Mamdani May Help With Housing Affordability: Gural

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00:00I know you had a chance, along with some of your peers, to actually sit down face-to-face

00:04with the mayor-elect a few weeks ago. Did you hear anything out of him that gave you maybe

00:10a little bit more confidence that he won't necessarily be as bad as some folks in the

00:15real estate community have predicted? Hard to say. I mean, I told him that socialism doesn't

00:23work. I explained to him that I had actually visited Romania when it was a communist country,

00:29and I saw firsthand how communism failed. The economy remaining was in shambles. And if

00:37you recall, when Ceausescu, when communism fell, people chased Ceausescu up the stairs in his

00:45offices, and they killed him with their bare hands. So I've been to Cuba. That doesn't

00:51work. And, you know, he doesn't push back. I actually think he can be helpful. We've been

00:59trying to get the real estate tax assessments fixed because they're really disproportionately

01:06unfair to minorities in Queens and other parts of the city where their homes are over-assessed

01:14and wealthy people's homes and apartments are under-assessed. So we've been trying. And

01:20every mayor who's ever gotten into office has promised they'll fix it. And nobody has. I

01:25have a feeling he might fix it because it affects the people that he represents. I told him that

01:32I thought he should keep to Tish as the police commissioner. He was noncommittal at the time.

01:37But as you know, he's come out and said that he's offered her the job. I have no idea whether

01:42she's going to take it. I know her. I think her father doesn't know whether she's going to take

01:47it. I would imagine the only way she takes it is if it's under her terms. So if she says,

01:55look, I'll do it, but I'm calling the shots, whether he's going to say okay or not, I have no

01:59idea. But if he kept her, that would be really helpful to our industry. Well, that gets to the

02:04issue too. I mean, we talk always about this economy through the lens of real estate and

02:08Wall Street, et cetera. But as we all know, for most New Yorkers, including business leaders,

02:13it all really comes down to public safety and the people, the perception, at least that people

02:18have when they walk down the street, that they can walk down the street and go about their daily

02:22lives. With Tish there, and there have been media reports that she has apparently said that she will

02:26commit to staying. With Tish there, assuming that she has some sort of continuity, and the public

02:32safety issues are addressed, do you think that some of his attention will actually turn to a better

02:38relationship with real estate development? Because even before his election, a lot of real estate

02:43developers were grumbling just about how difficult it was to break ground on new projects and to see

02:47those projects to completion. Well, I think you're exactly right. That was the one thing I told him,

02:53and he agreed. I said, for us, public safety is number one. We can't relocate our buildings.

02:58If companies here feel that their employers are not safe, they can move. So public safety for us,

03:05and he controls public safety because the one thing he does control is who the police commissioner is

03:11and what instructions he gives the police commissioner. So I think I'm optimistic that he gets it because

03:19just the fact that from the time I met with him, which was maybe three weeks ago, and said,

03:24recommended it where he was noncommittal, he changed his position. And I think that's, you know,

03:31that's the most important thing. A lot of the stuff, you know, some of the things he can be

03:36helpful on because we all want to build affordable housing. So the fact that he agreed to pass the,

03:43you know, vote yes on some of those questions that were on the ballot, that'll make it easier

03:48for people that don't have to worry that one city council person who's in a district can,

03:55you know, do a John McCain and go thumbs down and the project dies. And we've seen that over and

04:01over again. So now that that's out the window. So, you know, I think I'm not in the housing end.

04:08Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm actually partnering with a group on, uh, on an affordable housing project.

04:16So maybe he'll help help. I mean, the people who are really hurt the most or scared the most of the

04:20people who own, you know, rent, rent stabilized buildings, where he's, you know, where he's saying,

04:26no, no increase, you know, no, no increase. That's, that's crazy. We all know that the price of,

04:33uh, labor goes up, real estate taxes go up, insurance goes up and you're just telling the,

04:38uh, real estate owners to just forget it. Sorry. That, that could be catastrophic because you're

04:44seeing, uh, you know, foreclosures already. Well, Jeff, I'm, I'm curious, you know, what you

04:49see the relationship with mom, Donnie looking like going forward, because for example, Ralph

04:53Schloss Stein, who ran Evercore and co-founded BlackRock, he told Bloomberg News that he's, uh,

04:59thinking about and exploring, joining a business advisory group that might interact with the

05:04mayor elect. Is there any sort of similar conversation underway when it comes to the

05:09industry that you sit in with your peers in the commercial real estate industry?

05:13I'm not aware of it, but I, you know, you'd have to talk to the Rebney because he, he would

05:17reach out to Rebney, uh, who, who was, you know, really the parent of the, that's, that's our

05:24organization. Um, but look, you know, he's, he, think about it. He, he's somebody who got

05:30elected. I asked him, I said, did you think you could win when you started? And he said,

05:35yeah, I told my wife I was going to do this. I told her I couldn't win, but I might be able

05:40to get at least my point, you know, my point of view out. So he had no idea that he could

05:45possibly win. Um, obviously it helped that, uh, that he wasn't running against, you know,

05:52Andrew, unfortunately is capable, gets things done, but it's not likable. Uh, you know,

05:57let's be honest, people who donated to Andrew, myself included, we're not big fans of Andrew.

06:03We, we just vote, we just gave him money in the hopes he would be Mondami because he gets

06:07things done and, and, and we didn't have to worry. As far as Mondami is concerned, the jury

06:13is still out. Um, but he, but he, you know, he didn't, when I met with him, I spent about

06:18a half hour one-on-one really, uh, he didn't push back, you know, and say, oh no, you're

06:23wrong. Deaf socialism is great. Um, and so I think he, you know, the, the reality is the

06:31number one thing for us is public safety. He knows that. And if, if that, if he fails

06:36in that regard, he's not going to, he'll be a one-term mayor and Trump, you know, will

06:41be able to, to point out, ha, we're going to have to send the, you know, the, the federal

06:45troops into New York because look what's happened when the Democrats elected a socialist, anti-police,

06:52et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, it's, it's critical. He's, you know, he's

06:59no fan of Trump's. I listened to his speech last night. Um, and it's critical that, you

07:05know, he doesn't, he doesn't give Trump the excuse to say, Hey, look what happened in

07:09New York. Everybody's scared to death. People are leaving. Um, so he's a smart guy. You know,

07:15think about it, you know, you take, what would you have bet, you know, starting out? I don't

07:20think anyone took him seriously. And, and here we are. Um, he had a terrific young people.

07:26My, my, my son lives in Red Hook and he told me he, he never had so many young people knock

07:32on his door, tell him to vote for Mandami. Um, you know, and that's, you know, what I guess

07:39they call that ground game, but, uh, you know, uh, that, that's the kind of, look, I'm

07:48a big, if we don't, if we don't solve this problem of income inequality, I think you'll

07:52elect a socialist as president, probably not in my lifetime, but we have got to address

07:57the fact that we have so many people that make so much money that's, that I don't know

08:04what they could do with it. And, and it's hard to believe that someone who makes a billion

08:08dollars a year would really care if his taxes were raised. Um, you know, I don't know what,

08:14what you do with, uh, you know, what, what you do, sorry, what, what you do with, with,

08:19um, all that money. Right. But eventually the wealthiest people in America are going to have

08:25to come to grips with the fact that they're going to have to chip in and agree that, uh, to

08:31increase taxes, um, in order to, what's, how about, think about it. I was shocked. They talk about,

08:38you know, this food program, 40 million people benefit from SNAP. I think that's 20% of the

08:45population. So, you know, you have people who, who say, oh, it's, you know, people who were

08:50migrants who are here illegally, 40 million people get SNAP benefits.

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