Steve Cuozzo: Why NYC Must Keep Its Markets Global

Canada recently banned non-Canadians investing in residential properties for two years. The move was made to cool an overheated market that saw Canada’s average home price rise. 2021: 20% increase  Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would like to prohibit companies from China from selling homes or farmland in Florida. “hostile” nation.

These measures are possible in New York City.  Of course, you can’t, because our “global capital” Status means that we will accept as many UK pounds and euros, Chinese renminbi Chinese shekels, Japanese yens, Israeli shekels Moroccan dirham, Saudi riyal, Chinese renminbi, Chinese renminbi, Chinese renminbi, Chinese renminbi, Chinese renminbi, Japanese youens, Chinese yens, Chinese hekels, Chinese reminbi, Chinese yens, Chinese senminbi, as well as possible to the five boroughs. 

London is the world’s most powerful magnet for investors from all corners. Our city, however, remains the greatest. This is something that New Yorkers take pride in and know. Sure, there’s been sporadic ire at outsiders before. A new “mansion tax” In 2019 it was launchedFor instance, it could partially be due to backlash at absentee Foreign owners left entire residential towers empty.. 

In New York, which is home to three million immigrants from overseas, political brainstorms would be futile. Even in the far-simpler Canadian market — where unlike the Florida proposal, the new law has a putative dollars-And-cents rationale — the restriction only “kills off economic opportunity” and “has done  nothing to solve the affordability challenge in Vancouver,” Jim Costello is the chief economist of Morgan Stanley’s investment research firm MSCI.

However, the Canadian and Florida measures, although unimaginable here, serve as wake-up calls for a heretical question. Namely, can the Big Apple become TOO internationalized, especially when its political and commercial institutions lose their juices and the social fabric is shredded?

MSCI reports that foreign net investment in New York City commercial properties actually fell to $350 million in the fourth quarter. While this may be only a fraction of the global commercial market, any decline in global capital is troubling.

Our collective identity is built on foreign wealth. It’s part of our exceptionalism from the rest of the country. Spalding Gray described Manhattan as “a wonderful place.” “an island off the coast of America.”

Overseas lucre is indispensable to the city’s treasury — and spirit. I love the sight of the Nigerian flag waving over East 44th Street’s government-owned mission tower. It is a wonderful place to live.

The office tower that’s home to the New York Post, 1211 Sixth Ave., is owned by a Canadian pension fund. Neighboring skyscrapers are owned or partly owned by Japanese, Korean, Qatari and German entities — along with a handful of nations we regard as adversaries.

In countries as different as Brazil, Nigeria and China, Tycoons own condo apartments and townhouses. Alibaba billionaire Joe Tsai is a citizen of Canada, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Hong Kong. He paid $157 million to buy a palace-in the-sky in 220 Central Park South last Year.

But there’s a catch: As foreign fortunes permeate our economy and culture, the city has  become unmoored from the political, economic and social pillars that defined us — and our strength. Without them, Gotham could degenerate further into anarchy. “open city” where buyers use empty apartments to hide ill-gotten gains from their governments — while our own institutions and communities wither.

Recovery and renewal was possible thanks to a collective, but conflicting, effort. There has been no such unbridled energy following the pandemic. If anything, New Yorkers are more at odds than ever before — over immigration, criminal justice, school curricula, ethnic and racial identity, and even bike lanes.

Some of our wealthiest citizens who donate to hospitals, arts institutions and other worthy causes  are leaving for warmer, less-taxed climes. Citadel and Goldman Sachs are both testing the waters with satellites far away.

The city’s real estate industry, long a force for civic improvement and neighborhood regeneration despite widespread whining, lost much of its political clout. Dynastic real estate families, while still active, were eclipsed by publicly-traded giants more attuned to shareholders and global expansion  than to local needs.

As a municipality, the City of New York,  which was always a creature of the state, is now an abused captive of the state. Albany legislators even wrested away the mayor’s longtime prerogative of control of the streets with “progressive’ laws to empower criminals and emasculate the police.

Even me, a passionate New Yorker for my entire life, can be overcome by the fear that New York City may fall. “investors.” History has shown that outsiders are always the easiest targets during times of crisis. 

I’m appalled by obscure absentee ownership that lets landmark properties such as 23 Wall St., where JP Morgan was born — and is currently owned by a joint Hong Kong-Angolan entity – fall into disuse and neglect.

I resent when foreign oligarchs, rubber magnates and tech moguls buy into those posh half-empty towers – collecting them as toys, while legions of homeless New Yorkers suffer in the cold.

I regret the incompetence and casual indifference of the Chinese insurance firms that have fled the “reimagined” After six years of hard work, Waldorf+Astoria is a mess.

Whenever I’m tempted to howl over “alien” encroachment, I’m reminded, too, that without a near half-billion-dollar investment by Belgium-based DTH Capital and a loan from a Chinese bank, local developer Rose Associates couldn’t have turned vacant office landmark 70 Pine Street into 600 rental apartments. The Barclays Center might not exist without Mikhail Prokhorov from Russia, a Russian billionaire who invested $200 millions in the Brooklyn Nets.

We all need them. DeSantis, Justin Trudeau, and DeSantis are trading in economic xenophobia. Let foreign money bags purchase as many homes here as they wish. And let’s get our own house in order before we shut its doors to world.

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