New York City’s mayoral race is officially over — and despite dire predictions from the industry, some residential players are chiming in with a clear consensus: don’t believe the hype.
Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani won the city’s top post on Tuesday, besting Independent candidate, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. The 34-year-old Assembly member from Queens ran on, among other policies, the promise of freezing rents for stabilized housing and raising taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers.
Leading up to the election, some real estate players warned that a Mamdani victory could spark an outflow of high-earning residents over concerns of a potential tax hike and public safety issues arising from his policies.
Brokers in South Florida and suburban New York markets further sounded the alarm bells in headlines and even in advertisements. Top Miami broker Dina Goldentayer took out a billboard in Times Square with the #MoveToMiami.
But now that the results are in, brokers in the city are saying the panic is largely overrated.
“I’ve got three kids in private school, two of whom are going through applications. Everyone’s leaving? I wish. Not everyone’s leaving,” said Brown Harris Stevens’ Lisa Simonsen. “Few people will leave a place they call home because of a new mayor. The people who are leaving were probably going anyway.”
“I don’t want to hear any more nonsense from Florida brokers,” said Serhant’s Ravi Kantha.
Serhant’s Peter Zaitzeff argued that homeowners in the city will weigh other factors like their cheap debt over concerns about a Mamdani mayoralty.
“It’s not like I have people coming to me saying, ‘Oh, I’m ready to list,’” he said. “If anything, we’re still in a period where people are locked into their 2 percent rates that they got in Covid.”
And those wealthy enough to not have to factor in financing costs are likely already spending more than half their time outside the city, according to Compass’ Leonard Steinberg.
“Chances are [the billionaire class] domiciled elsewhere,” Steinberg said. “If they didn’t domicile elsewhere, they probably have trusts and all sorts of federal laws that they use to minimize their exposure from a taxation perspective.”
Steinberg added that his clients are most concerned about public safety, a hot talking point in the run-up to the election. Democratic socialist Mamdani was criticized for previous calls to “defund the police,” but has apologized for the statement. However, Mamdani’s opponents claim some of his proposals, such as one calling for social workers to respond to mental health crises instead of police, could be ineffective.
Steinberg encouraged those fearful of a spike in crime to consider the numbers before spreading concerns.
“I’ve had people say, like, ‘I can’t come to New York. Everyone is being pushed in front of the subway and dying,’” Steinberg said. “And I’m like, ‘have you looked at the data?’”
While some point to Mamdani’s tax-the-rich proposals as potential deterrents for the luxury market, Douglas Elliman’s Frances Katzen said high-net-worth buyers don’t seem to be too concerned about their impact just yet.
“If these guys are taking the biggest hit, why are they buying?” she said.
Katzen pointed to what she called “some of the most stratospheric trades” since Mamdani won the Democratic primary in June, including a buyer signing a contract to purchase a penthouse at 140 Jane Street, asking $88 million.
“The fact pattern doesn’t fit the narrative,” she said.
Though agents jumped to minimize the doomsday scenario laid out in earlier headlines, they also emphasized that the results weren’t the outcome most in the industry had hoped for.
Starr Associates’ Shaun Pappas, an attorney who works with developers and buyers, said his clients are adopting a “wait-and-see approach.”
“The rhetoric back and forth has just become so extreme on both sides, it’s difficult to ascertain what the actual vision is,” Pappas said. “Things have been walked back so much on the mayor-elect side,” he added, pointing to Mamdani’s about-face on certain topics, such as his attitude toward working with private developers.
Blowback will likely only be limited to those already in a tough spot, Kantha said, such as developers trying to raise capital for a project in a less desirable location.
“Prime products in prime locations are still going to sell,” he said. “No one’s thinking, ‘Oh wow, now the Flatiron is doomed.’”
The uncertainty about the Mamdani administration will likely make its way into negotiations, Kantha added, with some buyers attempting to pressure sellers into agreeing to offers before the new mayor takes office or has time to start making significant changes.
“Over the next few weeks, you’ll hear anecdotes about people negotiating over Mamdani fears,” Kantha said. “But if I could tell sellers one thing, it’s don’t capitulate to that,” he added, citing other economic factors such as lower than expected inflation, a booming stock market and falling interest rates as signs that the macro economy is stronger than mayoral concerns.
Despite their misgivings, some in the industry remain optimistic.
“I want to give the guy a chance,” said BHS CEO Bess Freedman. “He wants to achieve great things and make people’s lives better, and I respect that.”
As election results started rolling in on Tuesday night, Freedman said that her phone was “nonstop blowing up” with “a lot of ‘U’ ‘G’ ‘H’” and “God help us.”
However, she added, only time will tell whether some of the industry’s most catastrophic predictions would come true.
“I don’t know how you can make a decision without him performing yet,” she said. “You have to fight with the army you get, not the one you want. If he’s horrible and terrible, we’ll talk again.”
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