tweeted<\/a> snarkily, \u201cEric Adams and his hand-picked Rent Guidelines Board delivered one last blow to struggling rent-stabilized tenants.<\/p>\n\u201cNew Yorkers are desperate for city government that lowers costs instead of raising rents. Change is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
But many cash-strapped tenants hoping for a reprieve may be disappointed in Mamdani\u2019s \u201cfreeze the rent\u201d pledge, as it would only apply to rent-stabilized homes \u2014 which account for roughly 1 million out of 3.7 million total housing units in the Big Apple.<\/p>\n
When Mamdani announced his then-longshot mayoral bid in October, he put out a video mentioning his rent freeze would be for rent-stabilized tenants \u2014 but has largely avoided making that distinction since, a Post review found.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt may not be clear to everyone that he is only speaking about rent-stabilized apartment, younger voters may not realize that,\u201d said Ann Korchak, board president for the Small Property Owners of New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cFreeze the Rent\u201d is a plank of Mamdani\u2019s campaign. Hans Lucas\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The mayor appoints all members of the Rent Guidelines Board, which sets potential increases for rent-stabilized homes.<\/p>\n
The board is required to find a balance between affordability for renters and the needs of landlords, said Mark Willis, a senior policy fellow at NYU\u2019s Furman Center.<\/p>\n
Rent freezes aren\u2019t unheard of in recent years.<\/p>\n
Board members froze the rent three times under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio \u2014 and only increased it 6.75% overall on one-year leases during his entire mayoralty.<\/p>\n
De Blasio said he appointed board members to shift a pro-landlord balance that existed under his predecessor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg.<\/p>\n
He said the appointees exercise their own judgment, but the mayor has the \u201cbiggest impact\u201d on the board\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI felt there needed to be a rebalancing of the board\u2026 There was no focus on tenants\u2019 expenses,\u201d de Blasio told The Post on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe said to the appointees, \u2018Look at the whole picture.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Mamdani\u2019s campaign platform also vaguely calls to provide \u201cbetter, faster and easier access\u201d to city-backed loans for repairs, and to fast-track 100% affordable developments and build 200,000 new units over the next decade.<\/p>\n
But freezing rents on stabilized units could come with disastrous consequences, experts warned.<\/p>\n
Rent-stabilized landlords have raised alarms about the rising costs and thin margins of maintaining homes \u2014 a key factor that the board has considered as it increased rents on one-year leases more than 9% over Adams\u2019 term, records show.<\/p>\n
Many experts warn a rent freeze, even if only applied to rent-stabilized homes, could have disastrous consequences. Michael Nigro<\/p>\n
A freeze for rent-stabilized apartments could make prices rise for market-rate units, especially in buildings with a mix of both, Willis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019ll be more attention that will have to be focused on the revenue from the market rate units in order to have enough money to pay to properly maintain the property,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Korchak warned that landlords not be able to pay for repairs may end up charging more in rent for small businesses and other apartment tenants.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a ripple effect, the small business tenant paying more or the free market tenants paying more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf (Mamdani) comes out to bat for four years, you just put the nail in the coffin of all these distressed buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Freezing the rent requires a big squeeze. Socialist Zohran Mamdani\u2019s promise of freezing rents in New York City…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,5341,8167,24845,24667,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-31616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-metro","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-nyc-mayoral-election-2025","17":"tag-rent","18":"tag-rent-stabilization","19":"tag-tenants","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-us-news","26":"tag-usa","27":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114781665815450696","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}