According to luxury real estate firm Brown Harris Stevens, from July 2024 to July 2025, one in three condos sold in Manhattan sold at a loss. Experts say this dynamic is more typical of a city with high sales fees and high tax rates.
What is unusual is the district’s fluctuating property values over the last decade. In November 2015, 1 square foot of space in Manhattan cost $1,562; Prices had fallen to $1,108 per square foot by fall 2025, according to Redfin data.
Manhattan condo and co-op prices fell sharply as the Fed stimulated the U.S. economy from 2022 to 2024. A lack of foreign buyers further dampened demand. Experts point to exchange rate shifts between the US dollar and currencies such as the euro.
“I think there’s probably more upside in the next 10 years than there has been in the last 10 years,” said Jonathan Miller, CEO and founder of Miller Samuel, a real estate valuation and consulting firm.
Experts say many first-time buyers are locked out of this high-end market. “I’m seeing more people in their early 30s, and they’re getting a little help from their parents,” said Bess Freedman, CEO of Brown Harris Stevens. “It’s New Yorkers moving from downtown to downtown, empty nesters, … younger families, … not so much international,” she said in an interview with CNBC.
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“That’s actually why rents went up so much, because people couldn’t afford to buy,” said Pierre Debbas, a real estate attorney in the New York area.
The median rent in Manhattan is now $4,973, up 10% from last year, according to rental website Zumper. A buyer purchasing an average Manhattan condo — which sells for $1,650,000, according to Miller Samuel — with a 20% down payment and a 6.25% mortgage could expect monthly principal and interest payments of over $8,000.
This is why even wealthy New Yorkers choose to rent.
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani championed affordability issues and gained national attention.
His platform called for higher taxes on the rich and a rent freeze for about a million rent-stabilized apartments across the city. Experts assume that this could increase rents for an estimated 1.2 million market-rate units in the coming years.
“This will cause landlords to increase costs on the buildings they control that have more freely marketable units,” Miller said.
Watch them video Above, learn how Manhattan’s real estate market is changing.
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