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By Sam J., Two-Family Homeowner, East New York
New Yorkers were promised affordability. What we’re getting instead, less than two months into Mayor Mamdani’s tenure, is a fast track to higher rents, higher costs, and a deeper squeeze on the very neighborhoods politicians claim to protect.
The mayor’s proposal to raise property taxes on all homeowners to close a $5 billion deficit, unless Albany raises taxes on “the rich,” a definition that conveniently remains undefined, is not a progressive solution. It’s a shell game. And the bill will land squarely on tenants.
Let’s be clear about how this works in the real world. When property taxes go up, small homeowners don’t absorb the hit out of thin air. We pass it on, or we lose our homes. In a city where most rental housing is provided by small landlords—people like me with a two-family house, higher property taxes guarantee rent increases across the city. There’s no mystery here. It’s math.
Now add the second punch: energy costs. Heat, electricity, insurance, maintenance—everything is already more expensive. Stack a citywide property-tax hike on top of that, and the outcome is obvious. Rents go up. Repairs get deferred. Fewer homeowners can hang on. More small buildings end up in distress or sold off to larger investors who raise rents even faster.
This is the uncomfortable truth no one in City Hall wants to say out loud: policies branded as “progressive” or “DSA-inspired” often make daily life more expensive for working- and middle-class New Yorkers. They sound good on a podium. They fail on a block.
We were sold the idea that these leaders had better answers to affordability—that they understood the city’s housing ecosystem better than everyone else. Yet right out of the gate, the first big idea on the table is to tax everyone more, hope Albany steps in, and cross fingers that renters don’t feel the impact. That’s not leadership. That’s magical thinking.
I live in East New York. I’m not a developer. I’m not a hedge fund. I’m a homeowner trying to keep my building safe, warm, and affordable for the families who live there—while holding onto the only asset I’ll ever have. When City Hall treats me like a bottomless wallet, it doesn’t punish the “rich.” It destabilizes neighborhoods.
If the goal is affordability, you don’t start by increasing the cost of housing at the foundation. You don’t gamble with vague definitions and wishful revenue. And you don’t pretend that raising property taxes won’t ripple through every rent bill in the city.
New Yorkers deserve honesty. Raising property taxes on all homeowners will raise rents. Full stop. If this is the opening act of a new administration, then the warning signs are already flashing red and it hasn’t even been two months.