"How can an anti-Semitic politician who doesn’t recognize Israel be mayor of the world’s largest Jewish city?"
New York’s real estate and business leaders warn of a mass exodus if Zohran Mamdani’s radical policies win out.
Since Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York last month, the city’s real estate, tech, and business communities have been in turmoil. Alongside his outspoken anti-Israel positions, Mamdani has focused his campaign on one of the city’s most urgent challenges, the housing crisis, and has pledged to build hundreds of thousands of state-owned apartments and freeze rents. However, sources familiar with New York’s real estate market believe these promises are empty.
One of them is Danny Fishman, CEO of the real estate investment firm Gaia Real Estate, who argues that the problems fueling Mamdani’s rise have been building for more than a decade.
“New York went through eight difficult years under de Blasio (NYC mayor from 2014–2021), who was a radical leftist,” he told Calcalist. “Then came COVID, the Black Lives Matter protests, new laws that made it easier for criminals, harder to do business, and raised taxes. When de Blasio left, the city was in bad shape. Eric Adams (the current mayor) fixed the crime situation, but after October 7, two things happened: there were pro-Palestinian protests, and costs, especially rents, surged. I work in many U.S. cities - Miami, Orlando, Dallas, Houston, Nashville, Atlanta, Long Island. In the last two years, rents have dropped almost everywhere, but in New York they’ve soared.”
Promises to tackle high rents were central to Mamdani’s platform. But according to Fishman, municipal rent intervention has actually contributed to the problem.
“They passed laws that strengthened tenants’ rights and effectively confiscated people’s property. If a tenant doesn’t pay rent, I can’t evict them, yet I still have to pay property taxes, insurance, and the mortgage. A tenant who knows how to work the system can stay in the apartment for two years.”
As a result, landlords have fled and developers have stopped building.
“There isn’t a single crane in Manhattan, while Miami is full of cranes, they’re building 20,000 apartments there. Other cities roll out the red carpet for business. In New York, no one was building, then the pandemic ended, young people came back, there are a million students, and too few apartments for rent. So rents rose. Then Mamdani showed up with socialist slogans. He blames Adams for high rents, promises to build hundreds of thousands of state-owned apartments and freeze rents, and says he’ll raise property and income taxes on the wealthy.”
Fishman calls these promises unrealistic.
“He won’t build them, he doesn’t have the money and has nowhere to get it. What he can do, if the New York Senate lets him, is freeze rents. Mamdani says he’ll freeze the rent on a million rent-controlled apartments. That means all the landlords will go bankrupt, because at the same time he wants to raise taxes and the minimum wage to $30.”
Fishman explains that developers who built in the city in recent years received partial property tax exemptions if they included rent-controlled apartments for ten years.
“If Mamdani implements his plan, landlords won’t be able to raise rents, but their tax exemptions will expire. From that point on, they’re bankrupt. It’ll be like the 1980s, when owners abandoned buildings, tossed the keys, and walked away.”
Fishman believes a Mamdani victory would drive businesspeople out of the city, in real estate and other sectors.
“People are already making plans to relocate. I opened an office in Miami eight months ago, and I’m not alone. In Miami, I have 200 restaurants near my house, museums, art, a beach, and zero state taxes. People will stop doing business in New York.
“More and more people are leaving. I can live in Miami, spend less than 180 days a year in New York, and pay no city taxes. Property taxes here are already so high that they eat up more than the building’s income.” Fishman warns that Mamdani’s proposals will only damage a city that’s already fragile. “If he comes with all this nonsense, the strong will leave and the city will take a fatal blow, and it’s unclear whether it could recover.”
Mamdani’s harsh anti-Israel, and, in Fishman’s view, possibly anti-Semitic, positions will also drive out the city’s Jewish elite, he argues.
“I have a second home on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. A quarter of my neighbors are French Jews from Paris. They didn’t come as Zionists, they fled radical Islam. That’s the real danger. New York has a huge Jewish presence in business, real estate, Wall Street, high-tech. If they don’t feel safe, and they haven’t since October 7, they’ll leave, and the city will be mortally wounded. How can an anti-Semitic politician who doesn’t recognize Israel be the mayor of the largest Jewish city in the world?”
Despite his grim assessment, Fishman remains optimistic that Mamdani won’t win.
“Within real estate and other industries, there’s a push to back a consensus candidate,” he said. “I’ve talked with many businesspeople, and people want to support Adams. There are also efforts to boost voter turnout. Only 22% of registered Democrats voted in the primary. Mamdani’s win basically put the city up for grabs. But if turnout rises, he won’t win.”
“Mamdani won’t want to push Israeli startups out of New York”
Mamdani’s primary win rattled Israeli tech workers, who worry about losing the political support they’ve enjoyed.
“I see real concern in the Israeli tech community, and I feel it myself,” Guy Franklin, founder of Israeli Mapped in NY, told Calcalist. “In recent years, we’ve cooperated with City Hall and the mayor’s office. The fear is that all of that will vanish.”
Others see the reaction as overblown.
“Even if the mayor is Zionist, it doesn’t really affect startups,” said Noam Schwartz, CEO of ActiveFence. “Sometimes you invite a founder to shake hands for a photo op, it doesn’t really affect the business.”
Eyal Bino, founder of venture capital fund 97212 Ventures, which backs early-stage startups, agrees there’s little reason to panic.
“Israel’s tech brand is strong, and one mayor won’t change that,” he told Calcalist. Still, he admits he was shocked when he heard Mamdani won the primary.
“American Jews are organizing in WhatsApp groups, there’s a huge effort to stop him from winning. The big surprise is this sharp turn to the left. The last few mayors were strongly pro-Israel and worked closely with Israeli tech, not just Bloomberg, but Adams too. If Mamdani is elected, it could hurt Israeli tech’s visibility, but I don’t think he wants to push out the many Israeli startups with offices in New York.”
