Why Mamdanis rent freeze means disaster for NYC tenants

New York City’s rental housing market is teetering on the edge of disaster — with a Mamdani mayoralty poised to push it off the cliff.His success running as a “freeze the rent” candidate has already moved the Rent Guidelines Board to OK dangerously low hikes for rent-stabilized units: 3% for one-year lease renewals, 4.5% for two-year ones — far less than what RGB staff report those landlords’ costs are rising at.Zero and near-zero rent hikes in the de Blasio years — RGB rents are up just 20% these last 12 years, vs.overall inflation of 36% — followed by widespread rent nonpayment during COVID (plus state “reforms” that make it unaffordable to renovate units vacated by longtime tenants), already has many rent-stabilized landlords, especially smaller ones, on the brink of having to abandon their buildings altogether.Others have no choice but to stint on maintenance, letting buildings and units deteriorate; everyone loses as these apartments grow shabbier and more scarce.

If Mamdani wins and sticks to his vow to appoint RGB members who’ll freeze rents, the bottom is all too likely to fall out.And the new mayor’s fans will have a far tougher time finding a decent apartment in New York.By the way, how many Zohran supporters realize that he can’t freeze most rents?The rent-stabilized units that the RGB governs are less than half the city’s formal rental market, and at most a third of the full city housing supply, once you count coops and condos (even if sublet) and actual houses.And a shrinking of the rent-controlled market is sure to push up prices of market-rate units, big time, because even more people will be chasing a smaller total supply.

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Incidentally, this effect explains the “record landlord profits” that Mamd...