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The move gives business owners heavily impacted by state-ordered closures associated with COVID-19 more another month to meet their rental obligations.

Landlords need tenants as much as tenants need landlords and the demand for rental properties in New York is probably as close to zero as possible without becoming a negative number. Not much danger of eviction, unless the landlord is insane or the tenant is terrible.

Since Cuomo has demonstrated that he knows infinitely more about nipple rings than about basic economics, this is not a surprise.

I believe this is a pretty benign and inconsequential move on Cuomo’s part. I can’t imagine there are too many commercial landlords lining up to evict their defaulting tenants right now. The tenant who isn’t paying rent but is still open and doing only 25% of its pre-COVID business might actually survive and begin paying rent again soon. Evict that tenant and it might be months or even years before you get another one in its place.

In places like New York that rely heavily on property tax revenues, the bigger problem in the next 6-12 months will be a flood of tax appeals that decimates this revenue stream. A commercial property is different than a residential property in that its value is based entirely on its lease revenue. A commercial building that loses 75% of its rental income in 2020 has lost 75% of its appraised value.