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Press

2026-03-24
Crain's New York Business

What war? Manhattan luxury home sales remain strong amid market volatility.

High mortgage rates, a volatile stock market and weeks of war with Iran don’t seem to be

dampening the appetite for pricey city homes.

Buyers snapped up 29 Manhattan homes for $4 million and above last week, according to the latest Olshan Luxury Market Report. That’s three more deals than the previous week, marking another strong showing for the luxury submarket.

The median asking price of the condos, co-ops and townhouses was $6.5 million, said the report, which looked at contract-signings, the first step in the sales process.

In contrast, the median list price of the 26 homes that traded the previous week — March 9-15 — was $6.2 million.

Last week’s burst of high-end activity continues a robust run stretching back to the late fall and points to a remarkable resilience for the high-end sector.

Contrary to some pre-election predictions, democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani doesn’t appear to be scaring away wealthy residents. Neither has the ongoing war with Iran or other economic concerns.

Buyers between March 16 and March 22, who were responsible for $239.8 million in deals based on current pricing, seem particularly drawn to new developments.

No. 200 E. 75th St., an 18-story project on the Upper East Side, accounted for the most expensive and second priciest deals last week, according to the report. The two deals were both for five-bedroom penthouses. One was last listed at $19.7 million, while the other sought $17.5 million, according to the report.

EJS Group is developing the 35-unit project at Third Avenue. The firm began marketing the building in March 2024 and had sold and closed 32 condos as of Monday. With last week’s penthouse deals — both by families living in New York — the Ted Segal-led company is now two deals away from its planned $287.2 million sellout.

On Labor Day Weekend in 2020, when Segal signed a contract to purchase the handful of

tenement-style buildings that once stood on the condo’s site, the pandemic was raging, and critics were questioning the city’s future.

“We had the point of view that New York was not going anywhere, and now the market is reflecting that,” Segal said.

Other new condo projects in the mix last week included 67 Irving Place, a Gramercy office-to-residential conversion from the Los Angeles-based developer CIM Group. Units that went under contract in that building include one priced at $11.2 million and another at $10.9 million, the report

said.

A pair of units also changed hands at 212 W. 72nd St., a rental-to-condo play at Broadway from Centurion Property Investors. One unit was listed for $6.5 million and another for $4.9 million.

One High Line — a two-towered development in West Chelsea whose residential address is 500 W. 18th St. — also unloaded a five-bedroom unit. Its last asking price was $11.3 million.

Overall, 21 of last week’s luxury deals were for condo units. Some were resales and not in brand-new buildings.

More precise information about prices and buyers will be available when the homes close in a few weeks.

If some economic factors suggest weak demand, other signs point to New York’s strength, said Segal from EJS. An example is the recent opening of the towering new Park Avenue home for the investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. A flurry of office leases also shows the city is still

desirable.

“As a destination for business, as a place where people want to live, it endures,” Segal said.