The possibility of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani becoming mayor is striking fear in New York City's real estate industry.
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Mamdani, the 33-year-old Democrat nominee for November's election, has promised to tax the wealthy to pay for free buses and free childcare, create city-owned grocery stores, freeze the rent for all stabilized tenants, and triple the number of permanently affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes.
While energizing the city's progressives, Mamdani frightens people in the city's real estate industry, The New York Times reported.
Mamdani's primary victory was a "crushing defeat" for the real estate industry and "dooms struggling rent-stabilized buildings," according to the trade publication The Real Deal.
Some of the city's real estate leaders also expressed fear about a potential Mamdani mayoralty.
"New York is the capital of capitalism, and it seems inappropriate to have a socialist mayor in a city like ours. It's inconsistent with our DNA," RXR Realty CEO Scott Rechler told the Times.
"Young people feeling disenfranchised — not being able to live in the city or that the rent is too high. These are all legitimate issues. But they're using rhetoric and populist policies to garner supporters, while the policies aren't grounded in a foundation of how they actually work."
Brown Harris Stevens CEO Bess Freedman put it more succinctly.
"Socialism doesn't work," said Freedman, who referred to many of Mamdani's proposals as "luxury beliefs," the notion that wealthy people do very little to help the working class.
"He has a very thin resume," Freedman added about Mamdani. "He's never run a business. He's never even worked at a McDonald's, let alone run the greatest city in the world."
Leonard Steinberg, chief evangelist at Compass, criticized Mamdani's intent to target wealthy New Yorkers.
"Billionaires build buildings, and I think any mayor who excludes or alienates anyone within the community is not going to be helpful," Steinberg told the Times. "So I'm hoping that in his and the other candidates' election campaign, they speak to unifying."
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Mamdani at City Hall also could affect real estate elsewhere if New Yorkers decide to bolt.
BH Group CEO Isaac Toledano told Axios his South Florida sales team already has received multiple inquiries from prospective buyers in New York and Connecticut.
"Obviously, it's great news for us, usually in the summer you don't see this type of buyers, the New York buyers, coming to Florida. This year is different," Toledano told the outlet.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.