As Manhattan’s condo market wavers, rents are still rising
According to luxury real estate firm Brown Harris Stevens, 1 in 3 condos sold in Manhattan from July 2024 to July 2025 were sold at a loss. Experts say this dynamic is pretty typical in a city with high sales fees and high tax rates.
What is unusual is the county’s fluctuating property values over the past decade. In November 2015, the cost of 1 square foot of space in Manhattan was $1,562; By the fall of 2025, prices dropped to $1,108 per square meter. Redfin data.
Condo and co-op values in Manhattan have plummeted amid the Fed’s tightening of the U.S. economy from 2022 to 2024. The lack of foreign buyers further reduced demand. Experts point out shifts in exchange rates between currencies such as the US dollar and the euro.
“I think there will probably be more rise in the next 10 years than in the last 10 years,” said Jonathan Miller, CEO and founder of real estate valuation and consulting firm Miller Samuel.
Experts say many first-time buyers are being left out of this high-end market. “I’m seeing more people in their early 30s and they’re getting some help from their parents,” said Bess Freedman, CEO of Brown Harris Stevens. “They’re New Yorkers going from uptown to downtown, empty nesters, … young families, … not very international,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s Robert Frank.
“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 metropolitan area.
The average rent in Manhattan is $4,973 today, up 10% from the previous year, according to rental website Zumper. A buyer purchases an average condo in Manhattan that sells for $1,650,000. Data from Miller Samuel – With a 20% down payment and a 6.25% mortgage, you may face monthly principal and interest payments of over $8,000.
As a result, even wealthy New Yorkers prefer to rent.
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani gained national attention by campaigning on affordability issues.
His platform called for increasing taxes on the wealthy and freezing rents on nearly 1 million rent-stabilized units across the city. Experts say this could push rents up to an estimated 1.2 million market rate in coming years.
“This will cause landlords to increase spending on buildings they control that have more open market units,” Miller said.
watch video Look above to see how Manhattan’s real estate market is changing.
