New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing a sharper housing-policy test after new rental data showed market rents hitting record highs in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Corcoran reported that Manhattan’s median rent reached $5,295 in June, while Brooklyn’s median rent rose to $4,350. Both figures were up about 8 percent from a year earlier, underscoring how little relief many market-rate renters are seeing in the city’s affordability crisis.
The numbers are politically sensitive because they follow the Rent Guidelines Board’s decision to set 0 percent increases for one-year and two-year rent-stabilized leases beginning Oct. 1, 2026. The freeze applies to roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments, not to market-rate units…