Your real odds in the NYC housing lottery, with the numbers

Odds in the NYC housing lottery, where applications for lower-rent apartments are put in a random order, are long. The city's own report works out to about one signed lease for every 541 applications. Two things move your own odds: applying to every lottery you qualify for, and claiming any preference, a rule that puts certain groups first, that you really meet.

How many people apply for each apartment?

About 541 applications were sent for each lease signed in New York City's lotteries from January 1, 2022 to October 31, 2024. The figure comes from the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), which reports these counts under Local Law 217 of 2019; the newest report is on HPD's open data page. It covers lotteries run on Housing Connect, the city's website for applying, by HPD and by the city's Housing Development Corporation.

Divide the first number by the last: 10,936,175 ÷ 20,200 is about 541 applications for each lease. Put the other way, about 0.18% of applications ended in a lease. That is an average across all applications, not your personal chance.

Two cautions come straight from the city's notes. First, the report counts applications, not people. A household that applies to 12 lotteries counts 12 times. Second, some lotteries in the report were still renting up their homes when the data stopped, so the lease count is a little low for recent ones.

What does a log number mean?

After the deadline, the city's guide says, every application, paper or online, goes into a computer system that gives it a random number. That number is your log number. A low number means you may hear back sooner. A high one means you are less likely to hear back at all. HPD's Marketing Handbook, its rule book for lotteries, says agents review applications in small batches, in log number order. That way they don't start reviewing far more people than there are apartments.

• It is random. Applying on day one or the last day makes no difference, as long as you beat the deadline.
• It only ranks you inside one lottery. Number 4,000 in a small lottery and number 4,000 in a giant one are not the same. Never compare log numbers between buildings.
• It is the start, not the finish. The next steps are sending documents, and then a home has to be there for you.

Where do the numbers get smaller?

Most of the drop happens after you are invited to send documents. Of the 763,322 invitations, only 20,200 ended in a lease, about 1 in 38 (2.6%). The report doesn't say why the rest didn't sign a lease. It counts only 2,698 applicants who were selected and then turned down the apartment. Remember too that one household can be invited by several lotteries.

The numbers also differ by income band. Each band is a range of income as a share of the area median income, the middle income in the area. For applicants who live in New York City, the report shows:

Applications in the moderate band had the fewest per lease, and those in the very low and low bands the most. The bands come from HPD's area median income page. Incomes in the report are what people typed on their applications. The agent checks them later against documents, so a household can end up in a different band by the time it signs a lease.

Do preferences change your odds?

A preference moves some applications up the line. When a lottery has a preference, HPD's notes say the agent reviews some of the applications that meet it earlier than their log numbers alone would allow. Each lottery sets its own preferences, and they appear in the listing.

The report has a table for the neighborhood preference, which the city calls the community board preference. The Marketing Handbook says it can go to applicants who live in the building's community district, the local area around it. In lotteries that offered it, applications that claimed the preference numbered 368,521, with 6,897 leases. That is about 53 applications per lease. Everyone else sent about 6.8 million applications, with 6,117 leases. That is about 1,114 per lease.

Treat that as a rough guide, because people claim a preference on the application and the agent confirms it only later. Still, the gap is large.

The same report shows almost no gap for the city employee preference: about 564 applications per lease for city employees against about 548 for everyone else. So a preference is not a guarantee. You can't pick one. You either meet it or you don't.

What actually changes your odds?

Meet the preferences you really qualify for. Put them on your profile and applications, and keep your profile current.

Apply to more lotteries you qualify for. Each application gets its own random log number, so each one is another draw. Say every application had the average 1-in-541 chance. Then 10 applications would give you about a 1.8% chance of at least one lease, and 25 would give you about 4.5%. That math treats every lottery as equal, and they aren't. It is a simple estimate, not a city figure, and it only shows why the count matters.

Applying where you don't qualify doesn't help. Each lottery sets a lowest and a highest income for your household size. The highest is the income limit, the most a household can earn and still qualify. The Marketing Handbook says no application is found ineligible before the lottery, so you would only find out when your documents are checked. Check each range first with our qualify check. The city's guide also says not to send both a paper and an online application, because that disqualifies you.

Log numbers are random, so there is nothing legitimate to buy. If someone offers to improve your number for a fee, it is a scam.

How should you spend your effort?

Spend it where it moves the numbers. Keep a complete Housing Connect profile, apply to every lottery your income and household size fit, and have your documents ready so you can answer fast when a notice arrives. If a rejection letter comes, you can appeal the denial.

Open New York City lotteries are on our New York City page and our list of open housing lotteries. The New York City page also lists first-come rentals, which go to whoever applies first and qualifies, with no lottery. For those, the 541 figure doesn't apply: you apply to the building's management company directly.

Our guides to the NYC housing lottery and the documents you need cover the steps after you apply. The odds are low for almost everyone, so keep applying to every lottery that fits.