Metro

NYC rent freeze decision may effect stabilized apartments

If the city decides Monday on a rent freeze for residents of stabilized apartments, 850,000 other New Yorkers could pay the price.

Tenants living in market-rate apartments — about 40 percent of rentals — will face a big rent hike, real- ­estate insiders predict.

A freeze by the Rent Guidelines Board would mean tenants in more than 1 million rent-controlled and -stabilized units would not see hikes for at least a year.

But landlords still have to make repairs, pay for fuel and keep up with property taxes. One way to make up the difference is by raising rents where the law allows.

“It forces [landlords] to press for higher rents in the open market,” real-estate analyst Jonathan Miller said. “All the prices of upkeep are rising with inflation . . . or at a rate higher than inflation . . . but the rate of income [on rent-stabilized units] isn’t keeping up with inflation.”