New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s push for a so-called pied-à-terre tax on luxury second homes took a bizarre turn with the city’s Department of Finance uploading a searchable database of the addresses and names of property owners with homes valued at over $1 million – effectively doxing the city’s wealthiest property owners.
Last week, Mamdani announced that letters were being sent to the property owners that were going to be targeted with the new tax, which is designed to target the owners of luxury second homes – condominiums and co-ops valued at a minimum of $1 million and one- to three-family homes valued above $5 million.
According to combined media sources, the new database encompasses over 960,000 residences and individuals, which is far greater than the 31,000 homes were supposed to be subjected to the new tax. It appears that the overwhelming majority of these listings are primary residences that are not supposed to be impacted by the new tax, and at least one retail center is included in the database.
While the information cited in the database is part of the public record, it is unusual for it to be aggregated and compiled into a user-friendly searchable platform that provides easy access to the locations of many prominent business and entertainment figures. Critics of this action warned this could expose those cited in the database to harassment or criminal assaults.
“So this is a list of wealthy people and their addresses,” complained Nic Carter, partner in Castle Island Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on public blockchain startups, in an X post. “As we’ve seen in France and Sweden this leads to crypto kidnappings, torturings and murders. Yes real estate records are semi public but this is an easily searchable database and target list. That makes a difference – again as prior examples show us. This is early socialist revolution stuff.”
City Council Minority Leader David Carr (R-Staten Island), whose primary residence appears on the list, condemned this action.
“It’s a reckless and foolish move, especially considering there are potentially thousands of properties on this list that do not qualify as second homes or whose owners will successfully dispute their inclusion,” Carr said.
Steven Fulop, president and CEO of the Partnership for NYC, a nonprofit business advocacy group, called out the Mamdani administration for making “a mistake, and a dangerous precedent.”
“Publishing names and addresses singles out people who have done nothing wrong, at a moment when the far-left already treats success itself as something to be punished,” Fulop said. “Most of the people on that list aren’t billionaires by any stretch – they’re people that believed in New York City, worked hard and bought a second home. All this does is make people feel less safe in their own city, and less welcome in it.”
This is not the first time that Mamdani used doxing to advocate for the tax, which he first announced in an online video shot outside of the Central Park South building where hedge fund executive Ken Griffin paid $238 million in 2019 for a penthouse, a record-breaking price for a US residence.
Sickening..
Insane behavior. I’d leave that city. Sell now before values plummet because he’s chased all the higher end buyers out. That’s what he wants. I don’t know why people don’t see what he’s doing. His giveaways require money to fund and when all the wealthy are gone, he’s going to have to make cuts or tax the upper middle class, then when they’re bled out, the middle class. Then when everyone is desperate, you have people forced into socialism and complete reliance on the government to survive.