With Conflicting NYC Market Reports, Can Everybody Be Right?

A longtime, smart, and savvy client of ours—someone who has bought a tremendous amount of real estate in New York over the years—recently sent a video claiming that Manhattan condo prices are “down substantially.”

At first glance, it seems to contradict almost everything we've been reporting these past few months, which raises a fair question: With so many conflicting narratives, can everybody actually be right?

What most people misunderstand is that New York City real estate is not a monolith. It never has been, and today the market is more segmented than ever.

As luxury brokers, we focus primarily on two segments: the Super-Luxury market ($10M+) and the broader Luxury market ($4M+). Right now, it feels as if we're operating in three entirely different markets: Super-Luxury, Luxury, and the overall market. And each is being driven by different forces.

Because of widening wealth disparity and concentrated liquidity at the high end, the super luxury and luxury segments have dramatically outperformed the overall market. These buyers are far less sensitive to interest rates, which continue to weigh heavily on the rest of the market. Meanwhile, the “overall” market behaves more traditionally, rising and falling with mortgage rates and broader economic sentiment.

Layer onto that the reality that every neighborhood is its own ecosystem. We work predominantly in Manhattan's best performing areas: Tribeca, West Village, Soho, prime Upper West, Upper East Side, and parts of Brooklyn, where demand remains incredibly strong. Yet it is absolutely possible for one pocket of the city to be in a lull while another is red hot. This is how two seemingly contradictory reports can both be accurate. Looking back over the decade, several key factors significantly shape the market and influence pricing:

• 2015–2017: The market peaked during a prolonged low-rate environment, which fueled exceptionally strong luxury demand, particularly within the new-development condo sector.
  

• 2020: The Covid panic brought the market to a near standstill for roughly six months as buyers, sellers, and developers paused amid uncertainty.
  

• 2021: The recovery was swift and powerful. Pent up demand from the lockdowns, combined with historically low interest rates, produced a record-breaking sales year across Manhattan.
  

• 2022–2024: The Fed's aggressive rate-hike cycle pushed mortgage rates from roughly 2.75% to over 7%, slowing the overall market dramatically. However, the Super-Luxury and Luxury segments were far more resilient, as buyers at these price points remain less dependent on financing.

In short, these opposing forces, boom periods driven by low rates followed by sharp slowdowns from rate hikes, combined with Covid’s temporary freeze and uneven segment performance, effectively balanced each other out, resulting in an overall flat market over the past decade.

But here's where the experts agree: 2026 and the next decade are expected to usher in a meaningful upward cycle. As rates ease and pent-up demand meets chronically low inventory, prices are widely projected to rise, potentially substantially.

So yes, everyone could be right. It just depends on which New York you're looking at.

Raymond Dilullio and Lisa Interdonato are the longest-tenured members of The Eklund | Gomes Team at Douglas Elliman