Happy Tuesday, and welcome to this mostly accidental, special New York-focused edition of Rent Free. The country’s largest city has been making housing headlines for none of the right reasons these past few days. This week’s stories focus mostly on the Big Apple and its problems. That includes:
- Trouble at New York Community Bank, thanks to the plummeting value of rent-stabilized buildings.
- A public housing agency that just got hit with a single-day record number of federal bribery indictments.
- A vacancy rate so low that it might as well be non-existent.
Both New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams have proposed some positive reforms. Other lawmakers are suggesting ideas that could make New York’s housing situation much worse.
When the Capital Leaves Town
New York Community Bancorp (NYCB) has been having a rough couple of weeks since it reported on January 31 unexpected quarterly losses of $252 million and that it was setting aside over $552 million to cover future loan losses. Since then, its stock has halved in value and rating agency Moody’s downgraded its credit rating to junk. Efforts to shore up investor confidence have only done so much.