Reports of a wealth exodus in the wake of Zohran Mamdani‘s New York City mayoral primary win have been greatly exaggerated.
Amid a sea of intense reactions, brokers were quick to share stories of panicked one-percenters packing their bags.
“The amount of lifelong New Yorkers texting me [about a move to Florida] is close to shocking,” Nathan Zeder, a broker who works at the Florida-based Jills Zeder Group, told the New York Post. “People are frightened and over the next three to four months, we’re going to see a lot of people consider South Florida again — it’s going to be a COVID level of interest.
While Mamdani has said he doesn’t think “we should have billionaires,” much of the initial panic from the wealthy appears to have died down.
“None of my clients right at this moment are saying ‘Sell it, I’m out of here,’” Douglas Elliman broker Steve Cohen told the real estate publication Curbed.
Cohen described clients talking to him more for “therapeutic” reasons than to flee.
Other brokers were even more frank.
“Anybody that’s says they are leaving New York ain’t f**king leaving,” Serhant agent Peter Zaitzeff told Curbed. “New Yorkers are not reactive in the long-term sense. They react in the moment out of opinions, but nobody leaves New York.”
Outside of the real estate space and the pocketbooks of the uberwealthy, Mamdani’s win is being discussed as an unqualified positive.
“I think that nationwide or at the state level there is a potential for something similar to a Mamdani coalition,” political strategist Lincoln Mitchell said. “Other Democratic politicians can take that approach of affordability and reframe it in a way that works in Kansas City or elsewhere.”
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