Virginia K. Smith

A nice map of how many calories you burn walking between the city's main subway stations (Gothamist)

What's it actually like to live in Bushwick's notorious polyamorous commune, anyway? (Bust)

A full-time New Yorker's guide to enjoying the city's best, most tourist-y Christmas attractions (DNAinfo)

Did you start this holiday week hoping to have every one of your worst paranoid fears confirmed? Well, you're in luck! The New York Post ran a story yesterday about Ashley Chase, a Midtown resident who used a hidden camera to catch her super sneaking into her studio apartment while she wasn't home, then stealing and sniffing her underthings. (She'd grown suspicious after several bras and pairs of underwear had mysteriously vanished from the place). Yikes.

As the founder and CEO of the hugely popular website, Apartment Therapy—and more recently, the author of Apartment Therapy: Complete + Happy Home—it's safe to say that Maxwell Ryan knows a thing or two about how to make a house (or even a cramped apartment) feel like a home.

We often receive emails from readers asking for help in navigating their own real estate crises. In Realty Bites, we try to get them answers.

THE PROBLEM:

"I had a guarantor when I got my apartment, but have paid the rent on time by myself all this time. Will I still need a guarantor to renew my lease, and will they have to fill out all the same forms again?"

Thanks to a new ruling, tenants in rent-regulated apartments should tread lightly when it comes to filing taxes, and making sure their apartment is really their primary residence, says Sam Himmelstein, a lawyer who represents residential and commercial tenants and tenant associations. 

Q: I just received a new, two-year lease with a rent increase of seven percent. (My apartment has preferential rent.) Is this relatively high or low, and is there any kind of standard for how much market-rate rents go up every year? Does that change if you've got preferential rent?

As with most things in the world of New York City real estate, as long as landlords can find someone willing to pay new, higher prices, the sky's the limit, say our experts.