NYC: Rent Control Threatens Small Landlords
Wall Street Journal reports:
Natalia Bonanno’s family has owned rent-stabilized properties in New York City since the 1980s, when her Italian immigrant father purchased the first: a 40-unit Brooklyn building that was her childhood home.
Two buildings haven’t made money in years because of recent laws limiting rent increases paired with higher mortgage rates and other rising costs. But the family hung onto them, hoping the market would improve.
Now, after Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s housing proposals to freeze rents and increase property taxes by 9.5% for all of the city’s real estate, Bonanno decided she has to sell. Though these proposals haven’t been passed, for the Bonannos, just the threat is enough.
“Reviewing all the numbers from last year, it’s not really getting better,” Bonanno said.
New York City’s mom-and-pop landlords, once a fixture of the city’s housing landscape, are staring at extinction.