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Good! Second homes in any region with low inventory should be taxed...
It seems like a place like Manhattan might benefit from first up-zoning the low slung sections that are currently 4-8 stories.

My point here is that I'd start with trying to build enough housing before spending political capital on marginal things that neither unlock supply nor generate much revenue.

We have similar taxes in major cities in Canada (including both metro and provincial taxes here in Vancouver).

Housing is still massively squeezed and unaffordable for many in the Vancouver metro area, but the taxes definitely have encouraged some homeowners to sell or rent their properties, especially foreign investors, and their seem to be few or no downsides for people of middle-class and even moderately-affluent incomes.

I doubt that NYC will lose too much sleep over the protestations from extraordinarily wealthy people who own multiple extraordinarily expensive homes, and where NYC isn't their primary residence.

All the owners have to do is transfer the property to an LLC. I'm sure none of them will figure this out. This proposal's only purpose is PR.
Yup
Zohran is doing too much. I hope he at least leaves the second yachts alone.
What's the context here? Isn't he doing enough?
The intersection between those with a second home and having a yacht is probably not that many.
And the second beach house in the Hamptons!

Damn socialists.

sorry but all of your yachts are currently in the process of being dismantled and sold for parts to feed people, house and clothe people on UBI. enjoy!
One way to avoid the tax is to rent out the residence: https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-pied-a-terre-tax-and...

It's interesting that people choose to leave their properties vacant - They're effectively "taxing" themselves by foregoing rent (4+%/yr cap rate).

Is vacant real estate even a good investment?

No, which is why there are very few vacant units in NYC: 1.4%-ish percent of total supply, whereas the rule of thumb I've heard is that around 5% is the sign of a reasonable equilibrium.

(In a well-functioning real estate market there are some units offline due to vacancy, turnover, and renovation, so we don't expect 0%. High vacancies of e.g. 10% suggest insufficient demand for the supply.)

Reactionary taxes like this have a tendency to be ill-considered and have unintended side effects.

NY also has a 1% penalty on paying more than $1 million for housing, which was probably enacted to proletariat applause when $1 million was still considered a lot of money. Now it distorts the value of entry level housing in NYC, where you'll have a hard time finding anything more than a studio apartment for $1 million. High closing costs and similar distortions mean people tend to lose money on housing in NYC unless it's held for many years.

$5 million is expensive enough that this probably won't add much housing stock in the short term. Still, politicians never seem to think through the consequences of headline-grabbing tax policies.

Gosh, 1% on $1m, that's almost $10k! I can see that how would discourage homeownership and distort the market.

Actually wait, I can't.

Even in worse case scenario, which this isn't, the affected persons would at most try to cheat the system. This proposal is really narrow to non-primary residences, that are also very valuable. None of which will affect 99.999% of the population.
> people tend to lose money on housing in NYC unless it's held for many years.

I'd generally consider that a success metric? People making money flipping houses on short terms is a bad thing

Golly gee willikers, not the spooky potential for possible side effects! Wouldn't want any of those when we could have gigantic sucker-punch scarcity-amid-plenty instead!
> ...when $1 million was still considered a lot of money

They knew exactly what they were doing by not indexing it.

I'll hit you with a big: source?

This kind of talking point is reiterated ad nauseam, but never justified or backed by any empirical research.

I'll state one simple thing: if America is unable to raise taxes on second homes over $5M in Manhattan by 1% then this country is well and utterly fucked. The 1% are paying less taxes than anyone else in this country while hoarding the majority of the wealth. Homelessness is skyrocketing, debt levels are through the roof, but god forbid we raise the tax on second homes over $5M by 1%.

Who are you protecting here?

You realize a very small subset of the population can afford a million dollar home, let alone a five million dollar home?

The majority of the city does not give a shit.

> an initiative to appease Mayor Zohran Mamdani and liberal voters

Taxing the rich is not a Liberal thing, but the Rich is calling it that because they do not want to pay any taxes at all.

He was elected because people are starting to feel real pain and seeing the ultra rich paying far less taxes then they are. If it was up to me, I would tax all the second homes above 5 million USD and add a Luxury Tax on all valuable Autos too.

i am not in NY, but aren't yearly auto registrations scaled significantly by the value of the auto?

that seems to be true in Arizona, for example.

The top 1% of NYC residents contribute 40-48% of all personal income tax collected in NYC. When you extend that to Top 2.5% you cross 51%.

Personal Income Tax accounts for around 31% of collected NYC tax revenue.

"The rich" also pay property tax. NYC's poorer residents generally don't have property to pay tax on. Everyone pays sales tax equally.

So how exactly are the ultra rich paying "less taxes"?

"seeing the ultra rich paying far less taxes then they are."

Is this actually true? I thought looking at the aggregates that the top 10% pay something like 1/3rd of all income/cap gain taxes.

taxing the rich is a how the fuck do we afford to take care of society thing, plain and simple. a poor government can’t provide services and infrastructure. anything else is framing and optics
I assume this will be challenged in court immediately. Does anyone understand whether it is likely to survive those legal challenges?

EDIT: Here is a list reported by Google search but I really do not understand or know how reasonable these challenges are.

Equal Protection: Owners may argue the tax unfairly treats similar properties differently based on second-home status, value threshold, or owner residence. This is likely a weaker challenge because tax classifications usually receive deferential rational-basis review.

Nonresident Discrimination: A challenge could claim the tax targets out-of-city, out-of-state, or foreign owners rather than property use. The law is safer if written as a tax on non-primary luxury residences, not on nonresidents as a class.

Assessment Inequality: Owners may challenge how the city values condos, co-ops, townhouses, and mixed-use properties. This could be significant if the $5 million threshold is applied inconsistently or without reliable valuation rules.

Due Process: Owners may argue the law lacks clear notice, proof, exemption, and appeal procedures. This would be especially relevant for disputes over whether a home is truly a second home.

Residency Conflicts: Taxpayers may challenge inconsistent treatment if the city treats them as NYC residents for income tax but non-primary homeowners for this tax. Clear coordination between residency rules would reduce this risk.

Home Rule Authority: Opponents may argue NYC lacks authority unless the state clearly authorizes the tax. This challenge is less likely to succeed if Albany passes valid enabling legislation and NYC follows required procedures.

Property taxes already exist. There is no obvious reason why this particular property tax would be legally problematic.

The tax is also likely politically difficult to counter. Consider how limited in scope these taxes are, how the tax revenue benefits residents who live in NYC through providing more revenue for services without taxing residents at all, and how the only constituent the taxes negatively affects are non-residents (aka it’s non-trivial to argue that these people should even be considered constituents) who benefit from the services the city offers through stable apartment prices that nicely store their wealth yet provide little value in return.

The only rebuttal one could conceive is the value these high-net-worth individuals altruistically provide the city through developing office space and giving jobs to the city is not worth risking, but that is like saying the tail wags the dog. The reason these CEOs go to NYC is because that is where the talent and economic clustering is: if these high-net-worth individuals could get the talent they need to run their firms in Miami and Austin, they would have done so already. They have tried and they have failed up until this point.

Regardless, a claim into the future in such a complex system such as the markets and the judicial system (especially a common law system) always relies on induction which is never going to be deterministic. However, this tax is just another property tax meaning it likely will stand in court. Additionally, given that the opposition has very weak rebuttals against a well-versed counterparty implies the legislature or other political machinery won’t have a strong enough incentive to fight this tax.

NYS already has tax breaks for one's primary residence which varies by income and a tax on the sale of homes >$1Mil. Given how entrenched those are, I have trouble imagining a way in which this new tax is incongruous with existing rules.
Tax them to oblivion, the goal should be for them to sell! Let them go to Dubai if they don't like it.
send them to the moon. ah wait, they’d actually love that for their egos looking down on humanity wouldn’t they?
They'll go to Florida.
Before long Mamdani will provide yet another proof of Thatcher's well-known dictum on socialism:

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money

California next please! If you aren’t in your home 9 months of the year you can stay in a hotel. Thanks!

Edit: lol -4 nice! What are y’all upset about?

Not all of California, but San Diego has Measure A[1] on the upcoming primary to tax non-primary homes.

1. https://www.kpbs.org/news/politics/2026/04/20/2026-primary-e...

guarantee you those people that are salty are not in your tax bracket
I dunno why anyone thinks this matters. https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-pied-a-terre-tax-and...

"We find that, before adjusting for these factors, our choice of tax rates and brackets could raise almost exactly $500 million from a little over 11,200 properties. However, revenues could be reduced to between roughly $340 million and $380 million based on assumptions on exclusions for rented units and behavioral changes following the imposition of the tax."

It's all media feel goodsies but not actually do anything substantive.

So it'll still raise at least 300 million? Sounds like a great thing to me. I dunno why you think it doesn't matter.
I think that this has the benefit of both raising a non trivial amount of money as well as reducing housing demand from the wealthy in a supply constrained market
So, in addition to doing something very popular, meaning gaining political capital, it is ALSO expected to get hundreds of millions from this? That’s very substantial in my book
From what I know this is going to be challenged in the court and it probably it is not going to pass the legal challenge (renting part is one interesting loophole - I think that one caused similar tax law in SF to be struck down).
If I was a rich dude in nyc I would set up a shell company, transfer ownership to that, and then rent it back from the shell.
So then the rich guy is an NYC resident and pays taxes there, that's a great outcome for the city.
I was wondering about trusts. people put houses in family trusts.
How does enforcement work? The article does not say.
I strongly doubt that this is going to have the effect that they want it to. It won't raise the taxes that they expect it to. It won't free up inventory. It will halt construction.