Pershing Sq. Capital Administration founder and CEO Invoice Ackman outlines a three-step plan to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying taxpayers may acquire $300B in a wide-ranging interview on ‘Mornings with Maria.’
Billionaire investor Invoice Ackman mentioned Wednesday that New York Metropolis Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is correct to concentrate on the town’s housing affordability disaster, although his proposed plan to deal with it’s deeply misguided.
“I give Mamdani credit score for figuring out a vital difficulty, which is affordability. I give him large debits for his method to fixing the issue,” Ackman mentioned throughout an unique interview on “Mornings with Maria.”
“The best way to carry rents down is to extend provide, to not scale back provide,” Ackman defined.
A progressive voice from Queens, Zohran Mamdani received the Nov. 4 election to guide the nation’s largest metropolis on a platform centered round making New York extra inexpensive.
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Zohran Mamdani arrives for an election night time occasion on the Brooklyn Paramount Theater in New York Metropolis on Nov. 4, 2025. (Adam Grey/Bloomberg / Getty Photos)
The Pershing Sq. chief argued that Mamdani’s proposal, which requires a $100 billion, decade-long program to construct rent-stabilized, deeply inexpensive housing and freeze rents citywide, would discourage growth and finally worsen the town’s housing scarcity.
“There’s plenty of empirical information that we see in cities across the nation, in Austin, the Southeast and different locations the place there’s been a giant growth in development of flats and the result’s rents go down,” Ackman mentioned.
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He pointed to proof displaying that even market-rate development can decrease prices throughout the housing market by easing strain on older items.
“You would construct a ton of market-rate flats, brand-new flats,” Ackman defined, including that new flats “truly scale back rents on the older residence inventory, which creates extra affordability.”
Brownstone flats in Manhattan, New York Metropolis, on July 6, 2024. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto / Getty Photos)
He mentioned Mamdani’s proposal to freeze rents would deter development and make it more durable to increase the town’s housing inventory.
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“If you ship a message that you just’re going to freeze rents, that’s not inspiring for real-estate builders. They’re not going to tug a shovel out and construct something in that surroundings.”
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The feedback additionally tied into Ackman’s broader push on housing points. A day earlier, he used a livestream on X to stipulate a three-part plan he mentioned would assist the Trump administration advance its objectives for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The duo mortgage firms have been beneath federal conservatorship because the 2008 monetary disaster.
Ackman’s announcement comes because the Trump administration explores new methods to make housing extra inexpensive, together with a proposed 50-year mortgage, at the same time as critics warn such measures may saddle debtors with extra long-term debt.
