The Landlord Lens - Will Zohran Mamdani’s Housing Plan Fix or Break New York City?

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

Zohran Mamdani’s new proposal to freeze rent across New York City has landlords, tenants, and economists all asking the same question — what happens next?In this episode of Landlord Lens, we break down the truth behind Mamdani’s “Rent Freeze Act.” Could it actually protect tenants, or will it crush small landlords, stall development, and make the housing shortage even worse?We’ll unpack:- What a city-wide rent freeze really means in practice- How similar policies played out in other cities- The economic ripple effects on property values, taxes, and new construction- Why some experts call it a disaster in disguise and others say it’s NYC’s only way out- Whether you’re a landlord, renter, or policymaker, this video shows the real-world consequences of turning NYC housing into a political battleground.

Zoran Mamdani is the candidate for mayor of New York City. He's going to take the rent-stabilized apartments, and he's going to unilaterally freeze the rent. And by Frozen, we don't mean controlled. We mean 0% increases. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Landlord Lens. I am joined by Seamus Nali, our wonderful CEO and my co-host, Seamus. How are you?

John, doing great. Very excited for today's topic. I know I always say that, but I think this one's especially interesting. Very juicy, very juicy, with some interesting implications to the rest of America. Absolutely. We're going to talk about the name that's on everyone's lips. Zoran Mandani. Zoran Mandami.

Zoran Mandami. Mambani. This Mandani guy. All right, and now you don't have the excuse. You don't know how to say it. I'll still mess it up at least once, I'm sure. Zoran Mamm Dani is the candidate for. for mayor of New York City, who's currently the frontrunner there,

who has some very interesting ideas about housing. So let's hear it straight from him. To say that this policy of raising the rent year after year like we've seen under this administration, a policy that has led to more than a 12% increase in rents for more than 2 million New Yorkers, that is a policy that will come to an end when I am the mayor of this city. And it will come to an end because we are going to deliver

a four-year rent freeze from where, than two million New Yorkers across this city. So we're going to put aside for this video his proposals around public grocery stores, his proposals around child care, and specifically talk about his proposals to address the affordability crisis in New York City, which is famously the least affordable place to live in America. So we're not going to talk about ripping away the classes from the gifted students? No, we're not going to talk about that one.

Bummer. So the proposal is basically he's going to take the rent-stabilized apartments. There's almost half of the apartments in New York City are rent-stabilized, or qualified as rent-stabilized. And he's going to unilaterally freeze the rent. He's going to do that by these decisions are made by city councils. So he's going to just appoint the right people to that city council to make this decision. And so almost half of the apartment stock in New York City will be frozen rent.

Yes. And by frozen, we don't mean control. we mean 0% increases, right, is what he's suggesting. And so I think what we've been talking about as we've been watching this is what are the ripple effects of doing something like that, right? I think I'll start with those individuals that might own those rent-stabilized apartments today, right? Yes. The landlords out there that are in this situation, you're probably looking at your expenses going up. You definitely are because it's happening everywhere, right?

and if I were you, I'd be asking, well, why don't we freeze those expenses? Yeah, can we freeze insurance? And then, yeah, and then I wouldn't have to increase rent, right? If we could freeze property taxes, then I wouldn't have to increase rent, right? So there's definitely a reason if you're a landlord in this situation or you fall into that bucket to be very concerned about just breaking even on your property. Yeah. As expenses have gone up. And these rent stabilized were already controlled, right?

And so they've already suffered from, at times, being behind market rate by a pretty significant amount, right? Especially in a city like New York, which has experienced so much growth. Exactly. And you can imagine that one of the reasons you might choose to buy one of these properties is for the consistency of the tenant flow, right? Because you're always going to have a demanding unit to go to market with. But you're unlikely now to have that tenant move out. We did a previous video about evictions, so you're unlikely to even exercise your agency in getting that tenant out. And there's also the second order effect.

We just talked a little bit about the cash flow implications for those landlords, but there's also the value of the property now, right? All of the metrics that a fellow investor might use to decide whether they buy that or not are going to be negatively impacted. Yeah, and rent stable stabilization is something that we looked at. And it's actually based on, in part, the size of the property, right, how many units are in it. But then it's based on when it was built. And that's one of those things, right? You can't change when your property was built as a landlord. And so, yeah, if you were looking to get out of this market over the next, you know,

four, eight years, which could be during the term or I'd say it will be actually, during the term of Mondami based on how things are looking, that property value may take a very large hit. So that's definitely one downside here. Yeah. Let's talk about, though, what about the other half of the rental market in New York City? that are not rent-stabilized, what would we expect to see happen with them? So this one is weird, but there are some examples of where this has happened before,

where not a rent freeze, but where the market rate diverged significantly between the regulated apartment unit and that stock in a market and the unregulated. And that place I'm thinking of, because I used to work there, is Santa Monica, California. And what you get there is exactly what you would kind of expect when you put yourself in the situation of each stakeholder. If you are a renter in a stabilized department in Santa Monica, you don't want to move ever. It is the best deal, right? You're living in Santa Monica, California, probably for a steal, especially if you've maintained your tendency through generations, which some have. And then if you want to move to Santa Monica, you're paying an arm and a leg

every month on rent for that non-regulated apartment that probably goes to market that is your option. And so I wouldn't be surprised that something like that happens to the unregulated units or the unregulated units start to get to charge a premium because the actual supply on market will shrink significantly, which is actually bad news for the tenants in those apartments. Yeah, absolutely. And it makes a ton of sense. And I know people that live in New York and rent stabilized and yet never leave, right? And so while it helps affordability, it doesn't help mobility, right, as needs and your housing may change. And I think that's a really interesting point

that as you restrict this side of the market, the other half, you'd anticipate large increases in that rent, because there's going to be no rent-stabilized apartments available. Yes, exactly. No one's going to move out of that. And then there's the other piece of this, because I think if you're in good faith talking with Mamdani,

about this and you're pointing out these problems about the, you're solving affordability by making access harder, right? Like you point that out. Well, he's going to point to his proposal about affordable housing. And what is that proposal, Chavez? So his proposal is to build new affordable housing in New York City. He talks about building up, not out, right? He's going to take over some of the skyline with 200,000 plus units,

is what he's proposing right now to help the supply. problem. Yeah. 200,000 affordable units promised and to preempt the objection of, but the government can't build anything. He says, well, my government will because I'm going to build it. I'm going to make an authority that's going to do special bidding processes and they're going to report directly to me and not through boards. So we're going to, we're going to get stuff done. Really streamlined the process. How is you going to pay for that, though? I think this is an interesting wrinkle and kind of takes us actually takes us down history a little bit as to the method. So why don't you explain that? Sure. So there's an old law. This old law on the books in New York would tax every stock transaction at a certain rate. That law is still on the books. It still exists. The government at any point could turn it back on. But in the early 80s, you can imagine what the early 80s were like in New York. We know some famous people today who were really big in

New York City in the 80s. That law stopped getting enforced in the something like 1981, 1982. And so you have this kind of infrastructure to basically tax every transaction that goes through the New York stock exchange. And this was before you had digital trading. This is before the mass, you know, mass trading craze of the 90s and 2000s that have totally changed how we interact with the stock market and has made that stock market super liquid, right?

You can trade in and out really easily. There's not as many fees. And he's proposing basically reactivate that and use those funds, which are substantial, to now go out and build those units. And I think what's crazy is the volume of stocks that are actually trading every day, right? There's about 1.2 billion shares trading every single day on the New York Stock Exchange. And so that would be a tax that would apply to each one of those. And it's not based on the profits.

It's just based on the act of the transaction. So you can imagine that this new tax, right, is going to change the behavior of traders. Yeah, right? I think what you're going to see quite certain what you'll see is you'll see volume move to other stock exchanges. In fact, you will probably see the stock exchanges themselves think about leaving New York, right? Because if you are the New York Stock Exchange, you are a business, right? and you certainly can't afford your customers to be penalized. So we've talked about the policy.

We've kind of laid out the policy. Now let's talk about the political economy here because New York, right, it's this extremely unaffordable place. It's made up of haves and have-nots and has been for most of its history, right? There's just a lot of this tension between the ultra-rich that became rich because of New York City's commercial like policies and realities. and then the poor who want to live there because it's New York City and that's where a lot of work is. And Mamdani is really kind of this populist leader coming out and trying to solve a set of problems for cost of living out there.

Yeah, and I would anticipate, and if you're living in New York, I would, whether you fall into the haves, right, or the have-nots will drastically change what your experience during his administration. is right and what what that means every policy that he's put out so far um is to help the have nots which sounds great right but usually at the expense of of of the perceived halves and i think who falls into the halves is really interesting because this is a situation where landlords are falling squarely into the halves right um and what's as you pointed out earlier though uh renters that are not in rent stabilized, though, will also be drastically disadvantaged as those prices increase. And so I think we should just expect to see as this experiment plays out in New York and I'm assuming he's going to be, you know, successfully elected more and more policies to kind of clearly define who's the winner.

Yeah. Right. And and who's the loser. And it's one of the things I love about the U.S. is it'll be a PG-Dish, you know, kind of like the proposal to remove property taxes. And, Florida, right? Like the states that we have with no state income tax and the states that we have with very high state income tax like New York or California, right? Or Austin's response to the affordability prices and absolutely. Yeah. And so we get to see these little experiments play out. This will be an experiment on a grand scale though. It doesn't get any bigger in the United States, right, than New York City. And so I think all eyes will be on. But if you're a landlord right now and you have a rent-stabilized property,

you're going to have a hard time selling it, and you should really be thinking about what are your variable expenses that might go up over the next couple of years and just trying to plan accordingly because you're going to be in a tough situation, right? If you are a landlord in New York City and you have a non-rent-stabilized apartment,

I would really just keep an eye on what the market rates are because if those jump up really quickly and they traditionally jump up faster for corporate landlords. Yeah. Right. They have the data at their finger fingertips. They make decisions very quickly. And so if they start increasing rents, you'll likely see a really good opportunity to increase rents yourself for your next vacancy. Right. And so maybe there is opportunity there for you to, for you to stay kind of on top of your expenses as the market changes. And if you're not in New York and you're watching this with bated breath, pay attention to the outcomes. Pay attention how people talk about the outcomes. New York City is not the only city newsflash experiencing an affordability crisis.

And it's going to be interesting to see somebody with the means and the electoral support to try a big thing on a big stage. Yeah. No, I get the popcorn ready. Yeah, get the popcorn ready. Cool. All right, Seamus. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, friends, like and subscribe.

We'll see you next week. TurboTenant is the all-in-one platform for landlords to manage their rental properties. From vacancy to tenancy, we have you covered with industry-leading tools and expert advice. Landlord better from anywhere for free at turbotenant.com.