New: 🧠 Market Minds Issue #103

We appreciate each and every one of you for taking the time to read Market Minds. Buckle up and enjoy the free value, and you won’t want to miss… the penthouse that thinks it’s a museum.

Zohran Mamdani’s election isn’t just political noise, it’s a market signal. For anyone tracking zohran mamdani housing policy, this moment marks a significant shift in how NYC approaches housing regulation. He’s bringing a populist megaphone and a sharp pen to the housing conversation. His campaign pledges weren’t just for show: rent freezes, higher taxes on high earners, and the end of what he calls “landlord impunity.” That’s not rhetoric. That’s policy in waiting.

Mamdani’s agenda, freezing rents and jacking corporate and millionaire tax rates, can’t pass without Albany. And while Governor Hochul has historically played goalie on tax hikes, she’s now caught between budget holes and a charged progressive base. Translation: Wealth taxes may not be hypothetical much longer. The 485x incentive program for developers? It’s in limbo. Projects penciled at today's rates may need recalculating fast.

There’s a split-screen emerging. Publicly, players like Compass’ Jason Haber and Hudson’s David Kramer are extending olive branches. Privately, many are bracing for a 12-month regulatory trench war. Kramer, a seasoned affordable housing developer, thinks Mamdani might be “practical.” Others are calling this “de Blasio 2.0.” If you're waiting for the mayor-elect to define your reality, you're already behind.

Everyone agrees New York needs more housing. But “how” is where ideologies collide. Developers like Bruce Teitelbaum are already gaming out how to align their plans with Mamdani’s affordability-first mandate, even if it means reworking cap stacks and subsidy mixes. Epstein (Aurora Capital) called out the obvious: the city can’t scale housing without land use reform, predictable timelines, and safe streets. Mamdani’s team says he gets it. But “getting it” and getting it done are two very different beasts.

SPONY (Small Property Owners of New York) put it bluntly: a rent freeze is “affordable housing Armageddon.” And they’re not wrong. Margins on small buildings are already razor thin. Freeze revenue and increase regulatory burden? That’s how you get deferred maintenance, stalled repairs, and the hollowing of middle-market stock. The market doesn’t collapse overnight. It rots. For many small landlords, the deeper concern is how zohran mamdani housing policy could lock in stricter affordability rules at exactly the wrong time.

Mamdani’s appointment of Maria Torres-Springer, a seasoned, pragmatic housing pro, to his transition team is the chess move investors should be tracking. It’s the clearest sign yet that while Mamdani talks revolution, he may govern in iterations. Still, this is New York. Transitions are just that: transitions. Expect turbulence before traction.

Rates hovering around 6% are being spun as a win, a long-awaited breath of affordability for millions of Americans sidelined by 7%+ rates. But anyone looking at a 6 percent mortgage rate in the real world knows the math hasn’t changed nearly as much as the headlines suggest. Like a house with great curb appeal and bad plumbing, the relief is mostly cosmetic. Yes, the National Association of Realtors estimates 5.5 million more households can now technically afford a median-priced home. The key word: technically. The savings are thin, and the psychological distance between a 3% pandemic mortgage and today’s 6% reality still feels like Everest.

The real friction isn’t just the rate, it’s the invisible toll booth of loan-level price adjustments (LLPAs). These are the credit-risk surcharges baked into conforming loans that can quietly tack on thousands to a borrower’s costs. The FHFA’s decision to let industry heavyweights like Barry Habib dissect those adjustments could mark a turning point. If those LLPAs loosen, it’s not just a technical win, it’s a liquidity event for middle-credit buyers who’ve been priced out not by rates, but by risk math. Translation: reform here could unlock far more demand than another 25 bps off the Fed Funds rate ever could.

Despite the headline rate cuts, demand has been lethargic. Pending home sales are flatlining; sellers are sitting on their hands. The Fed’s dovish pivot hasn’t been enough to thaw the ice. The psychology of the “locked-in homeowner”, sitting on a 3% mortgage and refusing to budge, remains the dominant market force. It’s not that buyers aren’t interested; it’s that sellers won’t play. Until that delta breaks, “inventory” remains the new interest rate.

We’re entering a rare alignment: slightly lower rates, a seasonally quieter market, and modestly higher inventory from would-be sellers who can’t wait any longer. That combination could be the Q4 window where real deals are made, before rates creep again and 2026’s election-year volatility freezes everyone in place. The quiet market may be the most powerful leverage you’ll have in the next 12 months.

The market isn’t healing, it’s recalibrating. The 6% plateau isn’t a finish line; it’s a staging area. If LLPAs get reworked and the Fed holds steady, affordability improves on the margins. But the real story is behavioral: the gap between what people can buy and what they will buy. And right now, confidence, not credit, is the missing asset. And as long as the market keeps orbiting a 6 percent mortgage rate, the hesitation loop stays intact, buyers stalling, sellers frozen, sentiment flat.

6% rates may sound like relief, but they’re really a mirage of momentum. The opportunity lies not in the number itself, but in the timing, and in reading the psychology of a market that’s tired, thin, and ready for a reset.

Long Angle is a private, vetted community connecting high-net-worth entrepreneurs and executives with institutional-grade alternative investments. No membership fees.

Access top-tier opportunities across private equity, credit, search funds, litigation finance, energy, hedge funds, and secondaries. Leverage collective expertise and scale for better terms.

Invest alongside pensions, endowments, and family offices. With $100M+ invested annually, secure preferential terms unavailable to individual investors.

Apply to Join

The real estate market heading into 2026 isn’t a roulette wheel, it’s a treadmill. You’re either moving forward or falling off, but you can’t stand still. And if you look past any real estate market forecast 2026 chatter, the truth is simple: clarity is the only edge left. The one-page business plan isn’t a gimmick; it’s an operating system for clarity in a foggy market. The last few years rewarded chaos, pandemic pricing, zero interest rates, and FOMO-fueled transactions. Now, discipline is the new alpha.

Write your number. Then stare at it every morning. “30 sales, $150,000 income.” It’s not a wish; it’s an execution target. When interest rates are high and days-on-market stretch like a bad punchline, clarity about outcomes becomes leverage. Agents who can quantify goals and reverse-engineer daily behaviors will outpace those chasing “momentum.”

The temptation is to diversify until you’re invisible. Ten lead sources? That’s not strategy, that’s an admission of panic. Three lead pillars are enough: your sphere, one scalable channel (say, short-form video or expired listings), and one emerging niche. 2026 is not about spraying effort; it’s about concentration of force. Those who know where their business comes from will scale. The rest will drift.

In a tightening market, you don’t own your listings, you own your habits. Calls, conversations, and appointments are the last things you control when prices, policy, and sentiment go sideways. The ones who track inputs daily will win. Everyone else will blame the Fed.

Markets don’t reward potential; they reward performance. Accountability isn’t about a coach yelling at you, it’s about refusing to let yourself off the hook. Visibility is the antidote to drift. Post your plan where you can’t ignore it. Measure what matters. Shame and pride, properly harnessed, are renewable energy sources.

The broader housing landscape is shifting from speculation to specialization. Inventory is still tight, affordability is still brutal, and attention spans are shrinking. The one-page plan is a microcosm of the macro trend: less noise, more signal. Those who simplify will scale. Those who overthink will overpay. And in a real estate market forecast 2026 environment that rewards decisiveness, the agents who stick to clarity will outrun the ones drowning in complexity.

You don’t need a ten-page manifesto to thrive in 2026. You need a single sheet that tells you where to aim, how to act, and who’s watching. Complexity is ego. Clarity is profit.

Listed at $13.75M, this 33 Park Row penthouse sits above Lower Manhattan like a glass temple. Designed by Richard Rogers, the same mind behind the Centre Pompidou, it features 15-foot ceilings, a private elevator, and a 600-square-foot terrace that makes City Hall Park look like your backyard. It’s less “condo” and more “architectural event.”

Check it out👇

Peak streaming time continues after Black Friday on Roku, with the weekend after Thanksgiving and the weeks leading up to Christmas seeing record hours of viewing. Roku Ads Manager makes it simple to launch last-minute campaigns targeting viewers who are ready to shop during the holidays. Use first-party audience insights, segment by demographics, and advertise next to the premium ad-supported content your customers are streaming this holiday season.

Read the guide to get your CTV campaign live in time for the holiday rush.

Learn more.

Control isn’t volume, it’s the ability to slow down time.

Mamdani appointed Maria Torres-Springer, a seasoned, pragmatic housing leader, to his transition team, even as his campaign rhetoric called for “landlord impunity” to end.

That signals a leader who talks revolution but governs in revisions, weaponizing optics to buy negotiating room while embedding operational know-how behind the scenes.

Rage in public, calibrate in private. That’s how policy gets made.

New York real estate just got its wake-up call.

Mamdani’s win isn’t performative, it’s predictive. If you're underwriting like the old rules still apply, you're already underwater. This isn’t about the next zoning tweak or tax debate. It’s about a fundamental shift in who’s got the pen, and their willingness to use it. Between rent freezes, tax hikes, and 485x hanging by a thread, the party’s over for luxury-as-default.

The smart money? Watching the transition team. Torres-Springer’s inclusion is a chess move, not a kumbaya moment. Brace for policy made by ideology but shaped by economic survival.

Have a great weekend - we’ll see you next Saturday.

Cheers 🍻

-Market Minds Team

The content of Market Minds is provided for informational purposes only and reflects personal opinions based on sources believed to be reliable. It does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or professional advice. Each reader is solely responsible for their own decisions.