{"id":61026,"date":"2025-12-04T19:12:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T19:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/61026\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T19:12:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T19:12:23","slug":"manhattan-luxury-home-sales-are-booming-after-mamdanis-election-predictions-of-millionaire-exodus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/61026\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan luxury home sales are booming after Mamdani’s election, predictions of millionaire exodus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Escape from New York<\/a> isn\u2019t just the title of a 1981 pulp classic starring Kurt Russell. It\u2019s what Westchester County and Florida realtors told the world (including Fortune<\/a>) about what would happen if Gotham elected a socialist mayor. But it\u2019s time for a sequel with a different title.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of much well-heeled panic about a potential mass exodus<\/a> of New York millionaires and billionaires following the election of mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, the contrary is already happening, and Manhattan luxury apartment buyers are voting with their wallets.<\/p>\n

Signed contracts for Manhattan homes costing $4 million or more rose to 176 in November, a 25% increase from October\u2019s 141 deals, according to fresh data<\/a> from brokerage Douglas Elliman and appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. New signed contracts more than $4 million increased more than twice the rate of the overall market, the report noted.<\/p>\n

Olshan Realty similarly noted an uptick in Manhattan luxury buyers. In its most recent market report<\/a>, the firm said the 17 contracts signed in the last week of November for Manhattan homes over $4 million bested its 10-year Thanksgiving week average. Compared to October\u2019s luxury sales totalling 115, November\u2019s sales increased more than 31% to 151 properties, according to the firm.<\/p>\n

The Big Apple\u2019s real estate boom bucks the narrative from just a few months ago, when some of New York\u2019s elite were preparing to pack their bags should democratic socialist Mamdani become the next mayor. Mamdani has advocated for increased eviction protections and rent freezes, as well as for a 2% income tax surcharge<\/a> for those in the city earning more than $1 million per year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s shock primary win in June coincided with some real estate agents in Westchester, the suburb just north of the city, reporting an influx of interest in the area, with Zach and Heather Harrison of the Harrison Team at Compass<\/a>, telling Realtor.com<\/a> they saw \u201ca spike in Manhattan residents reaching out about suburban properties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other real-estate leaders, however, argued that the data says differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no Mamdani effect,\u201d Donna Olshan, president and founder of Olshan Realty, told Bloomberg<\/a>. \u201cThe idea that people would flee New York was overblown. The numbers just aren\u2019t bearing that out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why New York is still booming<\/p>\n

Jonathan Miller, President and CEO of Miller Samuel Inc., told Fortune the trend of wealthy buyers scooping up luxury New York real estate has been on display all year, contrary to the only recent narrative of elites fleeing the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout 2025 on a year-over-year basis, overall sales have risen, prices have risen, sales have risen faster than inventory, rents have risen, rental activity has risen, and especially in October and November,\u201d Miller said. \u201cI\u2019m looking at this anecdotal argument, and the plural of anecdotal is not data.\u201d<\/p>\n

High earners have plenty of reasons to come to or stay in New York, according to Miller. Wall Street saw is largest bonuses<\/a> since 1987 in 2024, following a strong market, a trend that is expected to continue<\/a> this year, as another banner year for Wall Street is expected to raise the payouts for investment bankers, traders, and wealth-management professionals by up to 25%, according to a November report from compensation consultancy Johnson Associates Inc.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time panicked premonitions of a dispersal of New York residents to the suburbs. In the early days of the pandemic, many feared New York would become vacant as the wealthy fled to suburban vacation homes. While many wealthy New Yorkers indeed left the city, the five boroughs nonetheless gained about 10,000 millionaires<\/a> between 2020 and 2021, according to state data. Manhattan even gained 17,500 residents<\/a> in 2022, mostly migrants from other boroughs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New York City\u2019s population was gradually growing for decades up to the pandemic, as the census<\/a> shows a recent peak of 8.8 million in 2020, with more recent data showing the city\u2019s population at 8.5 million<\/a>. The city had lost nearly a million people between 1970 and 1980, after which it grew consistently before the Covid shock.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

NYC Department of City Planning Population Division<\/p>\n

The city hit a recent trough of 8.36 million in 2022, but recorded two consecutive years of relatively sluggish growth since then. The NYC Department of City Planning argued in May 2025 that the last two years of growth suggest losses during the pandemic \u201cwere a short-lived shock.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Miller said he doesn\u2019t know how Mamdani\u2019s future policies will impact the city, he said there\u2019s no evidence to suggest a mass millionaire migration. \u201cThis whole thing is a classic misinformation scenario, where no one\u2019s looking at actual data,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Escape from New York isn\u2019t just the title of a 1981 pulp classic starring Kurt Russell. It\u2019s what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2907,2364,75,84,83,9,24,63,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-61026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-housing","9":"tag-luxury","10":"tag-manhattan","11":"tag-manhattan-headlines","12":"tag-manhattan-news","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}