Pershing Square Capital Management founder and CEO Bill Ackman outlines a three-step plan to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying taxpayers stand to gain $300 billion in a wide-ranging interview on “Mornings with Maria.”
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman said Wednesday that New York’s new mayor has been elected Zohran Mamdani is right to focus on the city’s affordability crisis, even though his proposed plan to address it is deeply misleading.
“I give Mamdani credit for identifying a very important problem, which is affordability. I give him big credit for his approach to solving the problem,” Ackman said during an exclusive interview on “Mornings with Maria.”
“The way to bring rents down is to increase supply, not reduce supply,” Ackman said.
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Zohran Mamdani, a progressive voice from Queens, won the November 4 elections to lead the nation’s largest city on a platform focused on making New York more affordable.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan calls for a decade-long, $100 billion program to build highly affordable housing and freeze rents on rent-stabilized units. (Adam Gray/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
The head of Pershing Square argued that Mamdani’s proposal, which calls for a decade-long, $100 billion program to build highly affordable housing and freeze rents on rent-stabilized units, would discourage development and ultimately worsen the city’s housing shortage.
“There’s a lot of empirical data that we’re seeing in cities across the country, in Austin, the Southeast and other places where there’s been a big boom in apartment construction and the result is that rents are coming down,” Ackman said.
Bill Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management. (Patrick Fallon/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
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He pointed to evidence showing that even building at market rates can lower costs in the housing market by easing pressure on older homes.
“You could build a lot of market-rate apartments, brand new apartments,” Ackman said, adding that new apartments “actually lower the rents of the older apartment stock, which creates more affordability.”
Brownstone apartments in Manhattan, New York City, United States of America on July 6, 2024. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto/Getty Images)
He said Mamdani’s proposal to freeze rents would deter construction and make it harder to expand the city’s housing stock.
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“If you send a message that you are going to freeze rent, that is not inspiring for real estate developers. They are not going to dig up shovels and build something in that environment.”
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The comments also aligned with Ackman’s broader approach to housing issues. A day earlier, he outlined a three-part plan that he said would help the Trump administration achieve its goals for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The duo mortgage companies have been under federal conservatorship since the 2008 financial crisis.
Ackman’s announcement comes as the Trump administration is exploring new ways to make housing more affordable, including a proposed 50-year mortgage, even as critics warn such measures could saddle borrowers with more long-term debt.
