Governor Hochul: “Private equity companies – you can have your chance, but you're going to wait 75 days. You're going to give the rest of the people, the real people, not the corporations, a chance to bid over 75 days, make their offers first. So you can get in line. You may end up getting a home, buying it, but I don't want any more hard working individuals or moms or dads or anybody who wants this dream to become reality to have to lose out to you. And that's how we're going to stop it.”

Hochul: “This is a fight. They're not going to like this. They have a lot of money to fight this, fight us back. But I'm not afraid of this. You're not afraid of this either, are you? We're going to stand up and fight for our families, our individuals, and our seniors, because this is a fight worth taking on.”

Earlier on Feb 28th, Governor Kathy Hochul made a stop in Rochester to highlight her 2025 State of the State proposal to give more families an opportunity to become homeowners by disincentivizing institutional investors from buying up one- and two-family homes across New York State. The Governor’s proposed legislation will require a 75-day waiting period before institutional investors that own 10 or more single- and two-family properties and have $50 million in assets can make an offer on or buy one- or two-family homes. Additionally, Governor Hochul proposed reducing the opportunity for these institutional investors to take advantage of tax code provisions that make these investments in single- and two-family homes more lucrative by generally denying these entities the ability to utilize depreciation tax or most interest deductions on these properties.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

I always feel so welcome in the Rochester area – the Finger Lakes region – it's a spectacular area and it's a place where you understand if you say, “Go Bills,” you'll get an answer back, right? Go Bills! I'm right at home, and so, there's always next year. It's kind of our slogan for 31 years, but we're going to say it again.

And also, New Yorkers don't agree on everything, and they don't all agree on our sports teams in other parts of the state, although I'm converting everybody – but it's a very, fabulously diverse place. And I've been so blessed to be someone who came from Western New York who was proud to represent this area in Congress, but also now to be able to represent the entire state.

And I'm so acutely aware of the diversity and the different places that people live and the different options they have. Some are tiny, little hamlets with one stop sign and some are just enormous metropolitan areas like New York City.

But one thing we have in common is that everybody has a dream. Everybody thinks that someday they're going to have a home. And it's something that particularly here Upstate, it never was that far out of reach. Maybe your grandparents had a home and your parents had a home. And the expectation was that every generation would be able to have the power, the ability to buy their own home.

Yes, it's going to be a struggle. I remember scraping nickels together for my husband and I to get our first home. It was 1,300 square feet, and we raised two kids in it. They were in one bedroom, we were in the other, one bathroom. But you know what – it was ours. It's ours, it meant so much to us.

That townie house now is over $1 million. I paid almost nothing for it. So, it's so hard for young people today, but everybody just wants to have a stable place. And we talk about a place like Rochester, and a place like Buffalo, Rochester, Upstate, had always been known for their affordability. That was good. That meant you had the options available to you.

But now we have what is called a “Hot Market.” Sounds good. Sounds really – hey, who doesn't want to be hot, right? It sounds great. I shouldn't have said that.

But that's what they describe Upstate New York, right? Buffalo, I think they said Buffalo is the hottest housing market in America. And we're right up here second or third in this area. It's really something that I know the people in this room – and I want to just take a moment to acknowledge the extraordinary partners that I have in government here because they're on this quest with me to ensure that that dream becomes a reality for all New Yorkers.

And I want to start with our Mayor Malik Evans. He has been such a champion for the people of this region. I honor your public service. It is hard. We've been fighting crime together and stabilizing our communities. Amazing partner of mine. I want to give a special round of applause to our Mayor, Malik Evans.

Your Senator, Samra Brouk. I want to thank her for all she does and a great champion for this area. A real fighter. Assemblymember Sarah Clark. We've worked together for many years since your first run. We've been together and I appreciate you stepping up and running. And of course, Jen Lunsford, who's doing such an incredible job as well.

These are your champions in Albany. These are your champions. And also, you'll be hearing from Theo Finn. Theo's a rock star in her own right and the Greater Rochester Housing Project, because all she wakes up thinking about is, “How I'm going to build more housing.” And I just love that spirit of public service, let's give her a round of applause, Theo Finn.

And Luis Alvarez, our regular person who's going to talk to you about what regular people are going through. And I thank him for being here. And is Bill Moehle here too? I just saw you over there. Bill, stand up. Our Supervisor. Thank you. Bill's been — we’ve been working together a long, long time together.

But, not finding a home is a huge source of stress. Sometimes you have a lot of pressure. You might be about to change jobs — and this is what my son and daughter in law just went through — about to change jobs, but you knew if you did that and then try to apply for financing they'd say, “Oh, you've only been at this job a few months.” So, it's going to be a strike against you. So there's a lot of pressure on everybody.

And what I want to be able to do is — also for our businesses that we're attracting here — we're doing really well attracting businesses to the Rochester region. It's a hot place to be. But if the businesses come and they say, “Well, where are people supposed to live?” And if you can't offer the housing stock to their workers, they might have to find someplace else.

So, we think about the people who are already here who raised their children, and those children want to live in the same neighborhood. They’ve got great schools, great opportunities, great quality of life, but too many times the families have had to move away when it's time for them to have a family because they don't have a home to live in.

Also, it's an economic issue. We have to be able to tell businesses who are here, and those who are recruiting, that there is plentiful, affordable housing stock. But think also about the senior citizens. And maybe they've been blessed with the home, but they want to downsize. If there's not a condo or an apartment or a townhouse to move to, then their options are limited.

So, that's what we've been tackling head on. As Governor, I took on the housing crisis, and many people said, “Don't go there. It's complicated. There's a reason no other Governor talks about housing,” but we are successful in working with our partners in the Legislature over the last couple of years, really achieving something that we should be proud of.

The New York Times said it's the most far-reaching, ambitious housing package in 70 years, 60 years — I don't want to exaggerate, 60 years. That's pretty impressive. That's older than most of you in this room. It's a long time. But, I also unveiled the plan to have over 100,000 new units built in 5 years, and we're getting there ahead of schedule.

And people said, “That's too ambitious; it's too big,” but we're really, really ahead of schedule on that as well. So, we're really excited about this. But, also, one other thing I add to the table — a lot of communities have said, “Don't tell us we have to grow.” Okay, you should grow on your own, but if you don't know to do this, then I'll put incentives out there. I will make it easier for you to be able to grow and help with programs and projects that can help your community like the pro-housing agenda.

If you've not heard of this, the communities that say, “We are pro-housing. We will step up and pass a resolution.” I was on a town board for 14 years. We did resolutions all the time. You write the resolution, you get it passed and what that says is that we have the ambition to build more housing. This is really important.

And, so, the communities that are doing it are eligible for $650 million of everything from downtown revitalization, to special grants for water and sewer, to Main Street programs — Main Street grant — all that's available for the communities that say, “We're going to build more housing,” and we've added another $100 million to that.

We're also adding money for people to be able to afford that first home. We're going to have $100 million for new starter homes for purchasing and that provide that down payment for first time home buyers — that could really make a difference for someone. And I'm going to have a new housing ombudsman because a lot of developers say it just takes too long. It's too frustrating. And I'm going to have a person dedicated to making that a lot easier.

But here's the truth, no matter what we're doing, we're in competition with a powerful, powerful force. Our parents and grandparents didn't have to bid against private equity firms when they're buying their first home. That wasn't happening. And these huge, greedy conglomerates are gobbling up the housing stock and they're trying to increase their portfolios and bring in more money and they're building up a lot more vacation homes and rentals.

And think about a young family that's scraping together everything they've got, and you'll hear about this from Luis, every dime you have and everything you're dedicated to, and you're trying to get out there and you're going and making offer after offer after offer, and you keep losing because there's somebody else who's not from your community, who doesn't understand our values, our way of life, who comes in to make a buck and they pluck down a cash offer.You can't compete with that. And it's so sad. It's tragic when you think about it. And they're milking it.

And this is a real threat that they're saying that by 2030, 40 percent of the homes will be owned by private equity firms. That's shocking. And they're not always investing in them either. They're getting run down. So we have to fight this. And they're also engaging sometimes in illegal income discrimination practices, and the local news is talking about it and they're violating codes — they're wreaking havoc. But I want to do something about it. We can complain all we want, but when I hear there's a problem, I want a solution.

So I worked with my team, and in this year's Budget I announced this – I said, “What we're going to do is say, private equity companies – you can have your chance, but you're going to wait 75 days. You're going to give the rest of the people, the real people, not the corporations, a chance to bid over 75 days, make their offers first. So you can get in line. You may end up getting a home, buying it, but I don't want any more hard working individuals or moms or dads or anybody who wants this dream to become reality to have to lose out to you.” And that's how we're going to stop it.

So, these homes we built, these homes are being built, we're going to build more housing, that's great. But I want to make sure that people have a chance to get in that market and be able to bid on it. So, I'm grateful to, again, our elected officials who will support this. You're with me, right? Okay, good, I got the – you heard it there, my entire Budget's been supported by the front row. Grateful for that.

But also this is a fight. They're not going to like this. They have a lot of money to fight this, fight us back. But I'm not afraid of this. You're not afraid of this either, are you? We're going to stand up and fight for our families, our individuals, and our seniors, because this is a fight worth taking on.

So I thank all of you for being part of this. We're ready for it, and let's make sure that this policy gets over the finish line. So thank you everyone. I appreciate your support for this. And also let me bring up our Mayor, Malik Evans.