Erik Engquist

I looked into a $4M sale to see who's buying rent-stabilized buildings, but found myself more interested in the seller. The 20-building, debt-free, well-kept portfolio assembled by Howard Alkoff over 40-plus years was being sold. He died last month at 93. therealdeal.com/new-york/2026/…

In the digital age, there is no reason anyone should have to print an 1,100-page document, let alone one for every tenant in a building, to be mailed first to NYS and then back to tenants. This photo is of an actual substantial-rehabilitation application. therealdeal.com/new-york/2026/…

@tonysimone But you didn’t push for any change to 485x this year to encourage projects with more than 100 units. No one in Albany did.

Takes too long & costs too much to build housing. We are losing more working class families like my parents. build housing for everyone now in every part of the state. By trains, above libraries, office conversions…will also lose congressional seats. NYS must b -State of Yes!

@powerstar1969 @NYCCouncil Was that the last time you called 311 on your own building?

@erik_engquist @NYCCouncil Same as TPU, HPD retaliates. I once filed a 311 complaint for overcrowding, 12 people in 3 bdrm. HPD sent Nat Grid to pressure test the cooking gas lines and shut down gas to half the building and a repair cost of over $20k to me. I own and manage RS buildings for over 20yrs and

In today's Daily Dirt, the Tenant Protection Unit goes on a fishing expedition, the pied-a-terre tax looks like it will triple the bill of a luxury co-op, Northeast home sales plunge, and the @NYCCouncil digs into the dog-poop problem. therealdeal.com/new-york/2026/…

@RentCement @NYCCouncil If it were true, would you say it describes a good or bad practice by the Tenant Protection Unit? TPU didn’t deny using this technique.

@erik_engquist @NYCCouncil No names named...seems more like a phoney nonsense piece.

“I've heard the calls to ‘stop solar and save the farms.’ Those voices fail to see the entire picture. Solar is saving our farm. If we sold this land for residential development instead…the land would be gone forever, and another farm would be lost.” timesunion.com/opinion/articl…

@tonysimone To your point, the @NYCCouncil is evaluating all public libraries to see if affordable housing is feasible on those sites. It would make sense to see if workforce or market-rate housing is feasible as well. In some neighborhoods, affordable doesn't pencil out without a subsidy.

The scant academic instruction she received, she said, left her desperate for more. “I was so desperate to learn,” Kay said. “I would read nutritional labels and pamphlets.” timesunion.com/faith/article/…

@MoisaQuasi @amkorchak That's on my list of mysteries to figure out. The assessments are supposed to be based on a building's financial performance, and owners can challenge them. They often do. There's a cottage industry of lawyers specializing in assessment challenges.

@erik_engquist @amkorchak RS prop values are dropping so why are assessments continuing to go up? You know, if not intentional.

Great question.

Good news: @NYCHousing says it will halve affordable housing lease-up period “When it takes over 430 days to fully lease up an affordable housing property, that’s not fair to the people who are in homeless shelters or doubled up, or on wait lists” therealdeal.com/new-york/2026/…

@TheSohoForum @JKetcham91 I'd add that tenant activists say rent-stabilized apartments are also unaffordable, and need a rent reduction or at least a freeze. According to them, rent stabilization hasn't made housing affordable for rent-stabilized or free-market units.

"If price control produced affordability, New York's century of rent control would've done it by now. The 2019 changes to rent stabilization designed to severely limit rent increases has only made affordability worse for everyone who does not have a stabilized unit." -@JKetcham91

@WilliardSimkin Well, Cea called the original Good Cause Eviction bill universal rent control. Not the final bill, the one that became law. I'm sure she considers an 8.8% rent increase to be out of control.

@erik_engquist Since Good Cause Eviction (which Cea Weaver called “Universal Rent Control”) appears to be working, can we dump Rent Stabilization now?

Good cause eviction has not been a big topic in NYC since the law passed in 2024. But one real estate exec believes it is causing more tenants to stay put, which means fewer units opening up and higher rents for those that do. Anyone else seeing that? therealdeal.com/new-york/2026/…

Leila Bozorg, who worked for the two previous administrations before Mamdani made her deputy mayor, appears to be a voice of reason at City Hall. Someone the industry can at least talk to. Rational, not ideological. Here's my interview with her at the @trdny NY Forum.

At least 10 people came up to me after this interview and said they really enjoyed Soo Kim. I don't think any of them had heard of him before.

“There is no way that a political process is going to create a good outcome for tenants and buildings over the long run.” — Rafael Cestero, CEO of the Community Preservation Corporation, on NY’s rent stabilization crisis therealdeal.com/new-york/2026/…

@NoMoreBS79 @amkorchak @eccles_lincoln @BrianKavanaghNY Don't laugh but the Mamdani administration is working on the nonpayer/housing court problem. We'll see what they come up with. The fact that nonprofit affordable housing providers are also suffering from this is a motivation for City Hall.

@amkorchak @eccles_lincoln @erik_engquist @BrianKavanaghNY Unreal what to do to fight it... and what's that mean if there chronic non payers you can't get them out

@jaymart222 Vacancy resets are pretty standard in rent-regulation regimes around the country, but they do incentivize landlords to push out tenants and that's why the 20% vacancy increase was killed in 2019. Of course, several anti-harassment measures have since been implemented.

I know I pour a lot more salt than sugar on here, so I want to make sure I’m giving credit where it’s due. Despite rhetoric around a rent freeze that contradicts this, there are several key officials in the Mamdani administration who have started publicly acknowledging the distress in rent-stabilized housing. How we got here isn’t important. I frankly don’t care about pinning the blame on anyone. We’ll likely never agree. Many will say it’s over-leverage despite evidence to the contrary. We’ll say it’s the 2019 rent laws and you’ll say it was necessary because of bad actors. If we agree that it’s a massive problem that needs to be addressed, then it’s incumbent on us all to look past blame and focus on Albany for solutions. One of those solutions that does not raise rents on any renter, improves housing quality, keeps the units regulated, and adds housing supply is a restoration adjustment at the end of tenancy. Together we can ensure that it’s used properly to keep housing functioning.

@powerstar1969 @jaymart222 Maybe, but when was the last "win" on rent stabilization achieved by pushing and fighting?

@jaymart222 Anytime an officer can issue a parking ticket, he will. Why,because the city needs money. Anytime the city can remove any burden from renters, such as freezing rents, they will. The only way to win is by pushing and fighting the city. All this acknowledging nonsense is worthless.