Brian Lear on WNYC, with us now, WNYC housing reporter David Brand, and we'll touch on three things he's reporting on.

One, the most bizarre and probably the smallest,

is a kind of moral panic, I might call it, that's setting in among some New Yorkers over a

purported epidemic of squatters, taking over homes from unwitting landlords and refusing

to leave. Only problem is the squatting epidemic appears to be fake. Squatting

happens, but as rare as ever, according to David's reporting, what's not rare is that the public

perception of something being worse than it is, being driven by some TikTok videos that are making the rounds.

We'll discuss.

Then there's the emerging deal that could be a big deal coming out of Albany any day now.

We will hear about agreement on a bill that could make it easier to build below market rate housing,

easier for landlords to raise the rent when they do actual legit

renovations, and offer new rent and eviction protections to current tenants, even in apartments

that are not in the rent stabilization system.

This could all be huge, but the devil will be in the details of the legislation.

And third, now in court, a less hot button but very real issue for many New York City property owners.

The city's property tax system is really biased towards some homeowners and against others, many believe,

and maybe causing lower income property owners to pay more

than their fair share of property taxes, and that would even trickle down to lower income

renters. So we'll explain that problem, the fix that may be in the works, the court ruling that

may be in the works, and take your calls. Again, David Brand covers

housing for WNYC and Gothamist, and he joins us now. Hi, David, welcome back to the show. And is there enough housing policy news going on right now? Yeah, I think there might be, I think we have some topics to discuss here. So thanks to having me on, Brian. Yeah. And listeners, we're going to open the phones for this segment on the issue of New York City's property taxes.

If you're a co-op condo or a single or multiple family homeowner of any kind in the city,

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