Mamdanis Rent Freeze Plan Branded An Invisible Rent Hike For Every New Yorker

According to The Post Millennial, property owners across the five boroughs are warning that socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdanis vow to impose a city-wide rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments will not make housing more affordable, but instead shift the burden onto market-rate tenants and small homeowners.

Owners of buildings with a mix of regulated and unregulated units argue that if they are barred from raising rents on stabilized apartments while their tax bills climb, they will be forced to hike rents on market-rate units just to keep their buildings solvent.

January 20, 2026

You cant have your cake and eat it, too. You cant say you want to freeze the rent and then raise my property taxes, said Humberto Lopes, CEO of HL Dynasty and the Gotham Housing Alliance, who owns roughly 100 buildings, per the New York Post. His warning underscores a basic economic reality that progressive policymakers routinely ignore: when government drives up costs, those costs do not disappearthey are passed on to someone, usually working- and middle-class families.

Lopes highlighted a 20-story rent-regulated building he owns at 446 Senator St. in Bay Ridge, where property taxes could jump from $78,000 to $91,000 after updated assessment rolls increased valuations on co-ops, condos, and apartment buildings by 6.2 percent. Under a rent freeze, he would be barred from adjusting stabilized rents to offset those higher expenses, effectively trapping owners between rising tax obligations and static income on a large share of their units.

Rent-stabilized apartments are normally subject to modest annual increases set by a citywide board composed of both landlord and tenant representatives. Each year, that board negotiates allowable percentage hikes for one- and two-year leases, and for 2025 it approved increases of 3 percent for one-year leases and 4.5 percent for two-year leases.

Smaller properties, often owned by individual families or small investors rather than large corporations, are also being squeezed by the new assessments. One- to three-family homes saw valuations rise by 4.7 percent, a change that is expected to translate into higher tax bills for landlords and owner-occupants alike across the city.

You want to freeze the rent? Freeze the property taxes or lower them. Right now, youre increasing the expenses to my building, Lopes added, capturing the frustration of many owners who see City Hall demanding affordability while simultaneously inflating their costs. The Department of Finance (DOF) last week released preliminary assessment rolls for July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027, signaling that, even without a formal rate hike, tax burdens will grow because of higher market valuations.

The DOF report showed that Class 1 propertiescovering one- to three-family homesrose an average of 4.7 percent in assessed value. Staten Island homeowners were hit even harder, with valuations increasing by 5.1 percent, a significant jump for a borough long seen as a refuge for middle-class families.

These higher assessments mean one thing: higher property tax bills, a spokesman for the Homeowners for an Affordable New York said, cutting through the technical language to the practical effect on household budgets. For many owners, especially those not backed by large investment funds, these higher bills will leave little choice but to raise rents or cut back on maintenance and repairs.

Mayor Mamdani promised to make the city more affordable; yet under his watch, the city is quietly hiking taxes that property owners will inevitably pass on to tenants, the spokesperson added. Rising assessments are an invisible rent hike for every tenant in New York, and ordinary homeowners are being squeezed, too.

The Mamdani administration has attempted to deflect criticism by insisting that it has not formally raised the property tax rate. No, the City has not increased property taxes [rates] since January 1st the last mayor to do so was [Mike] Bloomberg, Mamdani spokesman Dore Pekec said over the weekend, insisting that the latest figures are merely an assessment of property values and promising that The mayor has made it clear he plans to advocate for reform to our broken property tax system.

Yet for landlords and tenants facing higher bills, the distinction between rate hikes and soaring assessments offers little comfort, as the combination of a politically popular rent freeze and steadily rising tax burdens reflects a familiar progressive pattern: expanding government control over prices while quietly extracting more revenue from the very people struggling to keep the city livable.