The city’s real-estate market will be crippled by Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s plan to stop clearing homeless encampments, industry workers warned Friday.
Tent cities crowding city sidewalks would discourage potential buyers from laying down roots across the Big Apple, insiders said, dealing a blow to the real estate industry already in turmoil over the far-left pol’s election win.
“It hugely affects things,” said top Manhattan real estate agent Ann Cutbill Lenane. “It will absolutely not be good for the real estate market, it won’t be good for people and quality of life and these encampments get bigger and bigger.”
Cutbill Lenane, who has been ranked Douglas Elliman’s top Manhattan agent and won the Real Estate Board of New York’s Broker of The Year award in 2018, said the city should get homeless people off the streets, and safely into shelters and permanent housing.
“Living on the street does not help anybody,” she said.
Susan Miller, of Empire State Properties, an agency that provides short-term furnished apartments in Midtown, said allowing people to camp out on the streets would fuel more crime and send New Yorkers fleeing from the city.
“What’s going to happen right now, it’s going to basically cause more dirt, more rodents, more complaints,” she said.
“I think people will leave New York City if there’s crime and dirt. People are going to hide more in those little areas.”
The real estate and business communities are already on edge over the ascension of the democratic socialist – and the uber liberal policies he pushed during his campaign.
Leaders in cities and states across the US have attempted to draw New Yorkers to live in their areas and flee New York City.
Mamdani’s latest plan announced Thursday to stop clearing out homeless encampments – in a sharp reversal from Mayor Eric Adams’ administration – was also widely panned as unrealistic as critics claimed it would cause chaos and blights in public spaces.
The owner of a dry cleaning business near Union Square where homeless people have set up camp under scaffolding outside numerous times said Mamdani needed to come up with a different fix, if he was going to leave the shantytowns be.
“If he is going to stop the sweeps, I hope he’s able to at least come up with another solution because he has to know it is harming the business,” Becky Lin, owner of Quality A+ Cleaners, said of Mamdani.
Billionaire businessman John Catsimatidis, of the real estate company Red Apple Group, warned if Mamdani’s proposal leads to problems, it’ll be another Democrat on the hot seat.
“I think it’s going to be on Gov. [Kathy] Hochul’s shoulders because she oversees the city and she has the responsibility to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” said Catsimatidis, who also owns a chain of grocery stores.
A Hochul spokesperson said in a statement the governor didn’t agree with Mamdani’s plan.
“The governor does not believe that allowing New Yorkers to sleep on sidewalks or under bridges is a humane solution to homelessness,” a spokesperson said. “She supports an approach that combines enforcement – including sweeps when needed – with connection to supportive housing and mental health and substance abuse services.”
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