{"id":12464,"date":"2025-10-22T20:29:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T20:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/12464\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T20:29:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T20:29:19","slug":"top-wall-street-investor-warns-mamdanis-uneconomic-rent-freeze-plans-will-choke-off-new-housing-supply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/12464\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Wall Street investor warns Mamdani’s ‘uneconomic’ rent freeze plans will choke off new housing supply"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zohran Mamdani\u2019s proposal for tougher rent controls<\/a> across New York City could backfire \u2014 choking off new housing supply and ultimately hurting the left-wing firebrand\u2019s own voters, a top Wall Street investor warned.<\/p>\n

Drew McKnight, co-CEO of Fortress Investment Group<\/a>, which manages $53 billion in assets, told The Post that Mandani\u2019s agenda to freeze the cost of rent-stablized apartments \u201cwill make it uneconomic for property owners\u201d.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the Uganda-born lawmaker\u2019s plans could \u201cdisincentivize any amount of conversions or incremental supply,\u201d the 47-year-old Goldman Sachs alum told The Post in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Drew McKnight, co-CEO of Fortress Investment Group, warned that Mamdani\u2019s rent-freeze policies could actually backfire and furhter cripple housing supply if ever implemented. Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI sort of wince at whether those policies are likely to be effective,\u201d McKnight said in a video call from Fortresses\u2019s 48,000 square-foot Dallas headquarters. Jack Neumark is the firm\u2019s New York-based co-CEO.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll just make it impossible to have new supply. Unfortunately, it could do damage to the people he\u2019s trying to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKnight urged the mayoral frontrunner to follow the lead of San Francisco\u2019s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, as a blueprint to lure investment to the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way you make housing more affordable is you make it easier to build, easier to permit,\u201d he told The Post. \u201cThat\u2019s the total opposite of what Mamdani is proposing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDaniel is taking that on, and he\u2019s attracting capital,\u201d the University of Virginia graduate said. \u201cPolicy matters \u2014 and I think San Francisco\u2019s curve is turning because of good leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani, who became a US citizen in 2018, had put the cost of living front and center of his campaign to succeed Eric Adams at Gracie Mansion. ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n

Lurie defeated incumbent London Breed by pointing to how the Golden City had become the buzzword among Republicans as a symbol of crime and lawlessless.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got a lot of blue tape that he\u2019s still got a cut through,\u201d McKnight explained, echoing a term used by JPMorgan\u2019s Dimon to describe overzealous regulations drafted by Dem lawmakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got a state that sometimes probably makes that harder than it should be. But I think within San Francisco, he\u2019s doing a very, very, very good job,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Mamdani himself would benefit from his rent-freeze plan<\/a>. He earns $143,000 annually as a state legislator, but he pays just $2,300 per month for a rent stabilized one-bedroom apartment in Astoria, Queens that he shares with his wife.<\/p>\n

The apartment where Zohran Mamdani lives in a $2,300 per month rent-stabilized unit with his wife Rawa Duwaji. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n

The rent regulation program, which caps how much landlords can raise rent each year on roughly 1 million apartments, does not currently include any income restrictions \u2014 something opponents have long pushed to change.<\/p>\n

While the average rent stabilized household makes $60,000 annually, it is not uncommon for middle- or higher-income New Yorkers to live in the units, which sometimes rent for several thousand dollars per month.<\/p>\n

McKnight\u2019s comments came as New York\u2019s financial services industry frets about the possible direction of the city\u2019s economy if the 33-year-old failed rapper wins the race to replace Eric Adams at Gracie Mansion.<\/p>\n

The Post reported in July how a string of Wall Street titans<\/a>, including JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, snubbed a meeting set up by business power broker Kathryn Wylde with the assemblyman. <\/p>\n

Fortress co-CEO Drew McKnight singled out San Francisco\u2019s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, who took office in January of this year, as a model for Democrat party officials to copy and praised his move to slash \u201cblue tape.\u201d Getty Images<\/p>\n

But many top executives are now resigned to the fact that he looks set to win on polling day on Nov. 4, in just over two weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani\u2019s proposal for tougher rent controls across New York City could backfire \u2014 choking off new housing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[288,9838,57,9,24,63,122,124,123,565,9839,566,58,3417,82],"class_list":["post-12464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-business","tag-fortress-investment-group","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-rent-control","tag-rent-regulations","tag-rent-stabilization","tag-us-news","tag-wall-street","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}