Mamdani, Trump, Hochul Offer Startling Real Estate Ideas

So many crazy things are happening in real estate and politics. President Donald Trump and Gov. Kathy Hochul are adopting each other’s ideas. Mayor Zohran Mamdani made a striking admission about rent-stabilized buildings. And Cea Weaver, tenant activist and newly appointed Mamdani official, is apologizing for her long-held beliefs.

Let’s start with Mamdani. His legal brief on the Pinnacle portfolio bankruptcy asserted that even at the mere $88,000 per unit offered by Summit Properties USA, the price would be too high.

This is the same man who claimed throughout his campaign that owners of rent-stabilized housing were profiting handsomely. Now Mamdani is now declaring that rent-stabilized housing has been rendered virtually worthless.

He’s also saying it should be nearly worthless so that owners cannot borrow against it, freeing up money for operating expenses and repairs rather than mortgage payments.

Commenters on social media pounced. Some said the city’s legal filing should be presented to the Supreme Court as evidence that rent stabilization is a taking of private property — and thus unconstitutional.

Summit’s offer is actually higher than other rent-stabilized portfolios are asking. One industry PR veteran told me he can’t wrap his brain around the fact that in New York City it costs $800,000 to build an affordable unit but only $69,000 to buy one.

“The delta between the cost and value of the affordable units is striking,” he emailed. “I’m no economist, but when a commodity is worth 1/10th of what it costs to produce, I think there is a problem.”

Also striking: Tenant activist Weaver was forced to say her past tweets that private property should be seized and that homeownership is a tool of white supremacy were “regretful” and “not something I would say today.”

Weaver, 37, has been consistent in these opinions for years. Suddenly she finds them regretful? What she really regrets is having to walk them back. Swallowing your pride is the price of being inside City Hall rather than protesting on its steps.

Making Weaver apologize is another sign that Mamdani is moving away from radicalism in order to govern. Meanwhile in Washington, Trump’s aides seem to do the opposite — abandoning mainstream opinions they once held in favor of provocative statements to please the boss and the base.

Speaking of Trump, you know we’re in strange times when he and Hochul are adopting each other’s ideas. And not good ideas, either.

Trump on Wednesday called for a ban on institutional investors’ buying single-family homes, something Hochul did last year — with cowardly state legislators joining in.

My column about Hochul’s proposal had a very subtle headline: “Why Hochul’s crackdown on real estate investors makes absolutely no sense.”

Institutional investors are a small fraction of the market and don’t get into bidding wars for homes. They rent houses to people who can’t or don’t want to own. They own less than 1 percent of single-family homes and 3 or 4 percent of single-family rentals. They account for 0.5 percent to 2 percent of single-family purchases. For six consecutive quarters they have sold more homes than they’ve bought.

Trump’s bomb-drop on homebuying came just six days after Hochul proposed “no tax on tips,” matching a Trump campaign proposal that Congress put into the Big Beautiful Bill.

One is a real estate policy and the other is about taxes, but they are similar in that they aim to fool voters, not to be effective policy.

Trump’s “no tax on tips” sounds progressive because tipped workers are not high earners. But it applies to just 2 percent of workers. What about the other 98 percent? Why do restaurants’ servers but not kitchen staff deserve a tax break?

About 37 percent of tipped workers don’t even make enough money to pay federal income taxes, so Trump’s policy doesn’t save them anything. But their tips are still subject to payroll taxes.

Hochul’s tips proposal seems like a preemptive move to ensure that her Republican challenger, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, cannot adopt it for his own campaign.

If the first week of 2026 is any indication, it’s going to be a wild year.