Eve, here. I don’t pretend to have the answer to the problem of older affordable apartments becoming financial sinkholes due to pro-tenant policies that take a long time to evict delinquents and re-rent vacant spaces (among other reasons). But keep in mind that The City is very focused on the issues of ordinary New Yorkers, covering abuse at Rikers, abuse by ICE, and organizing by delivery workers. The landlords at the center of this account are trying to make affordable housing a reality, but they’ve hit a wall.
While some of these issues are unique to New York City, they are also issues that Mamdani must address as he pushes for broader rent reductions. More apartments designed for low- and middle-income residents is the only long-term solution. But that will take time and require multiple mayoral terms to have any impact.
Written by Greg David. First published on THE CITY on November 19, 2025
November 18, 2025 Samantha Magistro manages affordable housing buildings in the Bronx. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Bronx Pro Group manages 93 auxiliary apartment buildings, including more than 3,300 affordable apartments, primarily in the Bronx.
One in three households live in buildings where this year’s expenses are greater than the rent collected. And one in five lives in buildings in such poor financial condition that owners will have to resort to renegotiating loans to lower the risk of default.
CEO Samantha Magistro, who joined the family-owned company about 25 years ago, said half of the units are in buildings where owners can no longer pay their bills.
The business of operating these types of homes is becoming less and less viable.
These buildings were built not only to be rent regulated, but also with the requirement to rent apartments at very low rents to very specific low-income people. Since the pandemic, costs have increased significantly, rent increases have been significantly delayed and rent collections have declined. Owners and managers say the situation will worsen after Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdan promises to freeze rents for at least four years.
“My father, who founded the parent company decades ago, said things were much worse in the 1970s,” said the 43-year-old. At the time, arson and abandonment were rampant in the Bronx area. “But for my generation, this is the hardest thing ever.”
Magistro’s story is being repeated across New York City in this important sector of the city’s housing stock, according to two new reports released last month on the affordable housing sector, estimated to include about 300,000 units.
For tenants in those buildings, this is the only housing they can afford. Unless some changes are made, the possible future scenarios are dire. The city’s affordability crisis will worsen as housing stock deteriorates, buildings are abandoned by owners, and investors are unwilling to put money into affordable housing because the numbers don’t add up.
“What our report shows is that the financial strain on the affordable housing stock is not limited to a few owners, certain neighborhoods, or building types,” said Patrick Boyle, senior policy director at Enterprise Community Partners, an organization that helps arrange housing financing and works with Bronx Pro Group. “It’s widespread, and as advocates and policymakers, we urgently need to look to protect it.”
I’m looking for a solution.
“There’s no easy solution,” Boyle added. “Increasing resources such as rental assistance, reducing regulatory barriers, and addressing direct costs will all be needed.”
All of these affordable projects are built under agreements with cities or states that dictate who can rent units based on income. Most of that is partially funded by low-income housing tax credits. Industry experts estimate that about half are built and operated by nonprofits, and the other half by for-profit developers like Bronx Pro Group, which specializes in this field.
Many of them rely on other forms of subsidy, such as federal or city vouchers, to keep their numbers working. These programs tie rent to a portion of a tenant’s household income and pay the difference to the property owner.
Roughly six in 10 affordable projects funded by Enterprise and the National Equity Fund spend more than they earn, according to a report released by the group last month. Costs for these projects have increased 40% since 2017, far exceeding rent increases allowed by the city’s Rent Guidelines Board, which sets rent levels for regulated apartments.
The Neighborhood Housing Development Association, a coalition of community groups including nonprofit affordable housing organizations, found that about half of the all-affordable buildings it surveyed (including 112,000 apartments) were in the red.
Until now, discussions about the plight of landlords have focused almost entirely on owners of older buildings whose rents are regulated and whose finances have been hit hard by the 2019 rent law changes. The key changes effectively abolished the ability of landlords to renovate vacant apartments and charge much higher rents, allowing landlords to meet increased costs even with zero regulated rent increases for existing tenants. (Rent freezes for regulated properties occurred three times under the de Blasio administration, in 2015, 2016, and 2020.)
This has created a crisis in older buildings, where virtually all apartments remain rent-regulated, as detailed in the Furman Center and THE CITY articles.
Tenant advocates focus on the role of speculators who bought rent-regulated buildings at inflated prices, assuming rents would rise significantly over time.
But Bronx Pro Group’s affordable buildings show no such speculation, illustrating how unsustainable the broader building group’s finances have become.
“They’re a great example of a family-owned and operated business that believes the city needs more affordable housing,” said Carlina Rivera, a former city council member from lower Manhattan who is now chief executive of the New York State Affordable Housing Association, which works with commercial developers. “And they say they’re barely breaking even.”
The Enterprise study found that the collection of buildings it surveyed is currently paying only 90% of expected rent, down from around 95% pre-pandemic. These buildings were financed on the basis of a 95% recovery rate.
“I call it a workout because even at 95%, I can’t afford the expenses and the mortgage,” Magistro said. Prior to 2019, we were recovering 98%. We have recovered 93% this year, which is higher than in 2022 and 2023.
Both Enterprise and ANHD focused on the increasing cost of insurance, utilities, and maintenance as the second major part of the problem.
Magistro’s insurance costs have risen the most in the Bronx, where the company’s portfolio is concentrated, jumping from $600 to $1,600 per unit annually since 2019.
Another important issue for her is paying her staff for overtime. One reason for this is that changes to trash collection regulations now require building workers to take out trash at night.
Both Enterprise and ANHD point out that when building finances tighten, landlords are forced to postpone maintenance, which leads to a deterioration of the housing stock.
Magistro laid off 10 employees this year, reducing its workforce to 143.
One of her buildings shows how factors can undermine a building’s finances.
She is collecting only 81% of possible rent on a 30-unit building on Mapes Avenue in the Bronx that was built in 2021. Since the building opened, her insurance has nearly doubled to $2,500 a year. To operate a building over the long term and avoid default, cash injections are needed to reduce mortgage debt.
“Small projects have little resilience to economic shocks such as rising insurance costs,” she says.
Mayor-elect Mamdani has promised to help landlords cut costs in response to a planned rent freeze. One key goal is reforming the city’s property tax system, which imposes the highest taxes on rental buildings.
But most all-affordable projects pay no property taxes. Other mayors have also tried and failed to advance property tax reform, which is a messy and complex issue that requires the City of Albany’s involvement to make it happen.
He also said he would make changes to the bureaucracy to help. Magistro points out that when one of her apartments becomes vacant, and city subsidies are involved, it takes an average of five months for the city to approve a new tenant, resulting in a loss of rent during that time. Evictions of non-paying tenants take an average of 12 to 16 months to complete, largely due to the slow functioning of housing courts.
ANHD wants the state to establish a fund for forgivable loans to stabilize the finances of these buildings, increase vouchers and other rental assistance programs, and for the state to intervene in the insurance market to reduce costs and provide new loans to support rehabilitation programs.
Businesses are also seeking emergency funding, more rental assistance and measures to reduce insurance costs. The company also hopes to speed up leasing on vacant units. Enterprise said in its report that the solution “will not come at the expense of renters.”
Now that real estate management is break-even at best, Magistro can’t count on any of that. So she created a five-year plan to use the development fees she received to keep her company afloat and expand her role as a developer.
And with much talk about the need to build new housing to solve the city’s housing crisis, she will have to make the case to Mamdani and other officials about their priorities and how they view landlords like her.
“It has taken a lot of construction work over the last few decades, but it is important to keep it financially viable and it is important that we continue to preserve it and keep it affordable for the city,” she said.
She added, “Yes, I’m a developer and a landlord, but I consider myself an employer.” “I live in New York City. I choose to do business in the Bronx. My office is in the Bronx. Seventy percent of the people I employ are from the Bronx. That’s part of the story.”
