The 2025 New York City mayoral election will have huge impacts on housing in the city, including where it gets built and how to make it affordable for everyday New Yorkers.

In just two weeks, registered voters will rank their choices for mayor in the Democratic primary election on June 24th (early voting begins June 14th). As that pivotal date approaches, renters and owners alike have a chance to evaluate which candidate’s housing plan best serves the city.

All the candidates want to accelerate the speed of housing production in NYC, to build thousands—even hundreds of thousands—more apartments than the less than 30,000 housing units NYC developers built in 2023. But how they intend to build these apartments differs widely between the mayoral hopefuls.

Read on for an overview of the housing plans for all of the nine major Democratic candidates for mayor. 

[Editor’s note: The candidates included in this article are those running in the Democratic primary. They are listed in alphabetical order by last name. This list does not include two independent candidates—current Mayor Eric Adams and attorney Jim Walden—and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, who are not a part of the Democratic primary.]

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Council speaker Adrienne Adams entered the mayor’s race in May.

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Photo courtesy John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit

Adrienne Adams 

Council speaker Adrienne Adams has touted her record in the City Council in the mayor’s race. As speaker, she helped pass the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, a landmark series of zoning reforms that will pave the way for 80,000 new housing units over the next 15 years. She told the New York City Housing Conference that she plans to use the City of Yes to build more affordable housing throughout NYC. 

As mayor, she says she will expand eligibility for the CityFHEPS housing voucher program—something the City Council passed in 2023, but Mayor Adams stonewalled. She also intends to dedicate more city funding to fix dilapidated New York City Housing Authority units, incentivize repairs at rent-stabilized apartments, and increase staffing at the city’s housing agencies. 

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Michael Blake previously served as a New York Assemblyman and vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.

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Photo courtesy Joe Mabel/Wikimedia Commons

Michael Blake

Michael Blake, a former New York State Assembly member and perennial candidate, wants to change how NYC determines who qualifies for affordable housing.

Currently, eligibility is determined by the area median income—the median income for households of different sizes. That metric is based on income data for the five boroughs, plus Putnam, Rockland, and Westchester counties, which doesn’t represent the true cost of living for city-dwellers, Blake said. He wants to determine a local median income that would replace AMI in affordable housing applications.

Blake also wants to build more Mitchell-Lama housing, eliminate credit checks for rental and mortgage applications, work with the state government to reform NYC’s property tax system, and said he would tax pieds-à-terre to help fund upgrades at NYCHA.

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Former Governor Andrew Cuomo will run on an independent ballot line regardless of whether he wins the June 24th Democratic primary, according to CBS.

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Photo courtesy Marc A. Hermann/MTA NYC Transit/Wikimedia Commons

Andrew Cuomo

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s housing plan includes increasing city and state subsidies for affordable housing, using NYC’s pension funds to invest in new housing developments, and supporting office to residential conversion projects.

He also wants to study why landlords may be keeping rent-stabilized apartments vacant—a practice known as warehousing—and develop a subsidy program to renovate vacant units. But during the mayoral debate on Thursday, June 13th, he declined to commit to a rent freeze, and instead said he’d leave it up to the Rent Guidelines Board, the panel of mayoral appointees that sets rents for rent-stabilized apartments.

Cuomo’s housing plan got a lot of attention when it was released in April, though probably not for the reason his team had hoped: The Cuomo campaign caught significant flak for using ChatGPT to provide research for the candidate’s housing plan, as well as the inclusion of a number of spelling and grammatical errors. 

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Brad Lander announced a plan in March to build housing on some of the city’s municipal golf courses.

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Photo courtesy Lander for Mayor

Brad Lander

Former NYC Comptroller Brad Lander plans to declare the housing crisis in NYC an emergency, allowing him to fast track his plan of building 500,000 new housing units over the next 10 years. (That includes a plan to build housing on four of the city’s 12 municipal golf courses.) 

He also wants to use city funds to purchase and rehabilitate distressed buildings, help city workers buy property through co-ownership with the city, and make co-living legal in NYC. For NYCHA residents, Lander plans to create a system for tenants to review and score contractors that repair—or fail to fix up—their apartments. 

He also called in April for a one-year rent freeze for the city’s rent-stabilized apartments, though he initially told Brick Underground that he’d support a rent freeze based on data presented to the Rent Guidelines Board.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Zohran Mamdani as her first choice in a ranked choice ballot in June, followed by Adrienne Adams, Brad Lander, former Comptroller Scott Stringer, and State Senator Zellnor Myrie. 

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Photo courtesy Kara McCurdy

Zohran Mamdani

State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani of Queens was the first mayoral candidate to call for a rent freeze for the city’s rent-stabilized apartments in October, and that promise has been a central part of his campaign.

If elected, Mamdani also plans to have the city directly finance the construction of 200,000 new rent-stabilized apartments, and he told Brick Underground that he would push for the expansion of rent stabilization to all new housing production in the city—something state legislators would have to pass.

Mamdani also announced a plan to bolster the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, and to ramp up code enforcement against negligent landlords by hiring more staff at the city’s housing agencies.  

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Zellnor Myrie currently represents central Brooklyn in the New York state senate.

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Photo courtesy NY Senate Photo

Zellnor Myrie

State Senator Zellnor Myrie wants to build around one million housing units over the next decade, through a combination of increasing how densely developers can build, speeding development approvals by hiring more city staffers, and redeveloping public buildings.

Myrie told Brick Underground that close to half of those million units will be affordable for New Yorkers through existing city programs, such as mandatory inclusionary housing, which requires developers to include rent-stabilized apartments in exchange for building denser developments.

Myrie also plans to fully fund and expand NYC’s right to counsel program, which currently gives income-eligible New Yorkers a right to an attorney in housing court. Myrie would give victims of deed theft a right to an attorney as well.

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Jessica Ramos represents parts of Queens in the New York state senate.

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Photo courtesy NY Senate Media Services

Jessica Ramos

State Assembly member Jessica Ramos recently endorsed Andrew Cuomo for mayor, but she has not dropped out of the race, CBS reported.

She has also called for a rent freeze, and her housing policy positions include promoting modular housing in NYC, converting office buildings to housing, and allowing more New Yorkers to qualify for the CityFHEPS housing voucher program, Ramos told the New York Housing Conference. 

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Scott Stringer has served in the New York state assembly, as Manhattan borough president, and NYC comptroller.

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Photo courtesy Scott Stringer for Mayor

Scott Stringer

Former NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer is running for mayor on a promise to build more Mitchell-Lama housing on city-owned land to create affordable co-op and rental units for New Yorkers.

If elected, he also intends to use eminent domain to seize properties from negligent landlords and transfer them to developers who can build more affordable housing. Those new developments—and others created under his housing plan—will prioritize apartments with two bedrooms or more to accommodate NYC families.  

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Whitney Tilson also told Brick Underground that he would not support a rent freeze.

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Photo courtesy Eaglebrook School/Wikimedia Commons

Whitney Tilson

Long-time Democrat and former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson wants to work with the real estate industry to spur development in NYC.

Tilson told Brick Underground that he would appoint pro-development city staffers to encourage large-scale projects, and that the city should be able to quickly approve developments from good operators. He also said he wanted to make it easier for small landlords to evict non-paying tenants.

California’s Department of Insurance is taking a closer look at how State Farm General Insurance Company handled claims tied to the Eaton and Palisades wildfires. On Thursday, the Department informed Inman that it has launched an investigation into the insurer’s conduct.

Real estate affinity groups and inclusion leaders told Inman that by shifting potential liability away from local and state Realtor groups, brokerages will now be expected to rule on certain ethics complaints.

Mortgage veteran Glenn Stearns is taking a different approach with his latest venture. 

Kind Lending, a national wholesale mortgage lender and his second brainchild, is built on lean operations and a focus on efficiency — a contrast with his first company, Stearns Lending, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2019. 

“This is not our first rodeo,” Stearns said in an interview with HousingWire.  

Private equity giant Blackstone conducted the Stearns Lending bankruptcy process after acquiring a majority stake in parent company Stearns Holdings in 2015. The company was later sold to Rate in 2021, only for its wholesale channel to be shuttered the following year. Meanwhile, Stearns launched Kind in 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“When we started Kind Lending, we had margins of 450 basis points, which went to 40 in April 2020,” Stearns said. “We got started in a very hostile environment, so we had to be efficient from the start of our company. We didn’t have the same ability to lean on servicing that everybody had from the last cycle. So we started off with a completely different mindset.” 

Stearns said the company’s disciplined cost structure has led to consistent profitability — without considering sales of mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) — which sets it apart from many independent mortgage banks (IMBs) that continue to operate in the red.

He’s not wrong. Inside Mortgage Finance (IMF) reported that Kind Lending originated $7.5 billion in mortgages in 2024, placing it among the lenders with more than $4 billion in annual volume — a segment that turned a profit in the first quarter of 2025, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). These lenders recorded an average net production income of $882 per loan (20 basis points).

In contrast, very small lenders — those with less than $400 million in annual production — lost an average of $1,029 per loan in Q1 2025. As a group, IMBs posted a net loss of $28 per loan in the same period. 

“If you have a quarterly volume of $100 million, it’s very hard to break a profit right now,” said Marina Walsh, the MBA’s vice president of industry analysis. ​​”I think cost is a big part of it. … You have the technology costs, fixed costs associated with just keeping the lights on, and those fixed costs are divided over fewer loans.” 

When costs rise…

As costs rise across the mortgage industry, lenders like Kind are doubling down on efficiency — without compromising service.

“We feel cost pressures these days. Everybody’s seen inflation in different areas – there’s been a substantial inflation in the cost of the underwriter over the last year again,” said Mike Fontaine, co-president of Plaza Home Mortgage, which originated $6.5 billion in 2024, per IMF.

Labor costs remain one of the biggest cost challenges, given the cyclical nature of the mortgage business. Fontaine noted that while mortgage rates have remained relatively flat, even small fluctuations can rapidly affect volume, and quick surges are particularly hard to manage, since hiring and training take time. As a private company, Plaza does not comment on profitability.

“We try to staff according to our projections, but in the volatile market that we’re in right now, it can be challenging,” Fontaine added. “Part of it is outsourcing. Some pieces are in automation.” 

​​AnnieMac Home Mortgage, a smaller lender that originated $3.1 billion in 2024, according to IMF, has adopted a highly variable cost structure to navigate market volatility. CEO Joe Panebianco said the company set a goal of maintaining 70% of its costs as variable — a high bar that it has reached through a combination of outsourcing and technology.

“We’ve been profitable. But you really need a variable business model,” Panebianco said. 

AnnieMac’s segment — midsize lenders that originate $2 billion to $4 billion annually — posted the highest net production income in Q1 2025 at $1,295 per loan on average, or 26.5 bps, per MBA data.

Panebianco said one of the steepest cost increases has come from data providers — especially those tied to credit reports and FICO scores. 

“Those costs have jumped dramatically, and it’s not something that’s easy to pass on to borrowers,” he said. To manage those vendor costs, AnnieMac is increasingly pursuing long-term agreements that allow for pricing adjustments if business volumes drop for more than a quarter.

Lenders find new sources of revenue

While expense control has been a survival strategy for many mortgage lenders, growth now hinges on finding new revenue streams beyond the traditional Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans.

At Kind Lending, Stearns said nonqualified mortgages (non-QMs) have quickly become a key part of the company’s playbook. Kind originated north of $200 million in non-QM loans last month, representing 18% of its total volume.

For Stearns, it’s about “making sure we can compete with the bread-and-butter” loans and then offering products with higher margins. Since the late 1980s, the market has had these options, from second trustees to subprime loans and now non-QMs, he added. 

The push toward higher-margin products is a strategic evolution. “Volume is great, but volume without proper net margin is not,” Panebianco said. He expects non-QM products will account for 10% to 15% of overall mortgage volume in 2025.

Plaza is also tapping into niche markets to diversify its income. In addition to non-QM and home equity loans, renovation loans are playing a growing role. 

“We’ve offered renovation loans for years,” Fontaine said, adding that the product performs better in certain geographies but is proving valuable in today’s market.

What a difference servicing makes

Mortgage servicing has played a critical role in supporting lenders’ financial performance, especially as origination margins remain thin and market volatility continues. With valuations for MSRs near historical highs, many lenders have opted to sell these assets to generate immediate income.

“Servicing is still helping lenders,” Walsh said. “Delinquencies are rising, but overall, there’s positive net financial income coming in. If you include servicing, it makes at least a 10 percentage-point difference between being profitable and not profitable.”

Plaza, for example, has reduced its servicing portfolio over the past year. As a third-party originator without a dedicated retention group, it doesn’t compete aggressively for borrower recapture. 

“The general feeling is that rates will come down — I’ve been saying that for a year and it hasn’t happened yet,” Fontaine said. “We’ve taken the position that we’re better off monetizing some of our servicing now. The market is very good for sellers, and we’re better off taking the money now since we’re not holding servicing for recapture like a lot of the players out there are.” 

Kind Lending has taken a similar approach. Stearns said the company has sold most of its servicing to take advantage of high MSR multiples, focusing instead on origination growth. Kind currently services about 5,000 loans, but Stearns said the company plans to begin retaining more servicing as it approaches a servicing book value of $1.5 billion to $2 billion.

While servicing sales can provide short-term financial relief, it raises questions about long-term borrower retention. Stearns acknowledged the trade-off but said it’s part of a phased strategy.

“That’s step two for us,” he said. “We had to make sure we ran a very smooth machine that could originate well, and now that we’ve hit the $1 billion per month, the next thing in our sights is servicing.”

How to beat the big guys

Kind, Plaza and AnnieMac aren’t among the country’s top mortgage lenders by volume, but they’re competing directly with the industry giants. And it’s only getting tougher.

By the end of 2024, the nation’s 10 largest lenders held 44.5% of market share — up seven percentage points from the prior year. With deep pockets, these players have expanded by slashing prices, compressing margins, and executing headline-grabbing acquisitions like Rocket Companies’ deals to purchase Redfin and Mr. Cooper.

While some lenders are also turning to acquisitions — often buying up smaller, distressed competitors — others are betting on organic growth to stay competitive.

AnnieMac, for example, acquired Unify Home Lending in April 2025 and plans another deal soon. The company aims to reach 1% market share, five times its current level, by building a network of hyperlocal experts, a model that Panebianco calls a contrast with large lenders’ reliance on big data. 

“My firm belief is that if you are a local expert — if you know every house that is sold, the architects, the landscapers, the electricians, the plumbers, the HVAC folks — that business is yours to lose,” Panebianco said. 

He added that as Rocket joins forces with Redfin, he’s not necessarily concerned about losing ground in local markets. Refinance business is different, but purchases still come down to the quality of the people on the ground, he said. 

Plaza’s Fontaine said his firm goes head to head with United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) and Rocket Pro in the wholesale space. But while those giants operate like “Ford manufacturing,” Fontaine likens Plaza to a shop that can “customize your car” by offering a broader product range and more flexibility — with a caveat.

“You have to be relevant on price, but you don’t always have to be the cheapest, and you’re not going to do well if you’re always the most expensive either,” Fontaine said. “There’s a perception that the two big guys are always the cheapest, and I don’t think that’s always an accurate perception.”

For Stearns, organic growth remains key. “Most of our partners want a second choice; we’ve been slowly becoming that second choice,” he said. “So far, it’s been really easy just to duplicate their experience [of UWM and Rocket Pro].” 

Having experienced the Blackstone deal at Stearns Lending, he’s cautious about forced scale through M&A. “You can’t fit two different cultures into one organization — one of them won’t survive,” Stearns said.