Christian Hansen for The New York Times  One57, center, is a sign of the embrace of New York by the wealthy, who some opponents suggest would be driven off by a de Blasio administration.  Every month, Leonard Steinberg, a leading broker at Douglas Elliman who has been responsible for more than $2 billion in residential real estate transactions, largely in downtown Manhattan, publishes something called The Luxury Letter. The report combines various listings â for $9 million duplexes in Chelsea, for a $44.9 million âloft mansionâ in TriBeCa â with Mr. Steinbergâs insights on the high-end property market and the city more generally. Titled âMayoral Issues: A Tale of Two Cities?â the October editorâs note recommended that the cityâs presumptive next leader, Bill de Blasio, devise a âworst tenantsâ list, and cautioned those who criticize Michael R. Bloomberg that a mayorâs role is to be âeffective C.E.O. of the city, not âbest friend.âÂ â  A champion of the Teterboro class, a man we imagine having greeted Occupy Wall Street with a call for Rigaud candles and fumigation, Mr. Steinberg late last month was surprised to be attending a fund-raiser for Mr. de Blasio. The impetus was a call from the real estate impresario Steve Witkoff, developer of the luxury West Village condominium complex 150 Charles, which has a $35 million penthouse and which Douglas Elliman represents. Mr. Witkoff was holding an event for Mr. de Blasio in his Upper East Side home. âI thought if heâs met Bill de Blasio and formed a personal impression, I want to know more,â Mr. Steinberg told me. After spending some time with the candidate, he was moved to make a donation.  In their conversation, Mr. Steinberg shared a long-held obsession with Mr. de Blasio â the seemingly arbitrary way tax assessments are determined, leaving some property owners to grossly overpay and some to underpay. âI said, âIf you are the mayor of fairness, you have to do something about this,âÂ â Mr. Steinberg recounted. âAnd he said, âLeonard, Iâm definitely going to look into this.â He gave me a credible look in the eye, an Iâm-going-to-do-something-about-this look, not a political BS look.â  The exchange reflects Mr. de Blasioâs potentially dubious gift for ecumenical connection. The idea that a de Blasio administration would alienate the wealthy, that the wealthy would revolt against relatively slight tax increases and move to Miami, that they would endure any significant marginalization in the narrative of the city, seems to be losing its currency. Mr. de Blasio has reached out to the real estate community; there have been several industry fund-raisers for him. It could hardly be otherwise. âPeople talk about Wall Street, but even before â07, â08, it was really real estate that was the A.T.M. of New York,â Steven Spinola, president of a powerful lobbying group, the Real Estate Board of New York, told me.  Over the past fiscal year, city revenue from taxes on income-producing property was greater than revenue from sales and income taxes combined. Real estate-related taxes (including property, commercial rent, mortgage recording, transfer and hotel occupancy taxes) totaled $22.6 billion, roughly a third of the cityâs total budget. âThis is one reason I believe things will go well,â Mr. Spinola told me. âWe have an interest in seeing that heâ â Mr. de Blasio â âis successful, and if we are successful, Mayor de Blasio will be able to fund the things he wants to fund.â  If the economy sustains itself, it is hard to imagine the enormously wealthy suffering a diminished role in the psyche of the city in the coming years. In March, Knight Frank, a London-based real-estate consulting firm, issued a report forecasting that the number of H.N.W.I.âs (high-net-worth individuals, or those with over $30 million in assets, as the jargon goes) would increase by 36 percent in New York by 2022. Other cities are expected to experience a higher percentage increase, but New York is predicted to have more of these individuals than any other city in the world. Compared with several of those global capitals, ultraluxury real estate in New York â at an average of $4,100 a square foot â is relatively inexpensive. In Hong Kong it is $11,000 a square foot.  There are certainly those in the real estate industry who worry about the impact of higher taxes, even though studies repeatedly show that people are unlikely to move when taxes go up. (Last year, in fact, the British âstamp dutyâ increased to 7 percent from 5 percent on property transactions over a certain amount, and buying in England did not slow.) And yet even those who harbor concern mostly refuse to buy into the meme that a progressive city government would inevitably result in a New York of crack dens and subway muggings. âNo sane person believes we are turning the clock back to the Dinkins days,â Fred Peters, president of Warburg Realty, said.  As it happens, it was the implication of such a regression, in Joseph J. Lhotaâs notorious campaign ad last month, that has left many in the real estate world aghast. At the fund-raiser Mr. Steinberg attended, he said: âThere were many heavy hitters in the room, many of them Republican. And people were outraged. It was the sort of ad a group of kids might fall for, but not educated adults.â The sentiment was very much, âWhat idiot came up with that?â
Bill de Blasio, the front-runner among mayoral candidates, is often cast as a threat to the real estate industry, but he has won over some skeptics.