A “pied-à-terre tax” aimed at New York City’s wealthiest property owners, the Wall Street Journal slams home builders, and a Massachusetts town rejects a 50% property tax hike. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of April 13-17.
Miss: Big Sour Apple, Part 1. Perhaps the dumbest story this week involved New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who unexpectedly dropped the proposal for a “pied-à-terre tax” that would slap a new annual surcharge on non-primary residential New York City properties valued at $5 million and higher. Hochul, who is seeking re-election, argued this would help the city with its gaping budget deficit by raising $500 million. Mayor Zohran Mamdani seized on this idea and created an obnoxious video where he acted as if the proposal was already policy. Mamdani crowed about taxing the rich (see the above photo) and singled out hedge fund executive Ken Griffin for having a Manhattan property that would fall under this new tax. Never mind that Griffin is one of the city’s most important private sector employers or that Mamdani called out his address in a wild case of doxxing. In today’s world of socialist urban politics, financially successful people are the enemies, and their well-earned funds need to be pilfered to support incompetent government machinations.
Miss: Big Sour Apple, Part 2. Mamdani followed up with his tax-the-rich nonsense by floating a plan where city dollars would be used to reduce new insurance policies for rent-stabilized apartment buildings and affordable housing developments. The mayor claimed the plan would reduce the insurance costs for property owners by 20% to 30%, although he was conspicuously shy about offering details on how the plan would work. The city is reportedly trying to hire a commercial insurance provider that would operate the program. Odd, but where is the cash-starved city getting the money to pay for this?
Miss: Bashing the Builders. One of the most surprising headlines this week came from the Wall Street Journal with its article “Flimsier Cabinets and Fewer Windows: Home Builders Are Skimping on the Basics.” The article accused builders of “opting for cheaper materials and rejiggering designs with cost savings top of mind.” The result, according to the article, are crummy looking new homes with “smaller and fewer windows” and skimpy countertops. Rarely has an entire industry received such negative coverage in a single article. Oddly, the National Association of Home Builders didn’t raise a peep about this media hit job.
Miss: Attack of the Digital Miscreants. This week, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that cyber criminals stole more than $275 million through real estate-related fraud from at least 12,368 victims during 2025. These figures, which encompass losses from real estate investments or fraud involving rental or timeshare properties, are up for the totals recorded during the previous two years. This is part of a wider scope of total cybercrime losses that totaled $20.9 billion last year. It sort of makes you nostalgic for the days of the landline rotary phone and electric typewriter, eh?
Hit: Saying No to a Mega-Property Tax Hike. Kudos to the voters in South Hadley, Massachusetts, who overwhelmingly voted this week to reject a measure that would have raised $11 million in new property taxes through an override process that would have hiked the tax bill on the average home by 50% over a five-year period. While override supporters claimed this hefty uptick was needed to fund schools and town services, the Wall Street Journal reported homeowners were not convinced. Rudy Ternbach, the 80-year-old leader of the Alliance for Fair Taxes, declared, “I think the results of the election show voters do not want to try and fix the government by increasing taxes on those least able to pay. They want more efficiencies in government and less taxes.”
Hit: Honoring a Persuasive Leader. Kudos to Richard Jordan, chief administrative officer at Freedom Mortgage, who was presented with the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) annual Burton C. Wood Legislative Service Award. Jordan was cited for his work in helping to obtain the passage of the 2025 VA Home Loan Program Reform Act that helps veterans avoid foreclosure and receive the same loss mitigation options available to borrowers through other federal home loan programs. Jordan’s leadership confirms the power of the people in shaping how government can effectively operate.
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
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