A month after Zohran Mamdani’s stunning victory in New York City’s mayoral election, the mass exodus of wealthy residents that landlords and real estate agents—especially down in Florida—had predicted has so far failed to materialize.
Instead, sales of luxury homes in the Big Apple—priced above $4 million—were up by 31 percent in November compared with October to 151 properties, according to the latest data by real estate brokerage firm Olshan Realty.
Another firm, brokerage Douglas Elliman, reported a similar increase, saying that a total of 176 contracts for properties priced at $4 million or more were signed in November, up 25 percent from a month earlier.
“If you look at the city in general, there has been no ‘Mamdani effect,’” Corcoran Group broker Noble Black told Fox Business on Monday.
Why It Matters
In the months leading to the New York City mayoral election and the weeks after Mamdani’s victory, enthusiastic Florida realtors and disgruntled New York landlords told everyone, including Newsweek, that the 34-year-old Democrat’s win would lead to wealthy residents leaving the city en masse and relocating their portfolios to the Sunshine State for fear of higher taxes.
This alleged exodus, they said, would have weakened New York City by depriving it of an important tax base, while bringing more riches to Florida. Over a month after Mamdani’s victory, the hype around the so-called ‘Mamdani effect’ appears little more than wishful thinking, the data shows.
What To Know
Not only have sales of luxury homes in New York City surged since Mamdani’s victory, but rents for Manhattan apartments have also soared to a record high in November, even as the Democrat ran on a promise to make rent more affordable for residents.
New leases last month were signed at a median of $4,750, up 13 percent from a year earlier and 3.3 percent from October, according to data from appraisal firm Miller Samuel and brokerage Douglas Elliman.
Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, told Bloomberg that the latest data “solidifies the idea that there is no exodus and there is no ‘Mamdani effect’” and that, in fact, “there are people coming to the city and not enough supply.”
In the rental market too, what is driving up demand and prices is the luxury market, with the top 10 percent of Manhattan rentals seeing the greater price gains of all other tiers, according to Douglas Elliman, up 18 percent to a median of $11,500 in November.
What People Are Saying
Noble Black told Fox Business on Monday: “The headline story is there is no [Mamdani] Effect. People are still buying here, people still want to be here, they are still moving to the city. It’s a real issue that everyone is talking about, people are concerned about what he may do, but it’s not an overnight, ‘Oh, he won, we’re fleeing the city,’”
Donna Olshan, president and founder of Olshan Realty, said in a statement reported by Bloomberg: “The idea that people would flee New York was overblown. The numbers just aren’t bearing that out.”
Jonathan Miller told Bloomberg: “The luxury market is where the strength is for both the rental and sales market. That says something about the inbound migration in the city.”
Newsweek contacted Black, Olshan, and Miller by email on Thursday morning for comment.
What Happens Next
The ‘Mamdani effect’ might not have taken place as many realtors were hoping for, but that does not mean that Florida has not seen renewed interest from wealthy New York residents. It might just be that it has happened on a smaller scale than many were hoping for.
The influx of New Yorkers to Florida is not a new phenomenon, but one that has been happening for years as residents move down the East Coast of the country seeking sunny and warm weather, a cheaper cost of living, and a lower tax environment.
“Typically, the brokerage community, the real estate community, try to sell that story. ‘Come down to Miami, we are very pro-business. We have much better tax incentives.’ And that has played out in the long term,” Juan Arias, national director of U.S. Industrial Analytics at the CoStar Group, told Newsweek last month.
“I think that’s the story that is not new with Mamdani. Miami has been an inflow market for all of these states, including California, where people tend to come down here for a different quality of life and also to avoid certain taxes. That’s nothing new,” he added.
“I think the rhetoric around Mamdani was trying to exploit that to a different degree.”
A lot might depend on what policies Mamdani will actually implement when he takes office—but Arias said there is a limit to what he can do. He “doesn’t have the power to increase taxes,” Arias said.
“There’s a few layers above him that actually control that. And in reality, the one sliver that he does control, which is the rent control piece of the equation…that piece of the New York rental market has not been impacted historically. It’s not expected to see tremendous rent growth,” he said.
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