In a recent post in r/realestateinvesting, a New York City resident asked his Reddit colleagues, “Is investing in Manhattan real estate still worth it?”
The answer for many condo buyers over the past decade has largely been “no,” according to a Brown Harris Stevens report. The company analyzed more than 2,500 apartment resales between July 2024 and July 2025 and found that one in three units sold made a loss during that period.
Sellers who bought between 2016 and 2020 were hit hardest, with more than half of those who sold in the past year making a loss. The vast majority of the more than 700 pre-2010 buyers who sold last year saw the price rise.
For those who follow Manhattan prices over the long term, the results may not come as a surprise. From 2016 to 2024, the average price per square foot for a Manhattan apartment fell 4 percent, according to Miller Samuel’s report for Douglas Elliman.
“I don’t think the public is fully aware of the fact that housing prices in Manhattan have been relatively flat over the past decade,” said report author Jonathan Miller.
The longer time horizon includes several turning points that shaped the Manhattan market.
The precedent for the lackluster resales was a period of “supernormal growth” from 2013 to 2015, according to Jared Antin, president of Brown Harris Stevens, before prices shot up “almost overnight.” According to Elliman’s 10-year market report, average condo sales prices increased more than 10 percent between 2015 and 2016.
“There was a lot of extrinsic pressure to buy because you had the FOMO that if you didn’t buy, prices would drift away,” Antin said. “That led to people potentially making less than smart purchasing decisions.”
As condo projects hit the market, a slew of state and local policies dampened the city’s appeal to wealthy buyers.
The introduction of the cap on state and local tax deductions in 2017 disproportionately targeted New Yorkers, who were subject to deductions nearly double those of the nation’s second-highest county. Two years later, the city introduced a progressive mansion tax to replace the flat 1 percent tax on home sales. Property taxes can be as high as 3.9 percent for the city’s most expensive homes.
Both policies impose higher costs on buyers of expensive homes, but the luxury market has seen the most consistent price increases. Only 20 percent of homes in the study that sold for at least $10 million sold at a loss, and for homes purchased between 2016 and 2020, the luxury segment was the only one where prices increased.
“You are rich and you buy because you want to,” Antin said of the resilient buyers in the luxury market. “You don’t really care what happens around you.”
New York lost wealthy would-be buyers to states with low taxes and warm weather. From 2018 to 2022, about 125,000 New Yorkers moved to Florida and the percentage of millionaires living in the state fell to 8.7 percent from 12.7 percent between 2010 and 2022, according to a Citizen’s Budget Commission report.
The trend cooled as the post-pandemic housing boom and skyrocketing insurance costs made South Florida a more expensive destination.
The unprecedented stock market performance of the past five years has also left New York real estate out of pocket as investors have seen their bank accounts grow, but fears of an impending market correction have become increasingly widespread.
“There are a lot of interesting things happening here that could help stimulate the purchasing market,” Antin said.
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