“New York is fine,” he said. “They’re still putting up buildings. Jamie Dimon just put up a $3 billion headquarters for JPMorgan Chase. Older people are clamoring for back to work in person. My wife works in Midtown. Midtown is not back, business-wise.
“I think that’s hurt, because if people are there three days a week, that guy doing salads, smoothies, sandwiches, his business just fell off 40% with the rents that they’re paying. Some of the cool stuff, like New York being 24/7, hasn’t come back yet. I think I’d like to see it come back.”
He said any thoughts that people are fleeing the city due to any new political policies in place simply don’t match the reality of what’s going on.
“I don’t get the sense of a mass exodus,” Leibowitz said. “We did see some of that happen during COVID. But I wouldn’t say it’s still a mass exodus. There are still enough people who live here, work here, and want to be here, that there’s still enough value ascribed to real estate here in the city.”
A measured approach
While there isn’t a mass exodus, that doesn’t mean New York has become a wild buyer’s market either. He thinks the market has balanced out.