rent

The NYC Rent Guidelines Board isn’t balanced, it’s overwhelmingly composed of tenant advocates, labor leaders, and housing policy experts. Chair Chantella Mitchell was appointed by @ZohranKMamdani. Brandon Mancilla is a UAW labor leader. Adán Soltren and Sagar Sharma are tenant representatives. Arpit Gupta is an NYU housing economist. Lauren Melodia is a housing policy economist. Sina Sinai specializes in affordable housing finance. Only Maksim Wynn remains as an owner representative after Christina Smyth resigned, calling the process “political theater.” Many small landlords have risked everything, taking out mortgages, paying taxes, maintaining aging buildings, and investing their life savings to achieve a piece of the American Dream. Yet they have virtually no voice on the board deciding their future. The real problem isn’t landlords, it’s supply. NYC’s vacancy rate is about 1.4%, compared with roughly 7% nationally. The solution is simple: Build, baby, build. Accelerate approvals. Cut red tape. Convert vacant office buildings into housing. Release underutilized city-owned land for development. Increase supply. Adam Smith explained it in 1776: when supply grows, prices fall. The path to affordable housing isn’t more politics, it’s more housing.

Simple question: who actually benefits from @ZohranKMamdani’s rent-stabilized freeze? Not the poor. Most covered tenants earn over $50,000 and 30% pull in $100,000 plus. Not families. Just 23% are raising children; 41% live alone. They’re disproportionately immigrants, 44% foreign-born, above the citywide average. Legal status, unknown. And the rest? The poorest New Yorkers in public housing median income $20,600, get nothing. The 1.1 million market-rate renters get nothing. That’s 59% of all renters frozen out. Worse, freezing rents chokes new construction and maintenance, shrinks supply, and drives everyone’s rents UP. A handout for the few. Nothing for the needy. A deeper shortage for all of us. The real solution isn’t a freeze. It’s supply. Build, baby, build.

Economics 101: Vacancy and rents move in opposite directions. When homes are scarce, prices soar. New York is the proof, a 1.4% vacancy rate, the lowest since 1968, and ~$4,000 rents. Nationally, vacancy runs ~7% and rents are about half. The cure is supply. Austin built 120,000 homes, and rents FELL. A rent freeze builds nothing. Worse, it deepens the shortage. Cap rents and owners stop investing, stop maintaining, stop building. Units get warehoused, converted, or left to rot. Fewer apartments reach the market, vacancy tightens further, and the crisis grows. A landmark Stanford study found San Francisco’s rent control cut rental supply 15% and pushed market rents UP. If @ZohranKMamdani and New York’s socialists understood economics, they’d get it: you don’t end a shortage by freezing prices. You end it by building. Build, baby, build.

CONFIRMED: New York pension dollars are being invested into housing in Texas and Florida. In Texas - Tamarron Homes (Houston): $49.6M for a 164-unit rental community - The Aster (Dallas): 207-unit high-rise multifamily acquisition - Alexan Memorial (Houston): $97.5M for a 356-unit Class A property In Florida: - The Colburn (Orlando): $120.5M for a 300-unit Class A community - The Preserve at Poinciana (Orlando): $62M single-family rental development - Martinique (Sarasota): $51M for a 120-unit townhome project - Sage on Palmer Ranch (Sarasota): $121M for a 257-unit multifamily community @TomDiNapoli is financing housing in the very places people are fleeing to, while New York faces a housing crisis, rising costs, and continued taxpayer outmigration. New Yorkers pay the taxes. Other states get the development. And in New York, there is silence where there should be action. I will invest and build in New York.

.@ZohranKMamdani’s own words today: “We will work to transfer ownership from bad landlords to responsible stewards.” That should send chills down the spine of every New Yorker. Karl Marx: “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” Lenin: “The first prerequisite for communism is the abolition of private property.” Fidel Castro promised property would simply be transferred to “the people.” Cuba went from one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America to economic ruin and dictatorship. History teaches us what happens when politicians decide who is worthy of owning property and who is not. Today it’s “bad landlords.” Tomorrow it’s anyone the government targets. This is un-American.

I ran for office because my neighbors were looking for someone to fight for them. They were worried about housing. The rent was already too high. Today, the Rent Guidelines Board froze the rent. This is a huge victory for tenants and for all who know housing is a human right.

We won our lawsuit against the Trump administration and stopped its attempt to condition billions of dollars in funding for fighting homelessness on advancing its political agenda. We will keep fighting illegal attempts to jeopardize the housing funds our communities rely on.

I was in the Bronx this morning with local officials and a team of volunteers to knock on doors and educate neighbors about deed theft. Deed theft is a merciless crime, and we’re committed to stopping it in New York.

A Fort Greene developer forced New Yorkers to evacuate their Brooklyn homes after illegally failing to maintain a condo building.   Today, my office secured $200,000 for these residents.   When developers cut corners, everyday New Yorkers are the ones who suffer. Not on my watch.