Issue 125 - The $5 Million Question: What’s Actually Worth Owning in New York Right Now?

75 Grand Street 4W

641 Fifth Avenue #33/34EF

101 Leonard Street 5/D

500 Park Ave Penthouse-39

450 East 52nd St #10

1001 Fifth Avenue 110C

22 Central Park South Unit 3

508 Canal Street #TH3

115 Morton Street #5B

501 Third Avenue #6E

53 West 53rd Street 24D

53 West 53rd Street #38C

53 West 53rd Street #PH78

320 East 42nd St 2403

1593 Deerfield Road

136 East 56th Street 8H

51 Crosby Street 3

53 West 53rd Street #30B

53 West 53rd Street #66

53 West 53rd Street #72B

53 West 53rd Street #21A

53 West 53rd Street #53A

53 West 53rd Street #17B

53 W 53rd St #PH76

53 West 53rd Street #71

53 West 53rd Street #20B

53 West 53rd Street #16F

Issue 125 – The $5 Million Question: What’s Actually Worth Owning in New York Right Now?

September 1, 2026

The New York real estate market is entering a period where the old rules of valuation are becoming less reliable. Price per square foot and comparable sales still matter, but buyers are weighing those factors differently — rewarding some attributes while quietly discounting others. The question is no longer simply, “What did the apartment downstairs sell for?” It’s “What are buyers willing to pay a premium for now — and what have they stopped paying for?”

I could identify at least seven factors being repriced in Manhattan right now: outdoor space, views/greenery, turnkey condition, monthly carrying costs, new development versus resale, second-home ownership, and the increasingly important distinction between a great apartment and a great building.

Confusing matters for buyers is that the NYC market is sending contradictory signals. Manhattan inventory is changing by price band, mortgage rates remain challenging nationally, and NYC’s new pied-à-terre tax is creating another potential dividing line in how buyers assess ownership costs.

In the luxury zone, one way to test those shifting valuations is what I call “The $5-Million-Question.”

I can take $5 million and show clients what that buys today in six completely different versions of New York: Think:

$5M on Central Park West
$5M downtown
$5M in Brooklyn
$5M in a new development
$5M in a great prewar co-op
$5M for something compromised but spectacular

Same amount of money. Same city. Radically different value.

The questions to ponder are:

Which one would I buy?
Which one would I avoid?
Which one has the greatest upside?
And which one will be easiest to sell five years from now?

That comparison is more revealing than a market-wide statistic because it shows what the same $5 million actually buys — and what it might be worth to the next buyer.

On the surface, the questions are simple. In practice, answering them requires a sophisticated analysis — price per square foot, carrying costs, taxes, liquidity, buyer pool, neighborhood trajectory, architectural quality, and exit strategy. Buyers should seek out an expert broker not only for information but also for interpretation.

For a long time, value was assessed through familiar metrics: price per square foot, comparable sales, neighborhood, floor, light, views, condition, and building pedigree. Those factors still matter. But buyers are now weighing them differently. We are in a repricing phase — not necessarily of New York City as a whole, but of the individual components that define its value.

At Central Park West, $5 million typically trades square footage for permanence: park frontage, architectural significance, scarcity, and long-term stability.

Downtown, the same budget may secure a more contemporary product — larger windows, amenities, and outdoor space — but often at a higher price per square foot and with higher ongoing costs.

In a new development, $5 million buys condition, services, and immediacy. The question is how much of that price reflects a “new development premium,” and whether the resale market will recognize it when the time comes to exit.

In Brooklyn, the same capital can deliver scale, outdoor space, and architectural character that would be significantly more expensive in Manhattan.

None of these is inherently superior. The real questions are: What are you actually buying, and who will want it next? That second part is often underweighted: Which market is offering more rewards?

Based on buyer behavior, several attributes are becoming more defensible:

Light and views are not replicable. While layouts can be changed, exposure and outlook cannot be transformed.

Functional outdoor space is valuable. Usable terraces connected to living areas are materially more valuable than secondary or awkwardly accessed outdoor areas.

Strong floor plans are key. The pandemic reinforced that usability matters as much as size. Proportion, flow, and flexibility are now critical.

Condition has always mattered — now more than ever. High construction costs and uncertainty have increased demand for finished product. However, there is a ceiling — buyers will not indefinitely overpay for someone else’s design choices.

Low carrying friction is persuasive. Taxes, common charges, assessments, and long-term building health are now central to valuation. High monthly costs can materially impact resale liquidity.

Scarcity can be the tipping point. A strong apartment does not need to be perfect. It needs to be difficult to replicate.

So, where would I be most cautious today?

I would be disciplined about paying a premium purely for newness. New does not hold value on its own — architecture, location, and scarcity do. I would closely evaluate buildings where carrying costs are disconnected from underlying asset value. I would avoid trophy pricing unless there is a true trophy attribute. And I would be careful about pricing that is anchored primarily to renovation cost.

A $2 million renovation does not translate into a $2 million increase in value.

The market does not reimburse cost. It prices outcome.

If I were allocating funds at this level, the guiding principles should be: light over finishes, proportion over decoration, irreplaceable views over amenity packages, and ultimately, best-in-class units in proven buildings over average units in trending ones.

The strongest purchases do two things at once: they function as exceptional homes today and remain desirable assets tomorrow. That means thinking about the exit before the entry — and recognizing that New York isn’t one market, but a collection of micro-markets defined by neighborhood, block, building, floor, and orientation.

While real estate is inherently emotional, value is what remains when emotion fades.

Whether the budget is $1 million, $5 million, or $25 million, the question is ultimately the same: What is actually worth owning?

That is the question the next phase of the market will answer — and it will reward analysis over generalization.

Issue 126 – Who Owns the Listing?

October 1, 2026

New York real estate is quietly becoming a battle for access, and most consumers don’t even realize the rules are changing.

The most important battle may no longer be who gets the listing — it may be who gets to see it. For most of my career, a listing broker’s job has been straightforward: create demand, tell the property’s story, expose it to the right buyers, negotiate expertly, and ultimately get the best possible outcome for the seller. Now a fundamental element of that role is shifting — access itself.

That does not mean private listings are inherently problematic, or even new. I’ve sold properties quietly myself. Sometimes discretion is necessary—for privacy reasons, security concerns, divorce proceedings, an occupied home, or to test a pricing strategy.

But what was once the exception is becoming more the norm.

As of August 12, Marketproof identified 440 Manhattan properties being offered as ‘Participant Only’ listings, representing approximately $1.94 billion in asking volume. Of this total, 47 new Participant Only listings were added in June, 144 in July, and 153 in just the first 12 days of August.

This isn’t just a trophy-market phenomenon. Marketproof found that nearly 30% of those listings were asking under $1 million. And The Real Deal’s recent analysis points in the same direction, reporting a 30% increase in off-market residential sales volume across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens in 2025.

Put those numbers together, and it becomes difficult to dismiss private real estate as merely the world of whisper listings and ultra-high-net-worth sellers. Private marketing is becoming mainstream, which deserves a closer look. We need to ascertain who benefits.

So, who owns the listing? Legally, the answer is obvious — the seller owns the property. In practice, the picture is more nuanced. Listings have become valuable currency: they attract buyers, who generate data and relationships. And those relationships lead to transactions that create market share and leverage.

Perhaps we should be asking a different question: When did exclusivity stop meaning the right to represent a property and start meaning the right to restrict who sees it?

The seller wants the best possible combination of price, privacy, certainty, and timing. The broker wants to represent the seller successfully, protect the relationship, and complete the transaction. The brokerage or platform has another economic interest: inventory. Listings attract consumers, engagement, data, and future business. None of these interests is inherently improper. But when they diverge, we need to be very clear about whose interest comes first.

For me, the seller has to be the North Star. That is where the debate becomes complicated.

StreetEasy has argued that the growth of private listings creates artificial scarcity and gatekeeping. Supporters of private marketing argue that sellers should have the right to decide how — and how publicly — their homes are marketed.

I understand both arguments. But I keep coming back to one question: Does restricting exposure actually create a better outcome for the seller? If it does, show me.

The early data is fascinating, partly because it doesn’t give us a definitive answer. Marketproof found that 78% of the Participant Only listings it analyzed had previously been publicly marketed. Of those Participant Only listings that came off the market without selling, roughly one-third subsequently returned to the public market. Additionally, those relistings came back at a median asking price 6.4% below their Participant Only asking price, according to Marketproof. While interesting, it doesn’t prove that private marketing is ineffective.

There aren’t enough matched transactions yet to determine whether comparable privately marketed properties ultimately sell for more or less than publicly marketed ones. That’s precisely why I think the industry should be careful about declaring victory on either side.

Real estate value is established through imperfect but important information: comparable transactions, current competition, buyer behavior, and ultimately what someone is willing to pay. Exposure is part of that price-discovery mechanism, but it doesn’t mean maximum exposure always produces maximum price.

Scarcity can create urgency. A sophisticated broker may know exactly which handful of buyers are right for a particular property. However, we need to be careful not to confuse controlled exposure with manufactured scarcity.

Another reason this conversation matters now: Consolidation is changing the brokerage business. Large firms can offer extraordinary advantages — technology, referral networks, data, marketing resources, and access to enormous numbers of agents and consumers. Scale itself isn’t the problem, But when scale is combined with proprietary inventory, the competitive equation changes.

For years, technology moved residential real estate toward greater transparency. Consumers gained access to listings, price histories, comparable sales, building information, and market data that once largely resided with brokers. That disrupted our industry, but I think it made good brokers more valuable — not less. A great broker shouldn’t be afraid of this transparency.

Our value is actually understanding the information. It’s knowing why one apartment deserves $2,000 per square foot while another in the same building doesn’t. It’s knowing when to walk away from a bidding war, how to position an unusual property, how to navigate a board, how to structure a complicated deal — and how to tell a seller something they may not want to hear.

None of this means every property should automatically be marketed publicly. But as a broker, my responsibility is making sure the seller understands the nuance.

Whenever an industry undergoes structural change, I find it useful to ask one simple question: Who benefits? And I always circle back to the ultimate one: What will produce the best outcome for my client?

Before New York embraces a fundamentally different marketplace, we should demand enough transparency to know, because the future of residential brokerage shouldn’t be decided solely by which company has the largest network or which website has the largest audience.

None of us should confuse access to the listing with ownership of the client’s interests.

So, if private marketing creates greater value for sellers, let’s prove it. If an open marketplace creates greater value, let’s prove that too. If the answer depends upon the particular seller and property, let’s have the sophistication to say so.

Because ultimately, the most important question isn’t whether a listing is public or private; it’s whether restricting access creates value for the seller — or just value for the company controlling the access. Those are not the same thing.

And right now, New York real estate needs to understand the difference.