Where New York’s Lawmakers Split From Their Constituents: Home Ownership

New York has the lowest homeownership rate in the country, with just over half the state’s residents reporting owning a home in 2024, according to data from the Federal Reserve. Most of the lawmakers who represent New York in Congress, however, own their homes.

At least 24 of New York’s 28-member congressional delegation own or have owned a home, based on NOTUS’ review of the lawmakers’ most recent personal financial disclosure forms.

More than one-quarter of the delegation’s members have also used real estate to build their wealth.

Rising home prices and rising rents have played a big role in the national discourse around affordability. The salience of the issue has been particularly apparent in New York, where New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani won on a platform calling for rent freezes and residents have expressed frustration about rising housing prices.

In Congress, several of New York’s lawmakers are advocating for housing reforms spanning from expanding rental assistance programs and keeping large institutional investors out of the housing market to reducing mortgage insurance premiums for people who borrow from the federal government. NOTUS reviewed the financial disclosures of the New York delegation to paint a better picture of the delegation’s personal financial positions in regard to housing amid these policy debates.

Rep. Dan Goldman reported having the most homes of any member of the delegation, disclosing mortgages on three residences in New York. One property is in New York City, where his district is, and two are on Long Island. Most other members reported one mortgage under their liabilities.

Among the New York lawmakers who own homes, mortgages made up the bulk of their liabilities. Goldman’s mortgages were the highest, contributing to a total of somewhere between $11 million and $55 million of his debt.

Several lawmakers reported making income from rental properties in their home state.

Rep. John Mannion reported that he made between $250,001 and $500,000 off renting out a property in Old Forge, New York, a ski town in the Adirondack Mountains. Rep. George Latimer reported the same range of income from renting out a home in Warren County, New York, also in the Adirondacks. Neither of those rental properties are in the lawmakers’ home districts.

Rep. Jerry Nadler made between $1,001 and $15,001 in rental income in 2024 off a bungalow. In his financial disclosure that year, the lawmaker also said he sold it in 2024 for between $100,001 and $250,000. His financial disclosure did not specify where the house is located, and his office did not respond to multiple requests for comment about it and whether Nadler owns any other properties.

Rep. Elise Stefanik reported making between $250,001 and $500,000 in income from a “residential rental property” in Washington, D.C., in her 2024 filings. Stefanik reportedly put her Washington townhouse on the market in September. Her office said she still owns a primary residence in her New York district.

“After Elise got married to her spouse in 2017 while in office, they purchased their primary home in Saratoga County and incurred a 15 year mortgage. She did not have this mortgage when she first ran for Congress,” a spokesperson for Stefanik told NOTUS in a statement.

At least two New York lawmakers derived income from rental properties outside the United States — Rep. Adriano Espaillat reported making between $250,001 and $500,000 off a property he owns in the Dominican Republic (he also listed a mortgage on the same property as a liability). Rep. Nydia Velázquez reported $500,001 to $1,000,000 in income in 2024 from a rental property she owns in Puerto Rico.

Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi also reported assets related to real estate, including interest in commercial real estate developments in New York and Florida and an investment in a residential apartment building in New Jersey.

On the opposite side of the spectrum: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said in a social media post last year that she does not own a house, and Rep. Ritchie Torres, whose spokesperson told NOTUS the lawmaker is a “lifelong renter.”

Suozzi and Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis did not report mortgages on any financial disclosure forms, nor have they made other public statements about whether they own or have previously owned personal residences. Their offices did not respond to requests for comment.

Lawmakers report the value of each of their assets and liabilities within broad ranges, such as $15,001 to $50,000. The larger the assets or liabilities, the wider the ranges get. The largest value range is open-ended — $50 million or more. They are not required to report their primary residence as an asset, but do have to list mortgages as liabilities.

To analyze home ownership trends, NOTUS identified the lawmakers who disclosed one or more mortgages among their liabilities as part of our Capitol Gains project. The project analyzes lawmakers’ 2025 disclosures, which reflect their finances in 2024. Some members did not report mortgages on their disclosure forms, so NOTUS looked at other reports of homeownership and reached out to their offices to verify whether they own their personal residences.

It’s not unusual for some lawmakers to own second homes near the Capitol.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is one of them — he reported taking out a mortgage on a primary personal residence as well as two mortgages on a residence in Washington, D.C. Jeffries’ median net worth sits at around -$200,000, largely because of those mortgages, and he has spearheaded Democrats’ calls to tackle cost-of-living issues including barriers to homeownership.

But other members of Congress rent residences in Washington, D.C., and some have spoken out about the difficulty of affording a second place to live on a congressional salary. Some critics have called for leveling the Congressional playing field by subsidizing housing for lawmakers.

It’s not just the New York delegation that offers a nonrepresentative picture of homeownership across the nation.

A study by researchers at Boston University and the University of Georgia in 2022 found that people who rent homes are underrepresented at every level of government in the United States, including in Congress, and that more than 90% of elected officials in the country are homeowners. In comparison, estimates by the Census Bureau showed that 65% of Americans overall owned homes as of the beginning of 2025.

The White House has prioritized housing reform as one of the few policy areas it has worked with Democrats on pushing. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott crafted a bill, backed by President Donald Trump, that includes a ban on investors purchasing single-family homes. It passed the Senate this month, and now faces an uphill battle in the House.

It has the support of some of New York’s home-owning lawmakers like Velázquez, who advanced language in the legislation that would allow housing cooperatives to participate in existing affordable housing programs.

Suozzi and Malliotakis last year introduced other housing legislation that would use revenue from the federal government’s takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to build affordable housing units geared toward middle-class Americans. That bill has not seen any movement.

Likewise, Ocasio-Cortez, alongside Sen. Tina Smith, has previously proposed an ambitious social housing program that would provide federal funding to build millions of affordable homes.