Building Risk Rankings
Brooklyn Building Risk Rankings
Brooklyn is geographically NYC's largest borough and arguably its most varied — pre-war brownstones in Brooklyn Heights, modern glass towers in Williamsburg and DUMBO, NYCHA campuses in Brownsville and East New York, and single-family stock in Bay Ridge and Marine Park. Common compliance flags range from boiler and heating violations in the older walk-up belt to lead paint and structural permit issues in renovated brownstones, plus a growing pattern of new-construction defect filings in Williamsburg's 2010s-era high-rises. The list below ranks Brooklyn buildings by current open HPD violations — every entry links to a free preview audit.
Buildings ranked
1,858
Visible risk signals
292,967
Median signal count
128
Highest-signal building
2,389
100 Brooklyn buildings worth a closer look
Rankings start with visible maintenance-risk signals. Open any address to review the full audit: violations, permits, filings, fines, flood exposure, and neighborhood context.
Frequently asked about Brooklyn buildings
Which Brooklyn neighborhoods have the most open HPD violations?
Brownsville, East New York, Crown Heights, and Bedford-Stuyvesant carry the highest building-level violation counts in Brooklyn. These neighborhoods have older housing stock and higher concentrations of rent-regulated walk-ups. Neighborhoods like Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, and DUMBO show meaningfully lower violation densities, partly reflecting newer construction and partly reflecting owner-occupied condo/co-op stock with active building management.
Are Brooklyn brownstones safer than apartment buildings?
Brownstones (1-4 unit row houses) typically have fewer open HPD violations than larger multifamily buildings, but that's partly a function of size — fewer units mean fewer complaint origins. Renovated brownstones sometimes accumulate DOB violations for unpermitted work. Always check the audit for both HPD (housing maintenance) and DOB (construction permits) records before renting or buying a brownstone unit.
How do I check if my Brooklyn building has open boiler violations?
Open boiler / heating violations are tracked under HPD code class A (heat) and class C (immediately hazardous) and DOB boiler inspection records. Our audit pulls both — the report shows open heat / hot water violations and the most recent boiler inspection status. If a building has multiple open class-C heat violations, that's a strong signal of chronic heating failures during winter months.
Do new-construction Williamsburg buildings have fewer violations?
On the median, yes — buildings constructed after 2010 in Williamsburg / Greenpoint / Bushwick have lower per-unit open-violation counts than the surrounding pre-war stock. That said, several 2010s-era new construction buildings have accumulated significant DOB and HPD violations tied to construction-defect lawsuits and post-occupancy permit issues. Always check the specific BBL — neighborhood averages can hide bad outliers.
Is it safe to rent in a Brooklyn building with 50+ open violations?
50+ open violations is a meaningful flag but not automatically disqualifying. What matters is the violation breakdown — class A (non-hazardous), class B (hazardous), or class C (immediately hazardous). A building with 80 class-A cosmetic violations may be habitable while a building with 5 class-C heat violations during winter is not. Read the audit detail rather than the headline count.