{"id":254506,"date":"2026-06-04T00:07:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T00:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/254506\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T00:07:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T00:07:20","slug":"n-y-c-rent-freeze-wouldnt-spell-doom-for-most-landlords-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/254506\/","title":{"rendered":"N.Y.C. Rent Freeze Wouldn\u2019t Spell Doom for Most Landlords, Report Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The real estate industry has criticized Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s proposal to freeze rents on rent-stabilized apartments<\/a> as a reckless idea that could bankrupt landlords and stunt New York City\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

A new independent analysis, though, is offering a less ominous conclusion.<\/p>\n

The analysis, released on Wednesday by the debt-ratings firm Moody\u2019s<\/a>, found that even a five-year freeze would place only a small share of landlords \u2014 6 percent \u2014 at risk of defaulting on their mortgages.<\/p>\n

This is in part because a vast majority of landlords could still raise rents on market-rate units in the same buildings or elsewhere in their portfolios, lightening the financial burden.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking, incrementally, something very small,\u201d said Darrell Wheeler, the head of commercial mortgage-backed securities research at Moody\u2019s and the lead author of the analysis.<\/p>\n

Still, he cautioned that there would be \u201csome economic pain for some of these landlords\u201d if a rent freeze took effect, particularly if those landlords exclusively owned stabilized units.<\/p>\n

There are nearly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments in New York City. The New York Apartment Association, a landlord advocacy group, argued that the Moody\u2019s analysis was limited because it covered only a small subset of newer apartment buildings that are part of large portfolios, including some that get city tax breaks.<\/p>\n

The group argued that the report overlooked the challenges facing older and smaller buildings in the boroughs outside Manhattan that often do not get any city help.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a freeze moves the needle on the strongest players in our market, just imagine what it does to the most vulnerable buildings,\u201d said Kenny Burgos, the chief executive of the association. \u201cThis is a warning, not reassurance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report adds to the intensifying debate over the proposed rent freeze<\/a>. The Rent Guidelines Board, the independent panel that decides whether to allow rents to rise in stabilized apartments, left the door open to a freeze<\/a> during a preliminary vote in May. It will cast a final vote on the matter at the end of this month.<\/p>\n

The freeze, if approved by the panel, would become one of the strictest rent caps in the nation, affecting more units than the total number of apartments in San Francisco and Miami combined. It would also enable Mr. Mamdani to deliver on a key campaign promise during his first few months in office.<\/p>\n

City Hall had no comment on the Moody\u2019s analysis on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Landlords have said freezing rents would make it even harder to deal with rising property taxes<\/a>, insurance premiums and other costs, leading to worse conditions for tenants.<\/p>\n

Many landlords have said they are keeping units vacant because it would cost too much to renovate and repair them.<\/p>\n

In response, Mr. Mamdani has said the city could help landlords by subsidizing insurance costs, or allowing landlords in financial distress to raise rents on vacant apartments that are subject to other affordability requirements because of existing agreements with the city.<\/p>\n

The analysis considered about 481 loans made to owners of apartment buildings. Those loans cover roughly 42,400 apartments in buildings across the city, of which about 43 percent are rent-stabilized. Mr. Wheeler said he believed the grouping was a representative sample of the city\u2019s overall housing stock.<\/p>\n

The loans that Moody\u2019s analyzed are part of financial products known as commercial mortgage-backed securities. These products are essentially bundles of loans packaged together \u2014 for not only apartment buildings, but also offices, restaurants, malls and more \u2014 and sold to investors.<\/p>\n

If owners can pay their mortgages, the products, or bonds, remain good investments; everyday people often invest their savings in funds that include them. But a major change like a prolonged rent freeze could sour the investments.<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s modeled how the bonds would fare if rents were frozen for five years. Mr. Wheeler said Moody\u2019s rates only the safest types of bonds, acknowledging that the analysis might leave out riskier situations.<\/p>\n

The analysis determined that landlords were at risk of default if they could not cover their debt payments with income from the apartment building, or they did not have enough money to refinance their loan.<\/p>\n

Mr. Wheeler said he did the analysis after investors became concerned by Mr. Mamdani\u2019s rent freeze proposal and asked how it might affect bond ratings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to see downgrades due to this action,\u201d Mr. Wheeler said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The real estate industry has criticized Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s proposal to freeze rents on rent-stabilized apartments as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[99166,2954,1445,99167,11289,9,24,56,63,65,64,578,13995,15021,52065,1446],"class_list":["post-254506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-credit-ratings-and-credit-rating-agencies","tag-landlords","tag-mamdani","tag-moodys-investors-service-inc","tag-mortgages","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-real-estate-and-housing-residential","tag-rent-control-and-stabilization","tag-rent-guidelines-board","tag-renting-and-leasing-real-estate","tag-zohran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254506","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=254506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}