MathewB2C

JUST IN: "We are forced to raid the rainy day fund, the retiree health benefits trust reserve, and to increase property taxes" — NYC Mayor Mamdani

Housing permits for new multifamily construction in Montgomery County, MD, before and after rent control.

This is not complicated. New York’s Rent Control system has a direct impact on the quality of its housing. Buildings with lower average rents have more violations. Buildings with higher average rents have fewer violations. The idea that rents don’t get reinvested back into buildings is simply absurd. We would see an inverse of higher rents to violations if that were true. We don’t and never have. Higher average rents are directly proportional to lower violations. Non-profits and NYCHA are the outliers with average operating costs $600-1100 per month per unit higher than the average rent stabilized unit without even having to account for property taxes. And with a straight face, people continue to say they are a solution while they push for rent freezes in rent stabilized apartments further defunding these building as bankruptcies mount. Reporters and the press continue to cover this as if all things are equal and the average rent of a building has no effect on the building's quality. It isn’t and it does.

I confirm that many multifamily buildings in NYC are owned by hardworking black and brown legal immigrants who saved for decades to afford them. I can't tell you the number of "BIPOC" cab drivers I have had who told me they now own or are saving for a duplex, after having driven cabs for decades -- the family lives in one apt and they rent out the other. This is how their own kids become doctors and engineers. This situation is a model of how capitalism and fair upward mobility, should work. Cea Weaver is the sworn enemy of this cab drivers, who have enemies enough as Lyft and Uber and their cronies in City Council, are carving up NYC and destroying anything in their path.

Here’s what I think will happen in NYC under Mahdami. The free buses and government grocery stores won’t happen, they never do. They sound good during campaigns, but collapse under basic math. You can’t run a city on ideas that cost billions and produce no revenue. The only way to make housing affordable is to build more housing. The free market lowers prices, not regulation. Every time politicians try to control rent or force affordability by decree, developers stop building and landlords stop maintaining. Supply dries up, the quality collapses, and the few properties that remain skyrocket in price. Once landlords can’t make a profit, they sell, lose properties, or walk away. Eventually, the government takes over. Taxes will rise to pay for the promises, and the middle class will be the ones shouldering the burden. The rich will relocate, the poor will depend on subsidies, and the productive class will be squeezed from both sides. Thriving businesses are the foundation of any thriving city. When they leave, everything else follows, jobs, schools, grocery stores, stability. Chicago already proved this. Boeing, McDonald’s, Caterpillar, Citadel, nearly 70k jobs, all gone. Now they’re facing billion-dollar deficits, half empty schools and neighborhoods without grocery stores. I saw someone who lived in a rent-controlled apartment in California put it perfectly, he said his landlord could no longer afford maintenance so the pool was filled with dirt, the floors had soft spots, and the foundation ended up cracking. That’s what overregulation does, it destroys quality. People who voted for this will eventually feel the pain but they won’t blame the policies or the politicians, they’ll blame the rich for leaving. This conversation is always difficult because most people simply don’t understand market dynamics or incentives. In a free society, people act in their own self-interest. If you remove profit and reward dependency, productivity dies and the city with it. If you think things are expensive now, just wait until they’re “free.”

Mamdani comes on stage to a roar of applause. “We will do that and yes we will fight for working people,” he says, referencing his promise to freeze rents for rent-stabilized apartments. “It is time for working people to be able to afford to live in the city they call home.”

There’s plenty to criticize about Eric Adams, but he gave up running for another term to vote for Cuomo and give him shot at beating the communist. Not every politician would put his interests aside like that. For all his flaws, he put NYC first here.

If Zohran Mamdani wins, this guy will become the most hated man in New York City, surpassing even Bill de Blasio.