A public stock offering for the government-sponsored enterprises remains on the table this year, but it is not the only path under serious consideration, according to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte .
Wednesday, February 4, 2026
Possible new buyer for Chrysler Building — despite steep ground lease and shabby conditions
The Chrysler Building’s former owner is circling the orphaned tower.
The famed Midtown edifice has been without an owner since last spring, with high costs and overdue upkeep looming large over any potential deal.
Tishman Speyer is now the reported front-runner in “advanced talks” to renew its former ownership there, Crain’s reported — but the Art Deco gem’s longtime ground lease holder might need to make some concessions.
Developed in 1930, the Chrysler Building rises 77 stories above Midtown, and offers tenants direct access to Grand Central.
Tishman Speyer took up ownership of the iconic office tower in 1997 for $220 million, and undertook its most recent renovation back in 2000. The company sold off its stake piece-by-piece over the years, including on 2008 deal that valued the building at $800 million.
By 2019, however, Tishman Speyer’s ownership was handed over to RFR and Signa Holding in a final transaction that valued the iconic Chrysler Building at just $150 million. Its sky-high ground lease was largely to blame, and continued to be a thorn in the side of negotiations.
Tishman Speyer’s return to the Chrysler Building’s hallowed halls reportedly depends upon negotiating the rent charged by Cooper Union, the East Village college and nonprofit owner of the ground lease for more than a century.
The building’s annual ground rent quadrupled in 2018 from $7.75 million to $32.5 million. It’s set to increase again in 2028 to $41 million, according to the college’s recent financial statement.
The eyes of the city’s commercial real estate world have remained trained on the Chrysler Building since early last year, after a judge allowed Cooper Union to evict RFR. The former owners were reportedly in default of $21 million in ground rent, and had previously argued in court that Cooper Union’s rate didn’t reflect the harsh realities of the market, or the shabby state of the building.
Other office real estate powerhouses, including Savanna and SL Green, have previously expressed interest in the tower.
Savills is handling the current back-and-forth between Cooper Union and Tishman Speyer, Crain’s reported. It’s possible the firm will demand Cooper Union lower the ground rent from the $41 million they had in mind, given the historic tower’s costly need for repairs, upgrades and new tenants.
The Chrysler Building trails behind other historic towers in renovations and office leases. CoStar recently set the Chrysler Building’s vacancy rate at 14%, and current tenants have complained of elevator outages, dirty water and mice problems.
https://nypost.com/2026/02/03/real-estate/there-may-be-a-new-buyer-for-the-chrysler-building/
Major homebuilders considering providing 1 million ‘Trump Homes’ for first-time buyers
Several major homebuilders are weighing plans to band together to provide up to 1 million new entry-level houses for first-time buyers, branded as “Trump Homes,” according to a new report.
Lennar and Taylor Morrison are among the builders involved in the proposal, which would be funded by private investors, according to a Bloomberg report citing sources familiar with the matter.
The homes would be intended to provide a pathway to homeownership for first-time buyers, with one version of the plan allowing for monthly rental payments over three years to be applied toward a down payment, in a version of rent-to-own, the sources said.
The plan is reportedly tentative, and it is unclear whether it will gain critical support among builders or backing from the Trump administration, according to the report.
Although the plan would be privately funded, to be profitable for the builders, it might require changes to the mortgage guarantees offered by federally controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Industry players pitched the plan to the Trump administration last year, but a White House official told Realtor.com® that it was premature to speculate on whether the plan would gain federal backing.
“President Trump pledged to put an end to Joe Biden’s inflation and affordability crisis, and the administration is constantly exploring new policy actions to do just that,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
“Until policy announcements are officially made by the administration, however, any reporting about potential action is pure speculation.”
Lennar declined to comment. Taylor Morrison did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The reported plan for Trump Homes follows President Donald Trump’s call last fall for major homebuilders to dramatically boost construction to address the housing affordability crisis.
“I’m asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get Big Homebuilders going and, by so doing, help restore the American Dream!” Trump wrote on Truth Social in October.
By late December, however, Trump appeared to change his tune, shifting his emphasis from bringing home prices down to keeping existing homeowners “wealthy and happy” through record-high home prices.
Trump repeated comments in support of high home valuations at his speech in Davos last month, and in a Cabinet meeting last week.
“I don’t want to knock those numbers down, because I want them to continue to have a big value for their house,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“In other words, you create a lot of housing all of a sudden, and it drives the housing prices down.
“I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes. And they can be assured that’s what’s going to happen.”
The president’s shift in rhetoric raises questions about whether he would support a major new construction push from homebuilders.
Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner also questions whether a specific rent-to-own pathway would actually benefit many first-time homebuyers.
“The reason this hasn’t been done before at a large scale is that rent-to-own just isn’t a very favorable proposition to buyers,” he says.
Rent-to-own makes sense only in specific circumstances where the buyer is unable to get a mortgage now, but will be in the future, and is willing to commit to a specific home upfront, says Berner.
The rent-to-own buyer is also gambling that the home’s value won’t decline over the lease period.18
“It’s a small subset of the buyer population that experiences all these conditions,” he says.
“Building more homes is great for buyers, and a large-scale building boom will make homes more affordable. Just build them. Sell them or rent them out as builders normally would.”
Tuesday, February 3, 2026
2026 the Beginning of the End for Homeowner Property Taxes? These State Lawmakers Think So
Property taxes may not end with a bang, but with a ballot measure and a billion-dollar whimper, as more states move away from reforming and instead aim to kill the tax that funds schools and many public services.
For decades, state lawmakers have tinkered around the edges of property tax reform, capping increases, compressing rates, and carving out relief for the most burdened of homeowners. But in 2026, at least five state legislatures are throwing that playbook out and moving to eliminate property taxes outright.
A mix of election-year pressure, swelling assessments, and an affordability crisis that’s squeezing long-tenured homeowners on fixed incomes is fueling a bold new wave of proposals. The plans vary in structure and ambition, but they share one thing: a belief that it’s time to fundamentally rethink how states fund public services and who’s footing the bill.
“Some of these states, namely Texas, have high property tax rates that are unpopular among voters, especially when the state runs a budget surplus nearly every year,” explains Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com®. “The rest have all seen major increases in the taxable value of homes that are leading to higher property tax burdens.”
It’s that tension that’s now pushing states to test just how far voters and budgets are willing to go.
ND eyes oil and tax savings/credits
Of all the states experimenting with property-tax abolition, North Dakota has moved furthest toward a workable funding model.
Gov. Kelly Armstrong has outlined a plan that would commit roughly $483 million from the state’s general fund, plus future earnings from the oil-tax savings account, to offset property tax cuts and credits.
“This plan is aggressive, durable, and responsible,” he told lawmakers.
The proposal builds on the state’s primary-residence tax credit, delivering up to $1,550 in initial annual relief per household. That credit would increase every two years and gradually rely more on oil-tax earnings over time, while a 3% cap on annual growth in local property-tax budgets limits future increases.
When paired with an expanded property-tax credit for income-eligible seniors and people with disabilities, Armstrong argues the plan would “eliminate property taxes for an entire class of homeowners who need that relief the most, and it would put the bulk of primary residences on a path to zero within the next decade.”
That could make a significant difference for North Dakota homeowners under pressure. The state’s median home price is about $342,400, and the median property tax bill tops $3,000 a year, according to data from Realtor.com.
Georgia, Florida battle for ballot
But not every state has the luxury of oil and gas windfalls to fund bold tax experiments. And further south, Georgia and Florida are battling in the state legislature to approve ballot initiatives that would end property taxes while scrambling to find alternative funding sources.
In Georgia, Republican legislators, including state Rep. Jon Burns, have backed a plan to eliminate most homeowner property taxes by 2032. The proposal would begin with a $1 billion state outlay to reduce current property tax burdens, followed by a dramatic raising of the exempt value of primary residences from $5,000 to $150,000 in 2031, and eliminating most property taxes the next year.
To replace the revenue, homeowners would be billed directly by their local government for services like garbage pickup, stormwater control, and fire protection, while any government or school improvements would need to be approved by voters.
But that swap comes with heavy baggage. Sales taxes are more volatile than property taxes and vary widely by region and economy, as shown by Florida.
While momentum has been building since early 2025 to eliminate property taxes on homesteads in the Sunshine State, replacing the lost revenue would require lawmakers to nearly double the statewide sales tax rate—from an average of 7.02% to a staggering 15.34%—just to offset the shortfall, not including the likely behavioral changes that would erode collections further, according to an analysis from the Tax Foundation’s Jared Walczak.
Still, state lawmakers floated more than seven different proposals last year aimed at softening or phasing out property taxes, mostly focused on primary residences.
But Gov. Ron DeSantis has pumped the brakes on this “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks strategy.” Rather than backing multiple bills, he’s urged lawmakers to consolidate their efforts behind one clearly defined ballot initiative that stands a real chance with voters, even teasing the possibility of a special session.
Texas takes aim at school funding
Meanwhile, in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has made eliminating school property taxes a marquee issue heading into the 2026 election.
While lawmakers passed a series of tax relief measures in 2023 and 2024, including rate compression and homestead exemptions, Abbott has repeatedly said those changes don’t go far enough.
“Every single year, you, my constituents, keep saying our property taxes are too high,” Abbott told supporters at a campaign stop in late 2025. “We have to do more to lower them.”
Abbott has floated a long-term plan to use state surpluses to buy down school property taxes until they can be phased out entirely. But so far, a clear road map to replace the lost education funding remains elusive.
Still, with the governor’s backing and broad support from conservative voters, the idea has become a central talking point and a test of whether one of the largest and most complex school funding systems in the country can be reimagined.
Indiana joins the fray
Indiana is also joining in, throwing its weight behind full-scale property tax repeal. In a post on X, Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith positioned eliminating property taxes as his top priority for the 2026 legislative session.
He’s backing House Bill 1288, one of the most sweeping proposals in the country. The bill would abolish the assessment of tangible property after Dec. 31, 2026, and end property tax collection entirely beginning in 2027.
To offset the billions in lost revenue that currently fund local services, HB 1288 proposes broadening Indiana’s sales and use tax to include most services—everything from legal fees to haircuts—and redistributing that revenue through a local government sharing fund.
‘Zero’ slogans, budget realities
For every bold promise to eliminate property taxes, there’s an inescapable fiscal truth: Property taxes account for 70% of local revenue, 90% of school funding, and 25% of all state and local tax revenue in aggregate, according to Billy Hamilton, deputy chancellor emeritus, Texas A&M University.
Replacing that revenue requires a level of long-term financial engineering that few lawmakers have fully worked out.
Even in proposals that bank on redirection of general fund dollars or dividends from oil tax savings, the math remains stubborn: Property taxes are unusually stable and predictable. Sales and income tax revenues, by contrast, are more volatile, especially during economic downturns.
That’s why the most ambitious plans are also the most fraught. Eliminating property taxes means either slashing services, shifting the burden to more regressive taxes, or hoping for a level of economic growth and political consensus that rarely holds over time.
And that tension is already surfacing. As one-time relief packages give way to permanent elimination plans, voters will have to decide not just whether they want lower taxes, but whether they’re comfortable with what gets cut to make that happen.
Soon, we’ll spotlight the citizen-led movements pushing similar goals from the ground up. In many states, it’s not just lawmakers driving this shift but the voters themselves.
https://www.realtor.com/advice/finance/lawmakers-eliminating-property-taxes-2026/
Mamdani NYC Housing Plan Has Insiders Curious, Skeptical
by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times,
The new mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, has put forward a plan to make housing more affordable, including the government building more housing, freezing rents, and potentially taking over properties from landlords who fail to fix them up.
Affordability is indeed an issue worth addressing, several industry insiders told The Epoch Times. But they weren’t sure how Mamdani could succeed where previous administrations largely hadn’t.
“He’s proven to be really skilled at walking a fine line between opposing parties with different priorities and making each party feel like they’re being catered to,” said Devin Lynch, sales manager at Howard Hanna NYC, a real estate brokerage.
Lynch pointed to the housing ballot proposals that gave the mayor more power over approving housing projects. Many Mamdani voters opposed the measures, worrying they would strip local communities of a voice in the approval process, Lynch said.
“He couldn’t do that because he also courted the union vote, and they all needed the construction and the ‘Yes’ on those ballot proposals for their members. So he’s really threading the needle between these two different opposing goals in his constituency.”
There’s also much uncertainty about the specifics of Mamdani’s plan, given that he has just assumed office, said Michelle Griffith, a real estate agent at the New York City-based Douglas Elliman brokerage.
“We’re all trying to be as optimistic as possible. But the truth is, he’s been mayor for not even four weeks. So we still don’t know what is going to happen,” she said.
“Short term, there’s going to be a rent freeze, so that’s how he’s going to try to soften it for people immediately. And then long term, it’s building more affordable housing.”
Rent Freeze
There are significant caveats to Mamdani’s proposed rent freeze, according to Lynch.
The mayor doesn’t have direct authority to freeze rents city-wide. What he could do is to appoint members to the Rent Guidelines Board, which could freeze rents across rent-stabilized housing units. More than 40 percent of all rental units in the city, almost one million, are rent-stabilized. Their tenants pay rent that is on average about 25 percent below market.
Mamdani can appoint five members of the nine-member board this year, giving him a majority. Whatever decision the board makes would come into effect on Oct. 1 and only for leases that start on that date or later.
However, it’s not just tenants who are struggling with affordability. Costs for landlords have increased, too.
“You already have a lot of landlords that are really struggling to operate in the black,” said Seamus Nally, the chief executive at TurboTenant, a property management platform that caters to smaller-scale landlords.
Maintenance costs have increased by some 40 percent since 2019 and insurance costs skyrocketed by 150 percent, according to a report by the Furman Center, New York University’s housing think-tank.
Meanwhile, New York’s 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act not only made it nearly impossible to release rental units from rent-stabilization, but also capped how much landlords can hike rents, regardless of how much they need to invest in renovations.
Since then, net income from rent-stabilized units has dropped by some 12 percent, according to the Furman Center.
Mamdani’s rent freeze would add yet another squeeze.
“The landlords we’ve got an opportunity to talk to in the area, they’re very concerned,” Nally said.
There also appears to be a growing phenomenon in the city, where landlords leave vacated rent-stabilized apartments empty.
There are now estimated 50,000 to 100,000 such empty units in the city now, Lynch said.
Landlords used to be able to release such homes from rent-stabilization and thus have a prospect to recoup the substantial capital investment many require. In some cases, however, that led to abuse where landlords harassed tenants into leaving so they could hike rents. The 2019 law put a stop to that.
However, it now appears that some landlords are stuck with dilapidated apartments that are not worth fixing.
“You’re looking at non-compliant electric, non-compliant plumbing, potentially structural issues that need to be addressed. And that’s in addition to the standard stuff, like replacing floors, replacing appliances,” Lynch said.
Rather than sinking capital in such projects, some landlords bank on the building going up in price over time or that the law will eventually change, he said.
Government Intervention
Mamdani tapped Cea Weaver, a tenant activist, to head his Office to Protect Tenants. Weaver lobbied for the 2019 state law and has proposed that the city buy “buildings where the landlord is no longer interested in ownership.”
In January, Mamdani tried to delay the sale of one such distressed landlord, Pinnacle Group, which went bankrupt after its business model of hiking rents on rent-stabilized units unraveled. However, the sale went through, and Summit Properties USA obtained over 5,000 mostly rent-stabilized housing units for less than $90,000 per unit.
Lynch doubted whether Mamdani would actually pursue the course outlined by Weaver, as it would come with political responsibility for extensive tenant complaints.
It’s easy to be the “knight in shining armor” speaking on behalf of dissatisfied tenants, but “once you directly assume those problems and the realities of addressing the problems, you learn it’s much harder,” he said.
Public Construction
Another aspect of Mamdani’s plan involves substantially increasing the quantity of affordable housing paid for with public funds. He has promised 200,000 housing units in 10 years at the cost of $100 billion.
He proposed financing this by drawing on municipal bonds and hiking taxes on richer city dwellers. Both of those proposals, however, would require state approval.
Mamdani may get some support from Gov. Kathy Hochul, who may be eager to court his voters, Lynch said.
“That will be a big part of her voting base if she runs for reelection” later this year, he said.
Still, the city already carries a substantial debt burden with its interest expenses having risen by more than 20 percent since 2023.
Mamdani promised to expedite approvals of affordable housing projects, while at the same time promising to use all union labor, which would significantly limit capacity.
There’s still much uncertainty about how the plan will look and what aspects of it will materialize, Griffith said.
Mamdani promises that the public will pay, while the previous mayor, Eric Adams, promised the private sector would pay. And before that, Mayor Bill DeBlasio was “somewhat in the middle of those two,” she said.
“And where are we at now? We still have an affordability crisis,” Griffith said.
The next big question is what will happen with whatever housing Mamdani manages to build. The city’s public housing projects have been notorious for slow and inadequate maintenance, even as the city’s housing expenses nearly doubled since 2022.
Nally argued it may be more effective to make it easier for the residents, rather than the government, to build housing. He gave the example of Austin, Texas, where easing regulations helped to spur a housing construction boom.
“I’m skeptical that what will work is more government involvement when some of the petri dishes that we’ve seen work across the United States have actually used less government involvement,” he said.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/mamdani-nyc-housing-plan-has-insiders-curious-skeptical
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