SEE ALSO: Balcony Amasses County Partnerships Representing $400B in Property Value<\/a><\/p>\n While the list sent out last week doesn\u2019t represent the final roundup of homes set to face higher levies, it does include several notable addresses \u2014 and notable homeowners.<\/p>\n Among the numerous billionaires, CEOs and business leaders on the list are Citadel<\/a> CEO Ken Griffin \u2014 somewhat of a given<\/a> \u2014 \u201cShark Tank\u201d investor Mark Cuban, IMAX<\/a> CEO Richard Gelfond and Blackstone<\/a> CEO and co-founder Stephen Schwarzman. Several A-list celebrities also made the list, including fashion icon Anna Wintour, actor Cynthia Nixon, singer Taylor Swift, filmmaker Woody Allen and actor Alan Cumming. Former New York Times critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, international art dealer David Zwirner and journalist Julie Satow were also notable mentions.<\/p>\n As for properties, prominent luxury residential buildings and developments on Mamdani\u2019s list included the Jenga Tower at 56 Leonard Street in Tribeca, Witkoff Group\u2019s 150 Charles Street in the West Village, MetroLoft<\/a>\u2019s 443 Greenwich Street in Tribeca, Vornado Realty Trust<\/a>\u2019s 220 Central Park South on Billionaires\u2019 Row, the One57 condo tower in Midtown, and 15 Central Park West in Lincoln Square.<\/p>\n When it was first announced, the pied-a-terre tax drew sharp reactions<\/a> from New York\u2019s real estate industry with concerns about market disruption, flawed rules and political theater, but it doesn\u2019t seem like the tax has affected the city\u2019s luxury market just yet<\/a>.<\/p>\n Still, the city began notifying homeowners by mail last week of their potential liability. And a lot of those homeowners are already ready to sell their second homes to avoid any headaches caused by the tax, according to Ian Slater, a real estate agent at Compass<\/a> and co-founder of Trove Partners<\/a>, one of Compass\u2019 real estate teams.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m having people definitely reach their wit\u2019s end,\u201d Slater said.<\/p>\n Commercial Observer caught up with Slater on Tuesday to discuss his clients\u2019 reactions to the pied-a-terre tax, how it might affect the luxury market in the long run, and whether developers might scale back new luxury developments in the wake of the tax.<\/p>\n This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n Commercial Observer: You said your clients are already asking you to sell their properties, even though the list isn\u2019t final yet. What exactly are they saying?<\/p>\n Ian Slater: This has been death by 1,000 cuts for a couple people. They\u2019ve been keeping an eye on what\u2019s happening with this. Obviously, the letters also went out at the beginning of this month. And now this list of 31,000 names is being released, and the mayor is telling people to check their mail. So it\u2019s just drawing a lot of attention to it.<\/p>\n And I think that people before, maybe they were just starting to consider what this was and whether they qualified. Now, it\u2019s starting to settle in that they do qualify, and they\u2019re starting to quantify it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Coupled with that is the fact that we\u2019re coming up on the fall market, when people typically make the decision to list. New York is cyclical. We get a lot of listings in the fall and spring.<\/p>\n I\u2019m having people definitely reach their wit\u2019s end. I\u2019ve had two people call me in the past two days and ask me for proposals. I have a whole group of people who have tenants that are toward the end of their leases, and instead of re-leasing it, they\u2019re saying it just makes more sense to sell. It sort of moves up the timeline for that. And then I have a lot of buyers who are just keeping an eye on the market and who are maybe pivoting more toward renting.<\/p>\n Do you think a lot of people are looking to rent out their properties as opposed to selling?<\/p>\n The issue there is that on the high end \u2014 like really high end, where we tend to operate \u2014 people don\u2019t really prefer to rent their space out. They want to have it sit empty, or sell it.<\/p>\n So I don\u2019t get a ton of people on the super high end who are deciding to rent it out. Although I have seen more higher-end listings that have come to market. It was something sitting empty, and now they\u2019re more incentivized to rent it out.<\/p>\n In terms of selling, there\u2019s always multiple factors that go into making people sell. This isn\u2019t like a COVID-19 time or 2008 time where it\u2019s a crisis. It\u2019s death by 1,000 cuts, you know, and for some people, that\u2019s unbearable. They decide to move on, or they just have their options.<\/p>\n How do you see the pied-a-terre tax impacting New York\u2019s real estate market in the long run?<\/p>\n I think that this is a bit to be foreseen. But what people are now is a little bit confused, and this new list is only adding to the confusion. Confusion is never good for markets.\u00a0<\/p>\n The reality is that the pied-a-terre market is a very small portion of the market. But it tends to be the most pressworthy. It tends to be the highest end. So it\u2019s what people talk about. However, the majority of the market is New Yorkers buying homes for themselves to live in as their primary home. So it really doesn\u2019t change the market that much.<\/p>\n Whenever there\u2019s a new tax in the market, there\u2019s a chilling effect on the market. It\u2019s just simple economics. People are going to be taxed more. They\u2019re going to be willing to pay less for the apartments, and there\u2019s going to be more sellers in the market, which theoretically will drive the prices down.<\/p>\n The question is, are there more factors driving the prices up? Like is New York in a golden age driving the prices up? Yes. Is the rental market being extremely high driving the prices up? Yes. Are all of the new IPOs driving the prices up? Yes. Any broker would be lying to you if they had a really clear vision of what it will do to the market, but I think, net, the market will probably be pretty much fine.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll still continue to see banner sales, and you\u2019ll still continue to see the prices generally climb. I think there will be a short period where the amount of contracts are going to go down, or maybe lag a little bit behind your typical number of contracts. But, interestingly enough, I\u2019m getting so many strong requests for all of our listings right now. It\u2019s typically a very quiet time of the year.<\/p>\n When pied a terre was announced, a lot of people were saying it was going to drive a lot of wealthy people away from New York. Do you agree with that?<\/p>\n It absolutely will drive people away. I have clients who have absolutely made the choice under Mamdani not to buy in the city or to leave the city. Hyper-wealthy clients.<\/p>\n So there\u2019s no question: If you continuously target the rich, they are hypermobile. Eventually they will break, and they will leave, and they will take their tax revenue with them. Some people value the schools in New York more than others. Some people value the culture in New York more than others.<\/p>\n Frankly, my name is on that list. I\u2019m a full-time resident. But I personally value the schools, culture, career, climate, transportation, social network too much. It would take a lot to tax me out of the city.<\/p>\n But, if you\u2019re of a certain wealth level, and if your job isn\u2019t inherently tied every day to New York City, you\u2019re free to bounce. And I have people who have. I think it\u2019s going to be a hard thing to actually track. I think once we see the tax rolls at the end of next year and two years, we\u2019ll start to be able to quantify it a bit.<\/p>\n Do you think most people will just take the tax?<\/p>\n I think most people will just take it.<\/p>\n New York always had publicity laws. It\u2019s not like nobody knew where I lived before. They googled my name. It\u2019s on the internet. It\u2019s in every single property record. That didn\u2019t change.<\/p>\n The list is just drawing attention to what the values are, for sure. In an era of growing resentment of the wealthy, that\u2019s not going to make certain people comfortable. This list is creating confusion, because people already didn\u2019t know if they owed this tax or not, and now they are further confused and are on this list that\u2019s being circulated.\u00a0<\/p>\n As a New Yorker, I\u2019m extremely conflicted on the tax. As a broker, I\u2019m very against the tax. There\u2019s a lot of people in New York who use their apartments part-time and don\u2019t pay into the tax rolls. So I understand where the drive behind this is. At the same time, I think that if those people dump their pieds-a-terre, it will net out less taxes for the city overall.<\/p>\n At the end of the day, it\u2019s more of a political stunt to appease the base than it is to actually raise money. I think it\u2019s been tried multiple times in the past, and finally Mamdani had to fill a budget gap and was able to get the state to break on it, and has been successful now. I can\u2019t really foresee how it helps us in any way build affordable housing or pay for any other services, but I guess their vision of perfection is the enemy of progress.<\/p>\n So we\u2019ll see. But I do think that if you have several billionaires leave the city and stop paying into it, you kind of get rid of that tax base really quickly, and all of a sudden you\u2019re a little bit worse off than you were before \u2014 a lot more confusion and anti-business sentiment, which ultimately will net drive down property values across the board.<\/p>\n Do you think a lot of developers will scale back new luxury developments because of this?<\/p>\n It\u2019s a good question.<\/p>\n The demand for very prime high-end property has not shifted that much. I still think developers are going to be building very large four- or five-bedroom apartments. If you look at some of the recent buildings that have been built \u2014 like 1122 Madison Avenue, 80 Park Avenue, 140 Jane Street \u2014 these huge apartments sold out basically off-market at huge numbers.<\/p>\n It\u2019s still the most rewarding structure for a developer, and it\u2019s where most of the demand still lies. I don\u2019t really see that demand growing up enough to make them build smaller apartments. I do think there is an argument for building more in the $3 million to $5 million range and keeping it under the top pied-a-terre tax limit because it just avoids that question for buyers.<\/p>\n![\"220](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/220-Central-Park-South-GettyImages-1087945030-WEB.jpg\" "\\"Trove")
220 Central Park South. PHOTO: TIMOTHY A. CLARY\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n