Among theories of a looming exodus, New York’s condo brokers say they’re just as busy as ever with ultra-wealthy clients who want to live and work in the city that just elected a democratic socialist as mayor.
“People thought people were moving out of New York and not coming back. It’s actually the opposite,” Charney Cos. Chief Data Officer and Brokerage President Andrew Steiker-Epstein said Wednesday at Bisnow’s New York Condos Conference. “You’re seeing people planting roots here, particularly in the luxury market.”
Courtesy of Binyan
RXR’s 89 Dekalb luxury condo in Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Leading up to Nov. 4, and in the weeks that followed, business executives warned that New Yorkers would flee as a result of Zohran Mamdani’s proposed policies, which include increasing taxes on the wealthy. But data on the luxury residential market hasn’t backed up that prediction.
In the third quarter, 318 sales closed for homes starting at $4M, a 2.6% increase from the prior quarter and 13.6% jump year-over-year, according to a report by Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel.
The momentum continued through November. Contracts for 151 luxury homes were signed in the month, up from 124 last year, according to Olshan Realty, which tracks sales at $4M and above.
That includes Thanksgiving’s shortened week, which recorded 19 contracts, above the 10-year average of 17.
Those buyers have been “predominantly end-user, and that is a big shift,” Steiker-Epstein said Thursday at the event, held at the Marriott Marquis.
Historically, New York’s luxury market has been dominated by foreign buyers, but activity from international investors has fallen — even before the discouragement posed by tariffs and sanctions.
Between April 2023 and March 2024, the U.S. recorded its lowest level of international homebuyer purchases since 2009, according to a report by Sotheby’s International Realty. Investors from overseas bought 54,000 homes for a combined $42B, compared to $153B across 285,000 homes in 2017.
“The ebbs and flows of the international market are largely driven by capital markets considerations,” Toll Brothers City Living Vice President Alan Silver said. “If that’s who you’re counting on as your buyer, it’s a scary proposition.”
Bisnow/Sasha Jones
Toll Brothers City Living’s Alan Silver, Lendlease’s Caaminee Vecchio, Charney Cos.’ Andrew Steiker-Epstein, Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group’s Yejin Berman, Grid Group’s Yiannes Einhorn and Herrick’s Phil Tucker at Bisnow’s New York Condo Conference
In the place of international buyers, domestic high net worth individuals have gained prominence, panelists said.
Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group Managing Director Yejin Berman said her firm has been marketing to domestic non-New York buyers, particularly in tech hubs on the West Coast, Texas and Florida — all markets that welcomed a surge in New York transplants during the pandemic.
A Zillow report found that several cities in those regions rank among the top 10 metro areas with residents searching for homes in New York this year.
Miami took the third spot on the inbound list, after being No. 1 last year, behind Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. Dallas was No. 8, San Francisco was ninth, and Tampa capped the list at 10.
“It’s a lot of second, third, fourth homes,” Berman said, adding that about half of her clients already have a primary residence in the city.
Growth in AI and other fields has created a new buyer pool consisting of young professionals. Still, parental financing remains popular.
“What we can really track is a big increase in LLC purchasing and trust purchasing, which typically signals family money,” Steiker-Epstein said.
Berman added that she recently sold a $20M apartment to parents who were buying on the behalf of their 22-year-old.
Demand may not be easing soon, either, especially as companies continue to call employees back into the office, Silver said. New York has led the country in office recovery and is on track to beat prepandemic leasing levels for the first time since 2019. Many Wall Street firms, and even major NYC tech employers like Amazon, have reinstated five-day-a-week office policies.
“The buyer that may have drifted to the suburbs knowing that they don’t have to come into work more than three days a week, I think they’ll start to think twice about that commute,” Silver said. “It’s gonna be interesting to see what happens for those folks as they start to think about their forever homes and making decisions about buying, whether to stay in the city or move to the suburbs.”
“It’s a different population now.”