For housing in the Bronx, it’s starting to feel eerily like the 1970s…

Plus, tariffs hit housing right where it hurts, and Kenny recaps his newfound fame as the voice of reason against unfair composting fines. And for the record, we do not dispute the positive impacts of composting – just the fines.

This is your New York Apartment Association weekly update with CEO Kenny Burgos.

Follow NYAA on BlueSky: @housing.bsky.social

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Send us questions or comments at podcast@housingny.org 

On The Agenda

1:47: Kenny’s op-ed: “Save our buildings — or the Bronx will ‘burn’ again” 

3:23: Tariffs will hit housing right where it hurts 

→ NAHB analysis: How tariffs impact the home building industry 

5:51: State of the mayor’s race: Dem candidate Zellnor Myrie blames Andrew Cuomo for failure to build housing as governor

→ “They pushed for Cuomo to resign. Now they’re clearing his comeback path”

→ “Thousands of Jewish voters register as Dems for the NYC mayoral primary”

6:23: Gov. Hochul backs the FARE Act

7:39: Kenny has had it with NYC’s unfair composting fines

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Transcript

 This week on Housing New York, we tell you why housing in the Bronx is eerily similar to the 1970s. Plus, tariffs are already taking a toll on housing – we explain why. And I recap my newfound fame as the voice against the current composting fines. 

Let's start Housing New York.

[THEME]
“We need 800,000 units to meet the demand today. What we have right now in the United States and what we have right now in New York City is almost a crisis of absurdity.”

[INTRO]

Welcome to the Housing New York podcast. I'm your host, Kenny Burgos, CEO of the New York Apartment Association. We're taping this on Monday, April 7th. 

Over the weekend, I attended the Inner Circle show, an annual tradition where the New York City press corps roasts elected officials, and the mayor responds. As you can imagine, there was a lot of material to work with this year – and a big shout out to the reporters who had to rework a lot of the scripts to reflect the political chaos of the last few months. 

I particularly enjoyed the Jumaane Williams video reenacting Eric Adams’ very famous bedroom video where he searches for guns and drugs.

But that's just my personal favorite. Okay. On to the news.

[01:47] [The Bronx could burn again]

We're kicking off this podcast with a recap of my op-ed that appeared in the New York Post on Sunday. In it, I wrote about the scary amount of distress for buildings in the Bronx, my home borough. I argue that the financial data is very similar to what we saw in the 1970s, right before buildings started to collapse, and that is what we're seeing – severe distress. 

As we've said before, the data is messy, but if you know where to look, the picture is quite clear. Especially in the Bronx, the data shows that rents don't cover operating costs for the majority of the buildings. That means thousands of buildings are bankrupt and thousands more are on the brink of bankruptcy.

And this is not just one bad year. This is a very clear five-year trend from 2019 to 2023. We know from reviewing financial documents of our members that things definitely got worse in 2024 as insurance costs skyrocketed along with other costs going up. 

In the op-ed, we lay out several things that need to happen. The first is that we need the Rent Guidelines Board to at least adjust rents to keep up with inflation.

We also need a massive subsidy from the government – either in tax abatement or something else – to help the buildings in the most distress. 

Finally, the overall system needs to be stabilized. The current regulations are set up to force buildings into deterioration and bankruptcy. 

It's simply not sustainable.

We hope that both the RGB and elected officials realize how bad things are – not just in the Bronx, but across the entire city – and they take the appropriate action to stabilize this vital housing source.

[03:23] [Tariffs will come for housing]

Let's talk about what's been dominating the news all week: Tariffs. 

Last week, president Trump announced sweeping tariffs on a host of countries. The impact was immediately felt in the real estate world. Stocks that back real estate investments plummeted. 

That means the investment in housing creation is also going to plummet.

Since the stock values are tied to the ability to finance new housing projects, this impact is larger on developers looking to build new housing. The tariffs’ impact on apartment buildings is likely to be felt more in the coming weeks and months. 

You see, most of the materials needed to maintain aging apartment buildings don't come from just the U.S. Piping, electrical, sheet rock, even paint, is often sourced from places outside of the U.S. 

The cost for all these things are going to go up, which means rents are gonna go up or buildings are going to deteriorate. In the case of rent-stabilized buildings, the government controls what happens. If rents don't go up, then building maintenance is definitely going to decline as costs spike. It’s simple math. 

One estimate of the impact was from the National Association of Home Builders. They think single family homes will cost about $10,000 more to build due to tariffs. Costs for apartment buildings are different, but many of the materials are similar, so it's not crazy to expect general building costs to increase by tens of thousands of dollars, simply because of the tariffs.

That's a cost the majority of rent-stabilized buildings in the city are not able to absorb right now. 

[04:51] [State of the mayor’s race]

Okay, on to campaign politics now. It seems like each week the race for New York City mayor gets more competitive, and if we're being honest, it will likely consume the conversation for the next few months.

We wanted to spotlight some developments that directly impact housing. 

First, we're seeing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo continue to pick up endorsements. The New York Times wrote about how many people who pushed for him to resign are now coming around to backing him for mayor. And the New York Post wrote about how Cuomo's support for Israel has led to an influx in Democratic voter registration.

We reference this to set up the next story: We wanna mention an exclusive in the New York Post about a report being released today by long-shot mayoral candidate Zellnor Myrie. The senator from Brooklyn takes direct aim at Cuomo for his failure to build housing, which is definitely a new line of attack.

Myrie has positioned himself as the leading mayoral candidate when it comes to increasing the supply of housing. In his report, he outlines how housing costs skyrocketed under Cuomo, and he suggests that the former governor had a decade to address this issue. He even pulls up quotes from Cuomo saying that housing scarcity drives up home values, which is something that is good for those who own homes.

Not so good for a young professional that feels like they will have to rent for the rest of their lives, no matter how much your salary goes up. 

Our take is that good housing policy starts with good conversation. We say this at the end of each podcast, and this is what we mean. We need to hash out these issues and figure out a way forward to increase the supply of housing wherever possible.

[06:23] [Gov. Hochul backs the FARE Act]

I promise this will be one of the last times, but we're gonna talk about the FARE Act again. 

As a quick recap, this is a City Council bill that was passed last year and changes how broker fees are paid. After its passage, a lawsuit was filed that claims, among other things, that the city doesn't have the power to regulate broker fees – only the state does.

Well, last week, Gov.Kathy Hochul threw cold water on that legal argument, and she did it by recording a joint-social media video with the bill’s lead sponsor, City Councilman Chi Ossé. 

Now, the governor doesn't get to decide the outcome of the lawsuit. Her office filed a brief declaring their opinion on the matter, and the courts will take that into consideration.

But the law is the law, and it is very possible that the courts will strike down the FARE Act based on the idea that only the state can regulate broker fees. 

If that happens, we should be crystal clear about what happens next. The governor already said she backs the bill. The state Legislature surely does as well. So if the lawsuit blocking the bill is successful, then there is a virtual guarantee that a state law passes that says the same thing. 

We're going to be providing our members with more information about the law in the coming months, so they can prepare for when it takes effect in June – or if it's delayed, when an inevitable version of the policy takes effect.

[07:39] [Kenny has had it with NYC’s unfair composting fines]

On to composting. 

As a former assemblyman, I'm no stranger to talking to the press. I've done my fair share of television interviews and don't shy away from jumping on the phone to chat with a reporter. But I have to tell you, I've never done more press than I did last week, when the new composting fines went into effect on April 1st.

I was on NY1, CBS-2, NBC-4, Fox-5, ABC-7, and I was saying a lot of the same stuff I said on last week's podcast: that finding apartment buildings for failing to dumpster dive and pick out food waste is a huge burden on properties already struggling to make ends meet.

My media blitz has taught me a few things. First, most people are pretty sick and tired of the government focusing on things like this, instead of bringing down the cost of living in New York City. 

Second, this is not really about composting. Lots of New Yorkers like the idea of composting and think there should be efforts to promote it and make it easier for renters to compost if they want to. We don't dispute the positive impacts of composting. 

Finally, there is the fundamental unfairness of fining a building owner for their tenants actions. Most people I have spoken to have really focused on this as something that doesn't sit right with them. 

We're gonna continue to talk about this and push for a better balance that promotes composting without increasing the cost of providing affordable housing.

[OUTRO]

That's the podcast for this week. We're looking ahead to Thursday when the rent guidelines board releases the income and affordability survey. This gives us insight into the economy and inflation numbers. We expect the RGBs inflation number to be around 3.5% to 4% based on how they historically calculate the metric.

As we said many times before, the RGB has failed to adjust rents to keep up with inflation for the past decade. We're hopeful that they'll reverse that trend so more buildings don't fall into bankruptcy. As always, you can follow us on social media at housing, and why, and Blue Sky as just housing. The housing in New York Podcast is a proud product of the New York Apartment Association.

We appreciate your feedback and you can leave us a comment on Substack or wherever you listen to this podcast. You've been listening to Housing New York with Kenny Bergs, and I'll see you all next week. And remember, good housing policy starts with good conversation.