Exceptions exist for some buildings in tax-benefit programs, so ask for the lease rider if a listing in a small building claims stabilization.

Are rent-stabilized apartments cheaper in Brooklyn?

Only slightly, by median asking rent. In RentReboot's August 15, 2026 analysis, likely stabilized Brooklyn listings had a median ask of $3,850 against $4,000 for other listings, about 4% less, the smallest gap of the four large boroughs. The comparison mixes apartment sizes.

Are new buildings in Downtown Brooklyn rent-stabilized?

Some apartments in them are. In September 2026, 40.6% of Downtown Brooklyn's new listings were in registry buildings, almost all of them built in 1974 or later, but RentReboot rated only 8.3% likely stabilized. Coverage in buildings like these usually comes from tax-benefit programs such as 421-a, so ask which program applies to the apartment and get the rider in writing.