Ruby 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸

Socialism just took another deliberate step forward in New York City on Tuesday. Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) and said it’ll “give New Yorkers a tool to keep their homes out of the hands of predatory investors seeking to make a quick and easy buck.” That framing’s the tell. It treats private owners who want to sell on the open market as the problem and government-approved nonprofits as the solution. This is how socialists advance. They restrict the right to sell property, insert a preferred-buyer list, and call the restriction protection. The bill gives qualified nonprofits, land trusts, and community groups first rights to buy certain multifamily buildings before they hit the open market. Capitalism depends on owners being able to transfer property freely. COPA replaces that with a mandatory delay and a government-vetted list of buyers. The market’s no longer first. Mamdani’s long described the goal as “decommodifying” housing. That’s the socialist position: housing stops being something people buy and sell on the open market and becomes something allocated by approved nonprofits and the city. The law operationalizes that idea one category of buildings at a time. Sponsored by Council Member Sandy Nurse, it targets properties with four or more units that meet distress criteria. Qualified groups get an exclusive window to offer and a later right of first refusal. It takes effect in November 2027. Other cities have tested versions of this. Washington, D.C.’s long-running Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act delayed sales by an average of five months, reduced transaction volume relative to neighboring jurisdictions, and left some buildings with owners who wanted out but couldn’t sell efficiently. The District rolled the law back in 2025 after describing “significant financial distress.” San Francisco’s COPA has preserved a few hundred units, but only with substantial public subsidies and on a limited scale. The City Council passed the narrowed bill 38-9 in October after Adams vetoed an earlier version. Mamdani made it a priority in his housing plan and signed it immediately. Property owners of eligible buildings now face a preferred-buyer process designed by the same administration that’s already failed to lower rents or everyday costs. Median asking rent hit a record under him. This law adds another layer of control on top of that record. When the preferred-buyer process and mandatory delays reduce what an owner can realistically get for a building, private capital leaves. Investors put money into markets where they can sell freely and get the full price. The buildings that stay under the restricted system get less maintenance, less new supply, and more reliance on city subsidies. That’s the collapse path. D.C. already started down it and had to roll its law back. New York just chose the same experiment as if somehow the results will differ. They won’t. The incentives don’t change.