Real Estate Sort Of Changes Tune On Mamdani

8 November 2025

After months of forecasting disaster, real estate responded to Zohran Mamdani’s election victory with a resounding shrug.

Leading up to the election, industry players across sectors threw their money and their mouths behind the mayor-elect’s opponents, including shelling out $13 million for political action committees aimed at defeating Mamdani and/or putting former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in Gracie Mansion.

Since the results were called late Tuesday night, several of Mamdani’s most vocal adversaries in real estate appear to be backing off of some of their more grim predictions. Some are extending olive branches in the hopes for a seat at the table with the incoming administration.

“I want to give the guy a chance,” Brown Harris Stevens CEO Bess Freedman told TRD on Wednesday. “He wants to achieve great things and make people’s lives better, and I respect that.”

The chief executive’s tone seems to have shifted from July, when she told the New York Times she considered Mamdani inexperienced, among other concerns.

“He’s never even worked at a McDonald’s, let alone run the greatest city in the world,” Freedman told the outlet (though she added that “the world will clearly not come to an end” if Mamdani were to win the election).

Peter Riguardi, president of JLL’s New York office, on Wednesday sent employees what he described as a unifying email urging them to “give him a chance to lead,” adding that “maybe for those of us who doubt him, he’ll surprise us.” (Not everyone at the company adopted the same conciliatory attitude. A top broker at the firm, Scott Pranzer, was fired later that day over his response to the email, which included comparing Mamdani to Hitler.)

Even Compass agent Jason Haber, who led a fundraising push for a PAC benefitting Cuomo, changed his tune — though only slightly.

After Mamdani’s win was announced, Haber said it “would be foolish to reject everything carte blanche” — this coming from the man who previously said, “every one of his policies, every one, will make the city less affordable and less livable and less safe” and that Mamdani “seems to have an allergy towards entrepreneurs in this city.”

But a win is a win, and it appears real estate is ready to forgo some of its more harsh criticisms of Mamdani to rally behind the one thing they may have in common with the Assembly member: bringing more housing to New Yorkers.

What we’re thinking about: During third-quarter earnings calls, brokerage executives routinely touted their investments in artificial intelligence technology for agents. But which of those tools are agents actually using and which are just noise? Send your thoughts to sheridan.wall@therealdeal.com.

A thing we’ve learned: Roughly 125 million commercial airline passengers traveled through

the three largest airports in the New York City metropolitan area last year, according to data from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Those airports — JFK, LaGuardia and Newark — are among the 40 ordered to reduce operations this week amid the government shutdown.

Elsewhere…

Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who represents a district in northern New York, announced on Friday that she plans to enter the race for the state’s next governor, ABC 7 reported. Stefanik, known as a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, will challenge the incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul, of whom she has been a vocal critic.
Following previous denials and a reported push from the president, the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation greenlit a water-quality permit needed to advance a proposed gas pipeline that would run near Staten Island and the Rockaways, according to Gothamist.
Gracie Mansion is haunted, Mayor Eric Adams said during his interview with comedian Ziwe. Their discussion began with his efforts to crack down on the city’s rat population and ended with what he looks for in a handshake. Memorable stops in between included a question from Ziwe about why Adams didn’t get a hair transplant during any of his numerous trips to Istanbul, a nod to the federal charges filed against the mayor.

Closing time

Residential: The top residential deal recorded Friday was $19 million for 40 Fifth Avenue, PHC. The Greenwich Village co-op unit last sold in 2023 for $17 million. The seller is listed as Randolph Lerner.

Commercial: The top commercial deal recorded was $33.3 million for 765 First Avenue. The Turtle Bay rental building has 32 units and is 15,500 square feet. The sale is between two United Nations missions of Qatar and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $65 million for 70 Vestry Street, Unit PHS. The Tribeca condo is 7,800 square feet. The Modlin Group has the listing.

Breaking Ground: The largest new building permit filed was for a proposed 47,386-square-foot, two-story building at 1200 Manhattan Avenue in Brooklyn. Sherri Privitera of Populous is the applicant of record.

— Joseph Jungermann