Podcast: NYCB's Joe Ficalora on Lending to Rent-Stabilized Apartment Buildings

In New York City, more than 1.3 million rental homes and apartments have rents that are stabilized, controlled or otherwise regulated. These units account for more than 60 percent of New York City’s overall rental market and over 40 percent of all occupied housing in the city. While economists debate the merits of rent stabilization policy, the owners of these buildings have financial needs that may not closely resemble non-controlled real estate, and the sheer scale of the marketplace in the New York area requires banks to understand it.

On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Evan Sparks and Joan Gregory Saenz sit down with Joe Ficalora, president and CEO of New York Community Bancorp, a $49 billion thrift based on Long Island. NYCB lends primarily to owners of rent-stabilized, non-luxury buildings, and Ficalora discusses NYCB’s unique (and conservative) real estate business model, its long-standing strategy of growing through acquisitions and balance sheet restructurings and how the Dodd-Frank Act’s arbitrary $50 billion asset threshold for “systemically important” status has limited NYCB’s ability to grow. Listen to this week’s podcast to hear about a distinctive corner of the banking industry.

If you can’t see the audio player above, click here to listen to this week’s episode.