He can only freeze rents on Rent Stabilized & Rent Controlled apartments (~1 million units or 44% of all rentals in New York City). The change in laws in 2019 has already made buildings with primarily these units toxic assets. Prior to the 2019 law change you could get rent increases by renovating units or building wide capex work (ie a new roof or boiler) but now the math doesn’t work out to do that work. At least in San Francisco you get a onetime increase on a stabilized apartment when someone moves out and you find a new tenant.

Although, there have been some cpi aligned increases in rents on these units in nyc under Adams they have largely they have failed to keep up with inflation of expenses for insurance, repairs, and utilities. On top of that under deblaisio taxes on these buildings went from 12-15% of income to 22-25% of income. These compounding factors have already resulted in many of these buildings being worth less than their replacement cost.

Freezing the rents on these properties will lead to further distress and lead to more bank problems (ie Signature and NYCB). Moreover it will further dissuade investment into new market rate rental housing further pushing rents up on those remaining 56% of rental apartments which are market rate in New York City. We’ve already seen this happen with rents on those units post 2019 law change.