NYC Property Glossary

ACRIS

ACRIS

ACRIS — the Automated City Register Information System — is New York City's online property records database, maintained by the NYC Department of Finance, that contains every deed, mortgage, lien, and related real-property document recorded in NYC since 1966.

BBL

BBL (Borough-Block-Lot)

BBL — short for Borough-Block-Lot — is the 10-digit property identifier every New York City agency uses to uniquely identify a parcel of land, encoded as a 1-digit borough code, a 5-digit block number, and a 4-digit lot number.

HPD A/B/C

HPD Violation Classes (A, B, C)

HPD violation classes are the three-tier severity ratings — Class A (Non-Hazardous), Class B (Hazardous), and Class C (Immediately Hazardous) — that the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development assigns to every Housing Maintenance Code violation cited against a residential building.

AEP

AEP — Alternative Enforcement Program

The Alternative Enforcement Program (AEP) is a NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development enforcement track that targets the most-distressed residential buildings citywide each year — subjecting them to mandatory emergency repairs, accumulated penalty discharge, and possible court-appointed administration if conditions fail to improve.

Spec Watch

HPD Speculation Watch

The HPD Speculation Watch List is a NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development watchlist of residential rental buildings that recently sold at prices implying speculative pressure on rent-stabilized tenants — a predictive list of buildings at elevated risk of tenant harassment driven by a recent ownership change.

Distress

Distress Score

The MetroDeeds distress score is a 0–100 composite ranking of NYC residential property operators, computed nightly from a fixed-threshold normalized blend of HPD violation density, marshal eviction execution rates, regulatory flags, and 311 complaint signals — calibrated against the worst-performing 10% of operators citywide rather than against any absolute violation threshold.