How real estate is grappling with the specter of Zohran

New York City’s real estate industry had a lot to say in the days following Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic mayoral primary. Warning of a mass exodus if the 33-year-old democratic socialist is elected in November, celebrity real estate broker Ryan Serhant told the New York Post that his “No. 1 job” will soon be moving people from the city to Florida. Luxury real estate firm Brown Harris Stevens released a breakdown of Mamdani’s housing and tax policy proposals and urged readers to stay “grounded in facts, not fear.” Danny Fishman, CEO of real estate investment firm Gaia Real Estate, claimed that a Mamdani administration “would be the death penalty for the city.” Panicked industry leaders gathered for an emergency postmortem to discuss their options for the general election.

The overarching sentiment: Oh shit – now what?

The real estate industry has long been entwined with city politics, using its considerable might to influence policy and land use decisions, fund candidates and spar with advocates over tenant protections and housing affordability. The industry is far from a monolith. It’s a complex ecosystem that includes developers, agents, brokers, landlords, lobbyists and building managers. Size and influence vary. Still, while real estate’s overall power has waxed and waned, it’s been a fairly good couple of years for the industry at the city level. Mayor Eric Adams has been a champion for development, pushing through a handful of massive housing projects and the sprawling City of Yes rezoning plan. More broadly, there’s been a sea change in how New York Democratic leaders view development spurred by the city’s dire housing shortage and affordability crisis. Even some lefty politicians, long wary of market-driven development, have taken up the pro-housing YIMBY mantel.

Enter Mamdani. The Queens Assembly member launched his mayoral campaign trumpeting a bold promise: that he would direct the New York City Rent Guidelines Board to freeze rents for the city’s nearly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. This vow – simple in rhetoric, thornier in reality – helped propel his historic win against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this summer. But it also struck fear in the real estate community – not just over the policies themselves, but around what a Mamdani victory could mean for the industry’s political power.

Now with roughly 75 days to go until the general election, developers, landlords and real estate executives are freaking out. Industry titans and business elite already sunk millions of dollars into supporting Cuomo and opposing Mamdani in the primary to no avail. Efforts are underway to replicate the blitz of outside spending for November, but at least for now, there is little consensus around whom to support. There are no easy options. Do they go with Cuomo again, fresh off a staggering defeat, who faces far narrower odds as an independent? There’s Adams, scandal-scarred and hindered by poor poll numbers, also running as an independent. Don’t forget Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa – he may have promised to take off his signature red beret, but that doesn’t mean New Yorkers are ready to take him seriously. Well ahead of the pack, there’s Mamdani – championing a rent freeze, a living rebuke to the city’s real estate and business elite’s ability to dictate the course of an election.

“Where do you quickly line up resources to actually beat somebody?” asked Jay Martin, executive vice president of the New York Apartment Association, a trade association representing rent-stabilized landlords. “No one can figure out that question because of time, and I think the flaws in the candidates being presented to us. I don’t think it’s a question that’s going to be answered before the election.”

Housing laws

While the mayor has significant power over rezonings, land use decisions, building regulations and the Rent Guidelines Board, the state Legislature’s ability to dictate the city’s housing policy is paramount. For example, lawmakers control key tax incentives like the 485-x program, which gives property tax exemptions to developers who include affordable units in housing projects. The Legislature also has power over housing density limitations, dictating the number of low-income housing credits available, which are a vital source of funding for housing programs, and sets the rules for rent control and rent stabilization. 

For years, the chambers were split. Democrats controlled the Assembly and Republicans controlled the state Senate – good news for the real estate industry, which historically has had more influence over the latter. Up until 2019, the state’s rent-control and rent-stabilization laws sunset every two years, giving the state Senate an opportunity to push to weaken those laws at the behest of the real estate industry. A bevy of landlord-friendly changes were passed throughout the 1990s.

But the real estate industry’s grip on housing laws loosened in 2019 when Democrats took the state Senate, securing a majority in both chambers. Lawmakers enacted – and Cuomo signed – a suite of changes to protect tenants. These laws, known as the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, put limits on security deposits, required landlords to provide tenants with more notice for rent increases, bolstered tenants’ defenses against retaliatory eviction and capped rent increases for rent-stabilized buildings. Unlike the laws that preceded them, these would be permanent. In short, the act’s passage in 2019 marked a significant power shift away from landlords to tenants.

Further decreasing the real estate industry’s direct influence in New York politics, lawmakers largely closed “the LLC loophole,” which had allowed nearly unlimited amounts of money to flow to political campaigns through anonymous companies. And more recently, the state adopted new “good cause” eviction protections, giving renters greater opportunity to challenge evictions and to challenge certain rent hikes. While Democrats have maintained power in the Legislature, the real estate industry still wields a great deal of power in the city – particularly as attitudes toward development shift in a more favorable direction. For example, the previously widespread pledge to reject campaign money from real estate interests is no longer a thing. With the exception of Mamdani and city comptroller Brad Lander, most of the candidates in the Democratic mayoral primary made no such promises this election cycle. The city’s 1.4% rental vacancy rate and lack of affordable units has fueled the pro-housing movement. This applies to the City Council – which approved the politically contentious City of Yes zoning overhaul last year – and the mayoral race alike. Cuomo promised to build and preserve 500,000 housing units. Mamdani pledged to build 200,000 new rent-stabilized homes over the next 10 years and has shifted his stance on the role the private market should play in housing production, telling The New York Times that he now recognizes that it has a “very important role.” For Adams, this is nothing new. He appointed a number of well-regarded experts like Dan Garodnick and Maria Torres-Springer to his administration, giving them space to shape his housing policy. 

But while bolstering production has been a priority for his administration, this has been overshadowed by the swirl of scandal, making what would have been an easy choice for the real estate industry – backing the incumbent – far more complex.

The rent freeze election

Walk around a handful of New York City neighborhoods and you’ll probably see them: An array of colorful “freeze the rent” posters peppering apartment windows. While the sentiment is nothing new, Mamdani championed the idea in a particularly effective manner. 

The words reference the bluntest instrument the mayor has to tackle the affordable housing crisis: the nine-member Rent Guidelines Board, which votes annually whether or not to increase rents for the city’s stock of rent-stabilized apartments. The mayor appoints all nine members to the board and has influence over how members vote on the highly watched decision.

Adams rejected widespread calls for a rent freeze throughout his tenure, arguing that increases needed to mirror the rising costs landlords faced. Under his administration, the board ultimately voted to hike rents every year – 3.25% in 2022, 3% in 2023, 2.75% in 2024 and 3% in 2025 for one-year leases. In contrast, board members voted to freeze rents several times and never increased them by more than 1.5% at a time under the de Blasio administration.

Our new ad is now live.

Freeze the rent. pic.twitter.com/yFwVgJuGEC

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) May 29, 2025

Mamdani’s rent-freeze proposal is highly unpopular with the real estate industry, which has argued such a move would kill new investment and bankrupt landlords. It has cast a deep shadow over some of his other housing proposals – even ones that would ordinarily be welcomed by the industry, such as expediting land use reviews and rezonings that would allow for more residential projects. Other Mamdani policies like doubling the minimum wage and a 2% income tax on millionaires are also magnifying fears. (Though both would require state approval.) As are some of his past positions on issues like public safety or the phrase “globalize the intifada.” A spokesperson for Mamdani’s campaign did not provide comment for this story.

“I think he’s tried to modulate some of his positions as he appeals to the business and real estate communities,” said Sherwin Belkin, co-founding partner of Belkin Burden Goldman LLP and a Manhattan lawyer representing landlords. “Unfortunately, things like the internet and TikTok don’t disappear. … He says he’s a socialist, but certainly there are things he’s said that are directly out of a communist playbook.”

There’s been a lot of fearmongering about what sort of impact Mamdani being mayor would have on the city’s population. But for now, threats about the wealthy fleeing the city are largely anecdotal. New Yorkers – and Americans in general – have long threatened to pack up their bags and move if political outcomes don’t go their way. Often, it’s merely talk. 

“People always threaten they are going to leave,” Belkin acknowledged. “But (Mamdani) may be a step too far for a lot of people. It could push people in ways that it hasn’t pushed people before.”

Finding a champion 

A choice looms for the city’s real estate community. With just a few months to go until the November election, there is little time to alter the race’s course. Do they play it safe, accept that as the Democratic nominee, a Mamdani win is likely, and try to broker a relationship with the future mayor? The democratic socialist has expressed interest in that, meeting with a group of real estate leaders last month at a gathering organized by Kathryn Wylde of the Partnership for New York City.

Do they back the heavily scandal-scarred Adams, rewarding him for his pro-development victories? “This mayor is a unifier,” First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro said. “He brings people together from every community, every socioeconomic background. He doesn’t vilify the 1%. He doesn’t blame business for the city’s problems.” Indeed, despite his political baggage, some city real estate executives are throwing money Adams' way. 

Do they go all in on Cuomo, take two? Attempting to challenge Mamdani on housing affordability, he recently pitched a highly political proposal dubbed “Zohran’s Law” to enforce income limits for tenants applying for newly vacant rent-stabilized units with muted enthusiasm from the real estate industry.

Some, like Martin, see the writing on the wall. He hopes that Mamdani’s win will be a wake-up call for the real estate industry – something he argued should have happened in 2019 when lawmakers passed their overhaul on rent laws and again last year, when the City Council approved legislation barring landlords from charging renters costly broker fees. 

“I don’t think enough people have self-reflected as to why we’re in the position that we’re in,” Martin said. “They are still focused on the fact that somebody is going to win for mayor who believes rent is theft, who believes anyone who is a billionaire shouldn’t exist.”