---
title: 'Mamdani Did Exactly What Rich Landlords Feared'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=PUx7e8BTpTo'
video_id: 'PUx7e8BTpTo'
date: 2026-08-22
duration_sec: 1001
channel: 'Meet Kevin'
---

# Mamdani Did Exactly What Rich Landlords Feared

> Source: [Mamdani Did Exactly What Rich Landlords Feared](https://youtube.com/watch?v=PUx7e8BTpTo)

## Summary

The video discusses the recent surge in Manhattan rents, which have hit an all-time high. The creator argues that this is a direct result of interventionist policies like rent freezes and restrictions on vertical construction, which constrict supply and drive prices up. He contrasts this with more permissive markets like Austin, Texas, where prices have fallen.

### Key Points

- **Record Rents** [02:06] — Manhattan rents hit an all-time high, with median rents at $5,000 and average over $6,000.
- **Luxury Market Surge** [03:17] — Luxury rentals (top 10%) saw prices up 35% year-over-year, with median luxury rents near $14,000 a month.
- **Trickle-Down Effect** [04:16] — High-end renters absorbing supply constricts availability for other levels, pushing prices up across the board.
- **Policy Impact** [05:00] — Rent freezes on a million of Manhattan's two million apartments disincentivize development, reducing supply.
- **The Solution: Build More** [09:48] — The solution is to build more homes; Austin, Texas, with conservative policies, saw prices drop 25% from peak.
- **Economic Shortage** [12:43] — Rent stabilization creates a shortage, pushing price pressure to higher-end rentals, raising average rents.
- **Developer Math** [15:37] — Developers find low returns (1.67%) on affordable housing, so they invest elsewhere, reducing supply further.

## Transcript

CNBC is now reporting that Manhattan rents have hit an all-time high. And you know, I don't want to be the person to go, I told you so, but I hate to say it. A year and a month ago, I made this video and I called it Why the Rich
Secretly Love Manni for Mayor. And a lot of people got mad at me for saying this because they're like, "Oh, this is like reverse psychology, blah, blah, blah. You don't like Mundan." I I didn't say that. I simply said, and you can see it
video when I said it. It wasn't that hard. So, what I wrote uh is that if you hard. So, what I wrote uh is that if you have a rent freeze or you disincentivize building vertically, you can see the transcript right there. What ends up
transcript right there. What ends up happening is prices go up. And so we expect that in Manhattan or Brooklyn, prices would go up because fewer people would end up buying real estate. Uh fewer people would develop real estate.
That would end up leading to fewer or constricted supply. And there it is. Democratic policies that constrict supply have historically led prices to
go up. You see this in California. You see the opposite in Texas. And you would expect it to happen in Manhattan. And what a freaking surprise. Here we are.
Manhattan rents hit all-time high. Here's what we know. Well, let's listen Here's what we know. Well, let's listen and I guess hear what we know.
wealthy choosing to rent rather than buy. Robert Frank is at the table this morning. This is a sort of interesting shift. It's the two more taxes pe the tear, you know, held up in the court process, then authorized to continue
going on through appeals. It's giant mess. Of course, more competition to rent, less supply. It's it's basic economics. Interesting because we've talked about record rents in Manhattan before, but
this just keeps going higher. Rent in Manhattan reaching an all-time high driven mainly this time by the very wealthy. median rents reaching an all-time high of 5,000 a month in July and the average rent now over 6,000.
>> I I I mean that is a lot for the vast majority of the country. But just to be clear, that represents about a $5,000 rent would represent about a million.1 maybe a million.2
maybe a million.2 value property in parts of Manhattan that's getting you like a one-bedroom in Brooklyn. Maybe you're getting a tutu. Uh, you know, you're you're not living a
very spacious life. You know, a lot of these even a studio in Manhattan can run 67 $800,000 and the rent for that's going to be somewhere around 3,500 the rest of the country, these are extremely high rents. But I would not
say that you're very wealthy because you're paying $5,000 a month in rent in Manhattan. Like, you're trying to get freaking by, man. than 300 a month for an apartment. That's according to the real deal report by Jonathan Miller.
Now, the biggest moves are at the very high end, luxury rentals. So, that's the top 10% of the rental market >> saw prices up 35% compared to a year >> Median rents in luxury now close to $14,000 a month. And we're even seeing
>> median in luxury at 14K. I mean, those are those are high levels. Those those pricey. And it wouldn't be a surprise that the wealthier end is also like, I'll rent." Honestly, with rates the way they are, too. That's a logical decision
>> Six figure rentals. That's right. There have been at least seven apartments this have been at least seven apartments this year renting for over $100,000 a month. >> Kind of turning this into like a talk about luxury, which is fine. But
we're seeing reported by the Journal and other places as well. And what's interesting is even if you get, you know, like the $14,000 level folks absorbing rental supply, you're constricting available rental
supply for even other levels because now the, you know, $10,000 a month person has uh uh who might stretch to 13, 14, 15 or whatever. Now all of a sudden there's less supply for them to shop at. So now they're stuck paying more for a
10K property that's now going for maybe 11. the 9K renter is now paying 10, you know, whatever. It trickles down. Unfortunately, makes it more expensive >> He makes owning a second home more expensive and less predictable. Some
affluent buyers will naturally reconsider whether purchasing still makes sense. Not at war in the high-end real estate market and how the wealthy are responding. TMC we see shows is just driving demand. And on the supply side,
you've got this rent freezes uh on rent stabilized apartments. So a million of the 2 million apartments in Manhattan are now frozen. So if you're a landlord that owes multiple buildings, which many do, you're frozen on one side, you're
we're just going to see increase. And and by the way, on the wealthy side, it tear given the cost now >> to rent. >> This is exactly what we predicted last year. And again, not trying to like pat
myself on the back. The whole purpose here is just to say this is what happens when you get interventionist policies into real estate to try to drive affordability. What you actually end up doing is you drive less affordability.
The way to increase affordability in real estate is very simple. You need to build more homes. You could build a lot of homes in parts of Utah, in parts of Arizona, in parts of uh Austin, Texas, and if you can have a lot of land, keep
building homes, you will drive down that median price for rent and for buy. you restrict uh uh growth because you have policies like Manhattan does where it says, "Oh, we're gonna disincentivize you turning this single unit apartment
you turning this single unit apartment that is 100 years old into 16 units. We're going to say you could only turn that into four units through, you know, these liabilities or uh regulations or this that or whatever,
which is practically what happens. I'm skipping some of the details here, but whatever. I'll just build four units and sell it as a residential rather than building 16 and going up another two or three stories. Again, you're
constricting supply by government policy, which makes rents unaffordable >> markets so they could compete with the free supermarkets. is that that's what I'm that was happening over the last couple of days that that I saw that
there is an an idea that they need help that the the competitors to the free >> the free supermarkets haven't even opened yet. I know but already there's be able to >> well there's a discussion the discussion
there was somebody who was interviewed that's part of the administration I question of Mark about what happens to the supermarkets that are in the neighborhood of >> of the market that's why existed the
profitable stuff which is cigarettes and liquor and lottery tickets which is how most like bodega get sold at the >> and they're not going to get sold at the free one so that all this stuff >> I I haven't heard about the latest
>> tangent tangential discussion here about the grocery stores that Mandani is trying to open. It's a crazy business to get into and the the we should go look was pumping Al Albertson's yesterday. Maybe we need to go look at their
financials really quick. >> You were suggesting that if that this popular and start sweeping the country because again goes back to giving away things to people. Well, you look at these rent numbers
>> and it makes sense that a lot of people elected a socialist mayor. I mean, when >> right, right, rents are high, but then you continue to restrict supply, you It does make sense as a reaction function to go, "Oh, rents are too high.
rents." Uh, we got a chat here that says, "Uh, what would be the way to bring prices down in Manhattan if space is limited?" It's that's it's exactly what I just explained. What you have to do is you have to have the same
incentives for building more units or maybe even better incentives for building more units rather than incentivizing building fewer units. You incentivizing building fewer units. You see more conversions from a single uh
apartment to a duplex or a forplex than you do to building vertically and going to 8 units or 16 units or 32 units. Because once you go over four, you run into insane problems with permitting in Manhattan. If they said, "We're going to
incentivize getting rents down. We're going to make it easy to build vertically." You could build you could literally build infinite supply in Manhattan. Infinite supply because you could just keep building up. There's
plenty of room in Manhattan to build more towers. Now, obviously then traffic and stuff. I'm just making an extreme argument that you can build a whole lot more. You've seen it in Brooklyn. Brooklyn getting a lot of conversions
from single units to duplexes, quads. Why are they not going to six, eight, 16 Why are they not going to six, eight, 16 units? Permitting. It's the same process over there. Uh so anyway, um the more liberal the local policies, my bottom
line takeaway of this, the more liberal the policies, the more likely prices are going to go up over time rather than down. Then you look at an area like Austin, Texas, where you see really conservative policies. You actually see
prices come down 25% off their peak because these conservative policies mean, hey, free right to build quick, easy permitting. Permitting is not really a roadblock to building supply. So in boom and bust cycles, supply
then all of a sudden, you know, rents and prices are down 25% and people are affordable." But then the existing owners are like, "Ah, crap. things are more affordable, you know, but it's the benefit to, you know, people who
ordinarily like the irony here is that a a vote for a liberal politician is actually a vote for higher prices and higher rents, whereas a vote for a conservative politician is a vote for the free market and typically the free
market correcting those high uh price distortions. That's why I personally try to only invest uh where there are liberal politicians in terms of real estate because I actually think they are a put option for
the underlying real estate because just keep setting prices up. Kind of of people are like, "Yeah, but I don't want to live in a liberal area." Fine. to think of. Here's a comment in our community tab, which you could join
totally for free by downloading the Meet Kevin app in the Apple or Android app discussion as well. But here's somebody who's watched me talk about uh rents and who's watched me talk about uh rents and the rent issue in New York City. And
they mention here that they are a property manager of rent stabilized units and how difficult it is basically to be a property manager because their housing department is extremely protenant especially since New York City
has passed substantial rent stabilization laws. And what they basically say is hey as a result of these laws it's really difficult to actually bring rentals to the market. you're way better off selling them as
condos or single family luxury homes. Basically, you're better off appealing to the high-end because it's not profitable to develop for the low end because the rents are too low for the low end. Uh so it it probably because of
the rent stabilization laws. So this is actually something that is economically actually something that is economically pretty common. So if I mean first of all we we know that economically when a government comes in and puts in a
price uh ceiling and says hey we're not going to allow prices to um to exceed you know x for a certain size or square footage or whatever. Uh then what you
footage or whatever. Uh then what you end up with is uh there we go. Let's put this in such a way that we can see it. the supply and demand intersection here, right? If we come in and put in a price ceiling, what we're creating is a
shortage where we we want more units. So we have higher demand but at this price we're only going to supply this quantity of units because practically if we go
develop a building and this is all the rent that we can get right here then and let's say that's 100 units and if we could get a higher price then we would uh develop or supply 200 units at the higher price because that's what it
point of view. When the government comes in, it puts in and maybe the equilibrium price, mind you, is 150 units, right? When the government puts in a price ceiling, what we're doing is we're saying, "Okay, fine. Then it's doesn't
develop more. So, we're only going to develop 100 units." But the market at that lower price is demanding 200. So, what do you end up with? You end up with what do you end up with? You end up with a shortage. Now, shortages usually show
a shortage. Now, shortages usually show up as an increase of prices, but you can't see the prices go up on these lower-end homes because their rent stabilized. So, that pressure doesn't disappear. That pressure that price
pressure moves up the frontier and then you see rents of the higher end go up and that's how you see average rents end up going up. So economically, you can't paper over a shortage. You have to build more. But like what this individual in
the community tab is saying, hence new developments are at high-end condo rental levels where, you know, people can't afford this stuff anyway on on, you know, lower-end rents. Well, that
basically saying, "Look, we have to build in a way where either we're not build in a way where either we're not subject to rent stabilization laws or if we are subject to them, we are selling for such a high cost per square foot
because we're putting in luxury furniture and finishes and kitchens and bathrooms and this that or whatever that, you know, we can now justify we can make a return on our investment. Otherwise, every developer, which could
You borrow money and go develop a property. You look at it, you pencil out paper, you go, "All right, it's going to cost me a million dollars to build this plus the land. It's going to cost me
1.5. If I could only rent it out for three grand, well, at three grand, uh, three grand, well, at three grand, uh, you know, per month times 12 is $36,000. Uh, minus our property management costs and all the bull crap that goes into it.
Call it, you know, take off 30%. Let's say 30 35%. That's $25,000. If I could say 30 35%. That's $25,000. If I could only earn $25,000 on $1.5 million, that only earn $25,000 on $1.5 million, that is an effective return of 1.67%.
Why am I going to go build in New York and deal with all the bull crap for a 1.67% yield? I'll put my money into treasuries and earn 4 and a.5%. You know, or just throw it in the stock market. Like,
there's no point. So then the more people like me who do the math and go, "That doesn't make sense. That's stupid." The fewer people are supplying properties. It's not like there's just some big entity that's like, "We will be
evil and build less." It's the collective decision of thousands of go buy Treasury bonds instead. This doesn't make sense." So, it was really interesting, but but that's sort of an economic background for why uh this
surprise. >> Why not advertise these things that you knows about this. >> We'll we'll try a little advertising and >> Congratulations, man. You have done so much. People love you. People look up to
you. Kevin Pafra there, financial analyst and YouTuber, Meet Kevin. Always analyst and YouTuber, Meet Kevin. Always great to get your take.