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Small-time landlords in New York City are “at their breaking point” under Mayor Zohran Mamdani‘s housing policies, and conditions could worsen if he follows through on a pledge to freeze rents for nearly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments, according to a new report.
In a Friday report headlined “NYC’s small landlords say they won’t survive Mamdani plan to freeze rent,” the Washington Post interviewed several New York City landlords who shared with the outlet how the new Democratic mayor’s policies have affected their operations.
“Now, with the city’s political landscape shifting around them, New York landlords say they are at their breaking point as Mayor Zohran Mamdani begins to implement even more aggressive tenant-friendly policies,” the outlet reported.
MAMDANI ANNOUNCES $2.1M SETTLEMENT WITH MAJOR LANDLORD AS TENANTS DESCRIBE ‘NIGHTMARE’ CONDITIONS
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a press conference on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, in New York City. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)
Mamdani cruised to victory last year in part on a message focused on cost-of-living issues for New Yorkers, promising an aggressive, unabashedly progressive slate of policy solutions. The Post noted landlords were an “early foil for his administration” with hearings meant to spotlight unethical and abusive practices.
But Valentina Gojcaj, a small landlord who owns two rent-stabilized apartment buildings in the Bronx, told the Post she’s worried she’ll no longer be able to afford to keep her building afloat under Mamdani’s policies.
“Why is he targeting us?” she asked the Post. “This is my investment and something I expect to retire on. What happens to me when I can no longer afford to run these buildings?”
At the start of his term last month, Mamdani promised to implement new tenant protections, which, according to the Post, have “rattled landlords who do not hold vast real estate portfolios.”
Retired transit worker Irving Lee, who inherited an eight-unit rent-stabilized building in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood, told the Post he inherited the building from his father, a Chinese immigrant who worked as a bookkeeper and laundryman. He in turn purchased the building in the 1980s when former Mayor Ed Koch was encouraging immigrants to invest in troubled properties to fight blight.
The Washington Post claimed that small-time landlords in New York City are “at their breaking point” under Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s housing policies. (Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
“[Lee] now wonders how much longer he can hold on to his family’s investment, given monthly rents of $700 to $1,500 for units that on average take $1,300 apiece to maintain,” the Post wrote.
“There are forces in this city that make it extremely difficult for property owners to care for and renovate these buildings,” Lee told the outlet.
President of the Small Property Owners of New York, Ann Korchak, told the Post that the city has approximately 22,000 buildings consisting of six to 10 units per property, and that thousands of them are owned by New Yorkers like Lee.
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As noted by the Post, city data shows rent-stabilized units make up around 40% of all rentals, and cost an average of $1,600 per month.
Out of concern that landlords in the city were abusing rental laws and taking advantage of tenants, state lawmakers passed legislation limiting how much property owners could hike monthly rents after a unit was vacated and subsequently renovated.
“Korchak said the law decimated landlords’ ability to recoup the costs of major improvements, causing many to leave units vacant. The New York Apartment Association estimates the city has 50,000 rent-stabilized ‘ghost apartments,’” the Post reported.
Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York, speaks during a news conference in the Queens borough of New York, US, on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital has reached out to Mamdani for comment.
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