To compare two NYC buildings fairly, pull the same set of public records for each address, then divide the counts by the number of units before you judge either one. A 40-unit building with 20 open violations and a 4-unit building with 8 open violations are not equally troubled: the first works out to 0.5 violations per unit, the second to 2. Look at the last 12 to 24 months rather than a building's entire history, and weigh a recent, unresolved Class C condition far more heavily than an old, closed Class A one.
You can pull every one of the records below for any address at once through the free building lookup, which returns HPD violations and complaints, DOB and ECB violations, registration and legal actions, executed evictions, rodent and bed bug reports, rent stabilization status, and nearby 311 complaints.
Which Records to Pull for Each Address
Each city agency tracks a different slice of a building's condition, so no single dataset tells the whole story. Pull all of the following for both addresses before you compare anything.
| Record type | What it shows | Why it matters for comparison |
|---|---|---|
| HPD violations and complaints | Housing Maintenance Code violations by class, and the 311 or direct complaints that often precede them | Complaints are reports; violations are HPD's confirmed findings after inspection. A building with many complaints but few violations may have an inspector who could not get in, not a clean record. |
| DOB and ECB violations | Construction and safety violations from the Department of Buildings, plus summonses adjudicated through the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings | Catches structural, facade and illegal-work issues that HPD's housing code does not cover. |
| HPD registration and legal actions | Who the owner has told HPD they are, and any Housing Court cases HPD's Housing Litigation Division has filed to force repairs | An unregistered building, or one with an open HPD litigation, points to an owner who is not keeping current with the city. |
| Executed evictions | Evictions the marshal carried out, not eviction filings | Filings are common and often resolved; an executed eviction is a harder signal of turnover and conflict at that address. |
| Bed bug and rodent reports | Owner-reported infestation history and inspection results | Pest issues cluster by building and floor; recent reports in one line matter more than a single old report elsewhere in a large building. |
| Rent stabilization status | Whether units in the building are registered as rent stabilized | Changes what protections and renewal rights apply, separate from the physical condition of the building. |
| 311 complaints near the address | Service requests logged against the building and its immediate area | A wider view of ongoing issues, including ones that never became a formal violation. |
How to Compare the Two Buildings Fairly
Once you have both sets of records, the comparison itself has to correct for a few things or it will mislead you. These five checks turn a raw pile of records into an apples-to-apples comparison.
Normalize by Unit Count
Divide every count, violations, complaints, 311 requests, by the number of residential units in the building. A large building racks up more raw complaints because it has more households, so the per-unit rate is what reflects how the building is run. This is also the answer to whether smaller buildings are cleaner by nature: they often look better on raw totals only because they have fewer units generating records, not because they are managed any differently.
Weigh Class and Status, Not Just the Count
An open Class C violation, the city's immediately hazardous category, deserves more weight than several closed Class A violations from years ago. Class A conditions get 90 days to correct and are non-hazardous by definition; Class C heat, lead paint, pest and mold conditions carry 24-hour to 21-day deadlines because they can affect health right away. A building's total violation count can look worse than a rival's and still be the safer choice if most of its record is old and Class A, while the rival carries three open Class C violations from this year.
Use a 12 to 24 Month Window
Weight recent activity more heavily than the building's lifetime total. HPD's violation data goes back decades for older buildings, so a citywide total mixes conditions from a prior owner with conditions under the current one. Filtering both addresses to the last 12 to 24 months tells you how the building is being run today, the period that will affect your lease.
Watch for Repeat Complaints of One Type
The same condition showing up more than once in the same apartment or line, a leak, a pest issue, a heat complaint, means a repair did not hold. One isolated complaint from three years ago is routine building history. Three heat complaints in the same line over two winters is a pattern, and it will likely repeat again.
Check for Recent Ownership Changes in ACRIS
A sale in the last one to two years is worth noting on both addresses. New owners sometimes clean up a building's record quickly, and sometimes let it slide while they figure out the property. Either way, a recent sale means the violation history you are reading may reflect a management style that is about to change. You can look up who currently owns a building and pull its deed history directly in ACRIS, the city's property records system, which covers Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn back to 1966. Staten Island deeds are recorded separately through the Richmond County Clerk, so ACRIS will come back empty there even when a sale happened.
Worked Example: Comparing Two Hypothetical Buildings
The two buildings below are hypothetical and do not represent any real address. They show how the normalized numbers change the decision.
| Metric (last 12 months) | Building A (hypothetical, 6 units) | Building B (hypothetical, 45 units) |
|---|---|---|
| Open violations, all classes | 4 | 14 |
| Violations per unit | 0.67 | 0.31 |
| Open Class C violations | 2 (heat, in the same apartment) | 1 (mold, isolated unit) |
| 311 complaints, last 12 months | 5 | 9 |
| 311 complaints per unit | 0.83 | 0.20 |
| Executed evictions, last 12 months | 0 | 1 |
| Ownership change, last 24 months | No | Yes, sold 8 months ago |
On raw totals, Building B looks worse: 14 open violations against 4. Normalized by unit count, Building A has more than twice B's violation rate and more than four times its 311 complaint rate, and its two open Class C violations are both heat conditions in the same line, a repeat pattern rather than two unrelated issues. Building B's single Class C violation is isolated, and its higher raw complaint count comes from having far more households. The recent sale at Building B is worth a question to the landlord about what has changed since, but on this data, Building B is the stronger pick despite the larger numbers on paper.
Comparison Table Template
Copy this structure for any two addresses you are weighing:
| Metric (last 12 to 24 months) | Address 1 | Address 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Residential units | ||
| Open violations, all classes | ||
| Violations per unit | ||
| Open Class C violations and what they are | ||
| 311 complaints | ||
| 311 complaints per unit | ||
| Repeat complaints, same type | ||
| Executed evictions | ||
| HPD litigations open | ||
| Ownership change, last 24 months |
Frequently Asked Questions
What Counts as Too Many Violations for One Building?
There is no official cutoff. Judge the rate, violations per unit over the last 12 to 24 months, against the other building you are considering, not against a fixed number. A per-unit rate several times higher than a comparable building nearby, or several open Class C conditions in one line, is the stronger warning sign than any raw total, and the reverse also holds: a building with zero open violations is not automatically the safer pick if it has too few records to judge in the first place.
Does Building Size Change How I Should Read Violation Counts?
Yes. A 6-unit building and a 200-unit building generate very different raw totals from having different numbers of households alone, so the larger building will almost always show more violations and more 311 complaints on paper. Divide every count by unit count before you compare the two, and a building's size stops distorting the picture in either direction.
What Does It Mean If a Building Has No ACRIS Record?
Usually it means the property is in Staten Island, which records deeds through the Richmond County Clerk rather than ACRIS. For the other four boroughs, ACRIS covers documents back to 1966; a record missing on a Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens or Bronx property is rare and worth a direct call to the Department of Finance.
How Do I Verify Who Owns a Building?
Search the address in ACRIS for the most recent deed, or check the building's HPD registration, which lists the owner or managing agent HPD has on file. The two can differ when a sale has not been registered yet, which is itself useful information about how current the building's paperwork is.
What Is the Difference Between an HPD Complaint and a Violation?
A complaint is a report, most often a 311 call, that something may be wrong. A violation is HPD's own finding after an inspector confirms a Housing Maintenance Code condition. A building can carry complaints with no matching violation because the inspector found nothing or could not get inside, so read the two counts separately rather than treating them as the same signal.
Can I See a Building's Housing Court Cases Without a Lawyer?
Yes. HPD's litigation records and the Housing Court's own case index are public, and you do not need an attorney to search them or to look up a building's housing court history. An HP action, filed by a tenant or group of tenants to force repairs, is one of the case types you may find on a building's record.
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