NEW YORK – New York City’s real estate sector could face significant challenges under Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, according to Barry Sternlicht, billionaire founder and CEO of Starwood Capital Group. Sternlicht, whose firm holds extensive commercial and residential properties in the city, said high union costs and proposed housing policies could drive development expenses even higher and slow the addition of new housing.
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“Every major project in New York requires union labor, and that makes construction extremely costly. It contributes to some of the highest housing prices in the country,” Sternlicht told CNBC. He added that efforts to negotiate with unions often fail, making it difficult to add new housing supply efficiently.
Sternlicht also criticized Mamdani’s plan to freeze rents in rent-stabilized apartments. “The real priority should be creating more housing. That won’t happen easily without subsidies and more flexibility from unions,” he said.
Public safety was another concern. “If residents feel their children aren’t safe, families will leave, and schools will empty. Any move to defund or undermine the police could make matters worse,” Sternlicht warned.
He indicated Starwood Capital is already evaluating whether to move its Manhattan office due to what he described as a climate of hostility toward success in the city, which helped Mamdani win. “History shows socialism has never worked effectively anywhere,” he said, adding that encouraging opportunity and supporting economic growth would be a better approach than taxing success or relying on federal aid.
Mamdani has not issued a public response to Sternlicht’s comments.
Mamdani’s voters, other than the ones who just vote for anyone who gets the Democratic party nomination, are so sick of paying rent, they’d prefer for their building to be abandoned so they squat in it until it literally crumbles.
Satmar gedolim are big NYC landlords but they supported Mamzeri! Maybe their bldgs will be exempt… or maybe they like socialism…
Lol. Mr. Sternlicht, you’re telling us that water is wet.
Join Staten Island in their decades long effort to establish their own city, independent from NY. Call this new city “Verazanno”.
so flatbush prices will finally all
Mamdani has not issued a public response to Sternlicht’s comments.
Jokes! Why would the mayor elect publicly respond to Sternlicht? And if he does respond he would say that democratic socialism works fine in Finland & Denmark
Perhaps is thinking is the follows : If his High tax and socialist agenda gets rich and middle class population to vacate to another state, availability will rise and prices will go down … along with the whole city down the drain.
In Hebrew, “Haman of NY”, when using the abbreviation for NY, spells “The Mandani”
And have your unshared wealth confiscated to be redistributed and “shared” with “Society”. Society earned your wealth -not you. So it’s only “fair” you give it all back. This is all obvious to any “thinking” person indoctrinated by contemporary university “education”. So says the high pope of Wokeism and all his/her/their disciples and acolytes.