Start here.
If you own residential rental property in New Jersey, the ceiling just moved again.
Passaic — October 2026 — cut its rent-control cap from 6% to 3% and eliminated vacancy decontrol.
Here is what "eliminated vacancy decontrol" actually means, because it is worse than a cap cut. A cap limits how much you can raise a sitting tenant. Vacancy decontrol was the safety valve: when a tenant moved out, you could finally reprice the unit to market. Passaic just took the safety valve off.
The mechanism, and why it is the one that matters
Watch what Passaic actually did. It did not cap your income a little tighter — it removed the recovery mechanism at turnover. The entire upside of owning a rent-controlled building was the reset at vacancy. Take that away and the asset’s income is a fixed stream that ratchets down in real terms every year.
Now layer the second mechanism on top. New York City is phasing out pre-2016 property-tax abatements. An estimated 66,000 units lose their breaks by 2030, another 94,000 by 2040. One Park Slope owner’s bill went from $140 in 2022 to $7,600 in 2026, projected to $10,500 by 2027.
And the insurance leg keeps compounding: national average landlord premium hit $1,478 in 2026, up 9% from 2025, with Fed data showing multifamily insurance up 75% since 2019.
The storage side, honestly
Storage has no vacancy-decontrol concept — because it does not need one. When a self-storage unit turns, the operator prices to market. No Rent Leveling Board, no hearing. The lien and auction remedy is statutory.
Same investor, different vehicle. Run the numbers.
Past performance is not indicative of future results. Figures in these posts are historical results for those specific deals or the cited industry data, not projections, and nothing here constitutes investment advice. The math that decides a deal is the math you do before you sign — underwrite it yourself, or have someone you trust walk it with you.