Zohran Mamdan plans to freeze rents on all stabilized apartments in New York City should he win the mayoral election this Tuesday. His proposal is primarily intended to benefit the approximately 2.5 million tenants living in rent-stabilized units and is hugely popular with his supporters. Others are less than enthusiastic. Some quotes:
Tenant advocates estimate that such a freeze could save renters as much as $6.8 billion over four years, which also means it could cost rental property owners $6.8 billion over four years. A rent freeze may also unravel the city’s already strained housing market by cutting off the primary source of revenue owners use to pay for taxes, maintenance, and debt service. ..[the evidence suggests] that such a freeze would backfire—deepening disrepair, bankrupting mom-and-pop landlords, and ultimately shrinking the affordable housing stock.- Jen Sidorova / Reason September 25, 2025
Mr. Mamdani’s proposal to more strictly regulate rents could also scare off banks thinking about financing housing construction in the city, leading to less housing getting built…and many rent-stabilized landlords are struggling financially from rising costs for insurance and maintenance. Capping rents could prompt them to take units off the market. - Mihir Zaveri / New York Times October 20, 2025.
Tighter rent control may soothe frustration in the short term, but in practice it exacerbates the very problem it is meant to solve—affordability. Job growth and population demand in New York have far outpaced the number of units built: rents are high because people want to live and work here, but housing supply hasn’t kept up. We have more people chasing too few apartments. Meanwhile, a 2019 rent stabilization law and rising costs have squeezed landlords, leaving nearly a quarter of rent-stabilized property mortgages delinquent and many units sitting vacant. - – Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, Professor of Real Estate and Finance / Columbia Business School October 27, 2025
And from a recent paper by real-estate economist Kholodilin, Konstantin, who has reviewed over 200 rent control studies, dating back decades and spanning six continents:
The most prominent effects of rent control are decline of rents for controlled dwellings, reduced residential mobility, lower construction, lower quality of housing, higher rents for uncontrolled dwellings, and lower property prices. - Kholodilin, Konstantin (2025) “The impact of governmental regulations on housing market: Findings of a meta-study of empirical literature”
More on rent-control studies in these posts:
The Politics and Policy of Rent Control / Exploring the Problem Space. October 19, 2022
The Politics and Policy of Rent Control: An Update / Exploring the Problem Space. February 23, 2025