NYC landlords slam Mamdani’s threatened property tax hike: ‘Final nail in the coffin’

 Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposed property tax hike will put the squeeze on small building owners — and could even be the “nail in the coffin” for the city’s rent-stabilized market, critics warned.

Small Property Owners of New York, a nonprofit advocacy group, expressed grave concern about Mamdani’s Tuesday warning that he’ll be “forced” to raise city property taxes a whopping 9.5% to balance the Big Apple budget.

“You’ve heard a lot about billionaires leaving New York City, but nobody talks about the fact that the administration is going to squeeze small property owners in neighborhoods of color out of the city altogether and out of the real estate market,” said SPONY member Jen Lee, a landlord who owns two rent-stabilized tenement buildings in Chinatown. 

He argued that Mamdani’s proposed hike — framed as a “last resort” if Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature don’t boost taxes on millionaires — will make it impossible for small landlords to afford maintenance on old buildings, forcing them to sell to banks or developers.

“You tell me how I am supposed to provide safe, affordable housing for my community, which is overwhelmingly people of color,” Lee said.

Christopher Athineos, whose family has owned about 100 apartment units in Bay Ridge for five decades, worried what would happen to his longtime tenants if he were to be forced to sell his properties to a major developer or corporation. 

“When I can’t maintain the building in the manner in which I’m used to maintaining it in the manner in which my tenants expected it to be maintained, that’s painful for me,” Athineos told The Post. 

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There are approximately one million rent-stabilized units in New York City.Helayne Seidman

“You know if I sold my building like the person that’s coming in is not going to be running it  the way I’m running it. They’re gonna be worrying about paying their mortgage first,” he said. 

Mamdani’s plan includes some frightening prospects: a nearly 22% tax for residential homes and townhouses or buildings with just three or fewer units, more than 13.6% for larger apartment buildings and a nearly 12% tax for commercial properties like storefronts or office buildings.

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The whopping 9.5% increase in property taxes aims to balance the city budget.Christopher Athineo

If it passes, for instance, the owner of an Upper West Side condominium currently assessed at $120,000 would go from paying $14,926 to $16,345 in annual property tax.

Landlords’ concerns only grew on Wednesday, when Hizzoner announced six new appointees to the rent guidelines board, which sets rent rates for the city’s nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments.

A cornerstone of Mamdani’s campaign was his promise to “freeze the rent” on those units.

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Landlords’ concerns across the Big Apple have grown as Hizzoner announced six new appointees to the rent guidelines board.Christopher Athineo

“He now wields the sledge hammer to enact a rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments. This will drive the final nail in the coffin of mom-and-pop, generational, immigrant small property owners, and along with it, the city’s affordable housing infrastructure,” said SPONY’s board president Ann Korchak.

Korchak has long been warning of the risks of Mamdani’s tenant-centered policies, arguing they will ultimately drive small landlords to bankruptcy and pave the way for socialized housing, a policy that the head of the Mayor’s Office of Tenant Protection, Cea Weaver, has notoriously championed.

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One of Mamdani’s striking points during his campaign was to “freeze the rent” on rent-stabilized apartments.Christopher Athineo

Weaver, who was appointed to the new post in January, previously called to abolish private property.

Now, her office is holding a series of “rental ripoff hearings” encouraging tenants to air grievances against their landlords — though public housing tenants of NYCHA are not able to attend.

A spokesperson for Mamdani did not respond to The Post’s request for comments. 

https://nypost.com/2026/02/20/us-news/nyc-landlords-slam-mamdanis-threatened-property-tax-hike/

US new home sales fall 1.7% in December

 Sales of new single-family homes in the United States slipped 1.7% month-on-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 745,000 in December, data from the United States Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development showed on Friday.

On a yearly basis, sales rose 3.8%. The median sales price climbed to $414,400, while the average price increased to $532,600.

The seasonally adjusted estimate of new homes for sale at the end of December stood at 472,000, representing a 7.6-month supply at the current sales pace.

https://breakingthenews.net/Article/US-new-home-sales-fall-1.7-in-December/65716845

US Pending Home Sales Hit Record Low Despite Falling Mortgage Rates

 After plunging in December (biggest drop since COVID), US Pending Home Sales disappointed once again with a modest 0.8% MoM decline in January (+2.0% MoM exp). This left sales down 1.23% YoY...

Source: Bloomberg

This left the Pending Home Sales Index at a record low...

Source: Bloomberg

Mortgage rates continued to slide... so WTF is holding buyers back?

Source: Bloomberg

“Improving affordability conditions have yet to induce more buying activity,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement.

Yun cautioned that the mix of lower mortgage rates and a still-tight supply of houses could cause home prices to start rising quickly again, assuming the lower borrowing costs encourage more buyers.

“This will put increasing pressure on affordability, which is why it is critical to increase supply by building more homes,” Yun said.

Weather could have impacted sales as sales were weakest in the NorthEast and South - where the winter storm was most impactful.

Pending-homes sales tend to be a leading indicator for previously owned homes, as houses typically go under contract a month or two before they’re sold.

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/us-pending-home-sales-hit-record-low-despite-falling-mortgage-rates

Rent becoming more affordable for many Americans as market stabilizes

 Renters are expected to see some relief from rising prices this year, with the pace of rent growth expected to slow as the market stabilizes and a measure of affordability hits a four-year-high.

An analysis by Zillow projects that multifamily rental prices are expected to remain relatively flat through the end of 2026, declining slightly by 0.2%. 

Single-family rents are expected to rise at an annual rate of 1.1% in December 2026, which the report says would represent a "sharp slowdown from the rapid increases of recent years" as higher vacancy rates and more newly-built apartments help keep rent growth subdued as renters' bargaining positions improve. Single family rents were up 2.7% last month from a year ago.

Zillow found that the typical asking rent in January was $1,895, up just 0.1% from December and 2% year over year. That represents the slowest annual rent growth since December 2020, as the market has steadied after prices saw rapid increases during the pandemic.

Rents for multifamily homes have grown at an even slower pace, rising just 1.4% from a year ago. Zillow's projection that multifamily rents will decline slightly and remain essentially flat this year, indicates that further relief could be on the way.

Slowing rent growth has boosted an affordability measure that takes into account renters' income levels. A median income household would now spend 24.3% of its income on typical apartment rent, which is down slightly from 25% in February 2020.

By another measure, the typical household is spending 26.4% of its income on rent, which is the lowest share since August 2021. 

Metro areas where that figure is significantly higher than the national average include Miami (37.2%), New York City (36.9%) and Los Angeles (34%). 

Notable metros with better affordability include St. Louis (19.7%), Minneapolis (19.4%), Denver (19.4%), Austin (17.9%) and Salt Lake City (17.9%).

"Renters are operating in a very different environment than they were just a few years ago," said Orphe Dviounguy, senior economist at Zillow. "When supply expands and vacancies rise, property managers have to adjust on both price and terms. Concessions are near record highs, keeping rent growth modest and creating meaningful opportunities for renters."

Zillow also noted that renters are getting more concessions in lease terms as they utilize their negotiating leverage in renewals and new leases.

It found that nearly 40% of rental listings on the Zillow platform in January had at least one concession, like a free month of rent or a reduced deposit. 

That's slightly below the record high set last January, when 41.1% of listings had a concession, and the figure remains elevated compared to historical norms.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/rent-becoming-more-affordable-many-americans-market-stabilizes

Amid Slumping Sales & Sentiment, Housing Starts & Permits Jumped In December

 It would appear that homebuilders are desperately hoping for a 'Field of Dreams' year...

After seeing existing home sales collapse in January (not driven by the winter storms), US Housing Starts and Building Permits rose dramatically more than expected in December (+6.2% MoM vs +1.1% exp and +4.3% MoM vs +0.4% MoM exp respectively)...

Additionally, Housing Starts rose as Home Builders confidence crumbled (and Future Sales expectations dropped)...

The surprise monthly surge lifted the SAAR totals for both housing sector data points to multi-month highs...

Breaking down the headline data shows that multi-family building permits and housing starts soared (+18.1% MoM and +10.1% MoM respectively) while Single-Family Building Permits tumbled 1.7% MoM while single-family starts rose for the 3rd straight month...

However, the pace of construction continues to decline on a year-over-year basis.

Growth in permit demand was most robust in the Northeast and West, two of the more volatile regions.

Finally, the inventory of new homes for sale remains a significant headwind for residential construction activity.

While mortgage rates have fallen, perhaps prompting the homebuilders to take advantage...

...the fact that rate-cut expectations have tumbled suggests they 'they will not come' anytime soon, no matter how much you build.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/amid-slumping-sales-sentiment-housing-starts-permits-jumped-december

Mamdani’s budget hands Hochul a political bomb, rejecting most prudent path forward

 On the eve of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first preliminary budget rollout, Gov. Kathy Hochul handed him what amounted to a $1.5 billion gift card, courtesy of state taxpayers. 

On Tuesday, the mayor thanked the governor for the promised new state aid — by handing her a ticking political bomb.

Despite the added money, Mamdani said, the city faces a “historic” $5.4 billion budget gap — which can only be closed by proceeding along what the mayor characterized as two “paths.”

Path one, he said, would be for the state to give the city authority to “raise [income] taxes on the ultra-wealthy and the most profitable corporations” — a step Hochul has refused to take.

Path two: “Balance the budget on the backs of working people” with a 9.5% increase in the city property tax.

This would be New York City’s first property tax hike in 23 years, and its second largest in at least 45 years. 

And its impact wouldn’t be limited to working people; it would undermine the commercial market and push into bankruptcy more of the city’s struggling rent-regulated apartment owners.

Mamdani flatly ruled out an obvious third path for the city: reducing spending in his mammoth $127 billion proposed budget.

An obvious starting point would be with something for which Hochul richly deserves blame: the 2022 state law mandating smaller class sizes, even as school enrollment plummets. 

Repealing that law and updating the school-aid formula could save well over $1 billion a year.

Total spending in Mamdani’s first budget would be billions of dollars higher than Mayor Eric Adams’ last estimate, reflecting in large part the new mayor’s promise to more accurately reflect rising expenses his predecessor chronically sought to fudge or underbudget. 

But in another departure from Adams’ approach — and, indeed, from the deliberate revenue low-balling of every mayor since Rudy Giuliani — Mamdani’s economic outlook is also anything but less conservative.

Despite a projected slowdown in New York’s already sluggish job growth, Mamdani’s budget assumes the city’s economy will grow faster than the national GDP over the next four years.

His total tax projections are billions of dollars above the levels projected by the city’s independent fiscal monitors.

This kind of optimism leaves little room for error — even as Mamdani projects a hefty budget gap of $6.6 billion the year after next, and total shortfalls of $20 billion from fiscal 2028 through fiscal 2030. 

Indeed, even if he squeezes a soak-the-rich tax hike out of Hochul — and even assuming a continued Wall Street boom — Mamdani will be in the hole again a year from now.

Speaking of gifts, the budget also includes a big favor to the city’s powerful labor unions.

In a 2018 deal with then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, union leaders agreed to find $1 billion in savings to replenish an off-budget Health Insurance Stabilization Fund for city workers.

But the savings never materialized, and the fund is insolvent.

Mamdani now has moved the health-care obligation onto the budget, at a combined cost of $2 billion in spending obligations this year and next.

This will be partially offset by a recent labor-management agreement to move city workers to a less expensive health-insurance plan — which will, nonetheless, continue to offer coverage free of co-pays, an expensive deal unavailable to most private workers and state-government employees.   

Meanwhile, Hochul has reason to seethe over the mayor’s unsubtle message to city voters in a statewide election year: If your property taxes go up, it’s Hochul’s fault. 

True, the governor’s road to re-election looks much smoother than just a few weeks ago, when Lt.-Gov Altonio Delgado was threatening to challenge her in a Democratic primary.

In a two-way general election, polls show the governor with a sizable lead over her Republican-Conservative opponent, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

But there remains a cloud on the governor’s political horizon, in the form of the Mamdani’s close allies in the Working Families Party.

The same week Democrats renominated Hochul, the WFP handed its gubernatorial nod to a no-name placeholder, preserving that party’s option of producing a better-known challenger to undermine Hochul’s support on the left. 

And as it happened, hours before unveiling his budget Tuesday, Mamdani announced his appointment of a WFP party leader as the city’s commissioner of international affairs.  

Next week, hordes of left-wing activists and union members will descend on the state Capitol to lobby for Mamdani’s soak-the-rich tax agenda.

In what’s shaping up as an epic state budget battle, Mamdani may have won the news cycle.  

To guard against further erosion in a statewide tax base already over-dependent on millionaire earners based in the city, Hochul needs a strategy for winning the war.

EJ McMahon is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

https://nypost.com/2026/02/17/opinion/mamdanis-budget-hands-hochul-a-political-bomb-while-rejecting-the-most-prudent-path-forward/

It Begins: Mamdani Plans First NYC Property Tax Hike In Decades To Plug $5 Billion Hole

 New York City property owners are set to 'enjoy' the first property tax hike in more than two decades as part of a proposed solution by Mayor Zohran Mamdani to fill a roughly $5 billion budget gap, Bloomberg reports.

"He’s put a pretty extreme option on the table, which is a combination of raising property taxes and taking money from reserves and relying on some pretty aggressive revenue projections to boot," said NYC Comptroller Mark Levine. 

The pitch, set to be unveiled Tuesday afternoon during Mamdani's preliminary budget proposal, comes one day after Governor Kathy Hochul vowed to kick in another $1.5 billion in additional aid to the city for the current fiscal year and next. Hochul has also committed $510 million for future years to help plug holes in the budget. 

Mamdani says that the state should step up even more. Last week, he called on state lawmakers Wednesday to approve a 2 percent personal income tax increase on the city’s wealthiest residents as well as a hike in the corporate tax rate in a bid to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap. Of note, Hochul and the legislature must approve any tax changes.

While Mamdani is handcuffed in many ways when it comes to raising revenue, raising property taxes is something he can do as part of the annual budget process. Homeowners, meanwhile, just had their assessed values jump 5.6%, which will bring the city an additional $325.8 billion - which is separate of Mamdani's plan. 

Mamdani’s own rhetoric about the size and scope of the city’s budget situation has shifted. Earlier this month, just two weeks after describing the city’s $12.6 billion budget deficit as the city’s largest since the Great Recession, Mamdani revealed the hole had actually shrunk by $5 billion, because of higher tax revenue, propelled by personal income tax growth and Wall Street bonuses.

Even threatening to raise property taxes could prove a political lightning rod for Mamdani, after campaigning to reform that system, which has been criticized for overburdening lower- and middle-income residents. The last time the city increased property tax rates was under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the early 2000s. -Bloomberg

Meanwhile last month Mamdani said NYC is facing a $12.6 billion deficit over the next two years, which he blamed on his predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams, whose administration he says underbudgeted for various expenses such as cash assistance, rental assistance for homeless residents, special education and overtime costs. In FY 2025, NYC took in over $33 billion in property tax revenue. 

Mamdani during his campaign promoted progressive reforms to fund proposals such as free public transit, rent stabilization and housing programs, universal child care, and a $30 minimum wage, leading to his upset win over more moderate Democrats.

He called for a 2 percent surcharge on high earners on the campaign trail.

Estimates suggested it could create approximately $4 billion annually to support increased public services and affordability programs, as well as offset costs for broad social investments while not saddling middle- and low-income residents.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/it-begins-mamdani-plans-first-nyc-property-tax-hike-decades-plug-5-billion-hole