Right on time, the spring market has kicked off

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Martin Luther King Day has traditionally marked the start of the spring market and this year seems to be no exception. Why a holiday celebrating a Black leader stirs white people into selling their houses — we’ll hope it isn’t from some racist motive — is an interesting phenomenon, but there it is. And here they are:

63 Wesskum Wood Road, Riverside, $4.190 million.

18 Griffith Road, NoPo, $1.420 million. 1968 construction and still offers the charm and quality of that era

45 Sound Beach Avenue Ext., NoPo $1.595 million. Purchased via bidding war 2024, $1,392,475 ($1.350 asked)

484 Cognewaugh road, cos cob, $1.995 million. Could be a tough sell, or maybe not

191 North Street, $3.750 million

You can't say they're hiding their intentions

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Mamdani’s Rent Czar Wants to Destroy the Private Housing Market

Mayor Zohran Mamdani's controversial pick for tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, once admitted that pushing for rent control was just the "first step" in her plan to destroy the free housing market and move toward "full social housing."

Videos of Weaver's past statements have gone viral on social media since Mamdani chose the 37-year-old to lead the city's Office to Protect Tenants.

"We decided that fighting for rent control was a strategic and critical first step in the fight for full social housing," she said in a newly surfaced clip. “So, a lot of times people ask, ‘Why are we fighting for rent control when we have NYCHA? We should be fighting to save public housing.’ We decided that through a program like rent control, we are able to directly challenge the logic of unfettered profit in the real estate market. Umm, and we are able to directly challenge housing as a wealth-building tool and, through regulation, strike a blow to the entire real estate industry at once.”

She continued, “And so, the beauty of rent stabilization and rent control is that it weakens the speculative value of the real estate asset. The value is no longer based on what the landlord is able to get, but rather it’s based on a state public board deciding how much rent is going up. And yes, that board is controlled by the real estate industry, and yes, there could be a better way to regulate it. But the idea is that we could weaken the entire industry at once through a strong rent control campaign, and that would strengthen our ability to do things, like fight for social housing.”

AI:

the overwhelming consensus among most economists is that rent control generally hurts the supply and quality of housing by discouraging new construction, reducing maintenance, and leading to less efficient market allocation, even though it benefits some current tenants with lower rents. Surveys show large majorities of economists agree rent control reduces housing quantity and quality, though some newer studies suggest less stringent or well-designed policies might have different outcomes. 

Why Economists Agree It Hurts Supply:

  • Reduced Profitability: Price ceilings (rent controls) lower potential profits for landlords, making it less attractive to build new rental units or invest in existing ones.

  • Deterioration: Landlords have less incentive to maintain or upgrade properties, leading to lower quality housing stock.

  • Conversion: Owners may convert rental units to condos or other uses, further shrinking the rental supply.

  • Misallocation: The best housing goes to the lucky few who get a rent-controlled unit, while others face higher rents in the unregulated market, reducing mobility and creating inefficiencies. 

In essence, while rent control helps some renters now, the broader economic consensus, supported by many studies, points to negative impacts on the overall housing market's quantity and quality. 

I was actually drafting a post on exactly this point yesterday, but it got delayed due to my burnout from the never-ending flood of news

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The author of the linked-to article suggests cutting off all funding to “sanctuary cities”, but that’s not only not going to happen — lack of votes to rescind specific programs (the Republicans like this graft every much as their co-conspirators across the aisle do — but doesn’t go far enough. It isn’t just sanctuary cities or even blue states that want the illegals to stay, it’s the entire Democratic Party. They intentionally threw open the border four years ago and are fighting a delaying action until they can regain control and bring in more.

The latest maneuver is to shut down the government again:

DHS at center of progressive revolt as House advances $80B spending package

The deadline to avert a partial government shutdown is Jan 30

Glaring questions still remain, however, over funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as progressives threaten to withhold support from any such bill unless it's paired with significant reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The push comes from the left in response to an ICE agent shooting 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen who was driving her car when it made physical contact with a law enforcement official who then fatally shot her..

DHS funding was initially expected to be part of this minibus, but House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., told reporters earlier this week he would like to see the bill as part of the final package that's also expected to include funding for the Department of War, Department of Transportation, Department of Labor, the Education Department and Health and Human Services, among others.

But the top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., told reporters Tuesday she wanted to see DHS funding as a separate bill.

"It's got to be by itself," DeLauro said. "It's got to be separate."

Here’s your Ranking Member of the House Appropriation Committee, on tap to resume the Chairmanship of the committee when her party regains control later this year, Connecticut’s own, Rosa DeLauro. She hold the fate of the nation in her gnarled, 83-year-old hands:

As predicted

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15 Lexington Avenue, priced at $5.5 million, is reported pending just 8 days after it was listed. I wrote about this just last week (not that I;m so smart — readers greed):

New Downtown Listing

15 Lexington Avenue, $5.5 million. When originally built, it was listed for $4.150 million in June, 2014, and eventually sold to these owners for $3,092,500 in April 2015. The Central Greenwich market improved dramatically since then, and I’ll be surprised if this time things don’t go much more smoothly and quicker.