Midterm Elections Results Look Pretty Good for Industry
New York City’s real estate industry enjoyed a favorable election season this year.
State Senate candidates favored and campaign funded by the Real Estate Board of New York and PAC Jobs for New York, all secured a seat in the senate. Republicans won majority control of the state senate.
Governor Cuomo with broad support easily won reelection over Republican candidate Robert Astorino. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli defeated their GOP challengers and won Kathy Hochul was elected lieutenant governor.
Over the next four years Cuomo will now face the big real estate issues, which include renter tax credit, casinos, actions from the attorney general, and rent regulated housing.
The proposed pied-a-terre tax is not sitting well with the real estate industry. It has been called a “good way to start the collapse of the residential market” and the tax would backfire. Foreign investors and people buying a second home are consider “major driving forces” in the real estate industry the past two years.
New gaming venues in the five-boroughs want be coming until at least 2019 as Cuomo gives upstate time to build a new customer base in efforts to revitalize the economy in upstate New York through four new gaming licenses in 3 regions. The state estimates $400 million in revenue from the new casinos, a number some find unrealistic with several states seeing a flattening out in revenues.
Rent regulation under the Urstadt Law gives control to the state rather than the city. Democrats like Mayor de Blasio have been in favor of repealing the law and bringing the control back to the city. An anonymous New York developer has been quoted as saying “I don’t think rent control is good of the city,” citing creating of more housing would exert downward pressure on prices. Pushing rent down in one spot just pushes it up in another spot according to the anonymous developer.
Cuomo proposed a tax credit to renters that was shot down and didn’t make it to this year’s budget. Down the road Cuomo could end up bringing back the bill.
The real estate industry now will face down these challenges with the preferred candidates in office from this election season.