The Edit
Q1 2026 · Market Intelligence
New York opened 2026 with discipline. Prices held and well-prepared homes traded quickly, even as buyers grew more selective and the very top of the market pulled away from everything beneath it. A borough-by-borough account of where value moved — and where it didn't.
Sales and rentals across the five boroughs and Long Island. Choose a market, then toggle between the two. Each borough is sourced to the deepest report available for it; outer-borough figures marked “(Est.)” are derived where no clean quarterly release exists.
Manhattan opened the year with conviction. The median held at $1.28 million and well-priced homes cleared in 110 days — the fastest first quarter since 2018. The market is rewarding accuracy: price to the moment and a home trades; anchor to last year's number and it sits. Signed contracts cooled, but against a five-year low in inventory that reads as a pause, not a turn.
Rents set another record. The median reached $5,000 a month — a second straight month at that mark — as listing inventory contracted for the nineteenth month running. Vacancy ticked up to 1.88 percent, loosening at the very margin, but nowhere near relief for tenants.
Brooklyn told a quieter story. The median rose 4 percent to $828,000 and the average reached its second-highest level on record — but volume thinned, and 1,061 closings marked a thirteen-year low for a first quarter. Prices held while activity stepped back: the signature of a patient, selective buyer rather than a softening market.
Rents climbed steeply. The median hit $3,814, up 9 percent, with net effective close behind as concessions stayed scarce. Inventory fell again, and the borough's long-standing discount to Manhattan keeps narrowing — Brooklyn is no longer the cheaper alternative so much as its own first choice.
Queens stayed affordable and uneven. The all-property median edged up 2 percent to $590,000 while the co-op and condo median slipped to $397,000 — the gap between house and apartment widening as buyers chase space over polish. Volume eased to 1,888 closings.
Northwest Queens carried the rental story. Medians in Long Island City, Astoria, and Sunnyside rose more than 10 percent to $3,754 — the fastest pace of any market we track — as renters priced out of Manhattan crossed the river and stayed.
Data here is thinner. Closed-sale medians held near $345,000 through the quarter, roughly flat year over year, on steady volume. The Bronx remains the city's value floor — it moves on fundamentals, not headlines.
Verified quarterly rental figures for the Bronx aren't published, and the available estimates span too wide a range to print with confidence. The direction is clear — continued upward pressure, in line with the outer-borough trend — but we'd rather flag the gap than quote a soft number.
Staten Island held firm. The house median ran near $754,000 on early-quarter readings, up close to 4 percent, and homes sold faster than a year ago. A detached, owner-occupied market that answers to mortgage rates more than to fashion.
Staten Island's rental market is small and house-driven, and clean quarterly medians aren't published. Pricing here lags the rest of the city and turns over slowly.
Long Island kept climbing on scarce supply. The Nassau median reached $805,000, up nearly 6 percent, while Suffolk single-families hit $700,000. Homes traded in about 60 days — two weeks faster than last year — with inventory down again. The affordability pressure pushing New Yorkers east shows no sign of easing.
Long Island's rental market is thinner and house-led, and clean quarterly medians are limited. Demand stays firm, tracking the same affordability pressure that is reshaping the sales market.
The top of the market pulled away from everything beneath it. The luxury median held while the entry point into the top ten percent climbed and inventory fell to its thinnest in well over a decade — scarcity, not breadth, setting the pace.
The Studio Sofield–designed duplex atop the Upper East Side's newest condominium went into contract at $89.5 million — a neighborhood record for both total price and price per square foot, and the most expensive New York residence to enter contract this year.
The stories that shaped the quarter — policy, supply, and the slow turn in commercial — selected from the publications our team reads daily.
A year into the broker-fee ban, the city logged more than 1,600 complaints and 53 summonses — but ordered only two tenant refunds. Enforcement activity and money actually returned to renters remain far apart.
The governor's budget would exempt most city housing projects under 500 units in denser districts from environmental review — a City of Yes follow-through aimed at the lawsuits that stall new supply.
Midtown posted its strongest leasing year since 2018, and availability across the top fifty buildings fell to 3.7 percent. The trophy-space crunch is now pushing tenants down into Class B.
Four decades of data show 2025 was the seventh straight year of below-trend turnover, the longest stretch since 1984. Knakal argues the freeze on rent-stabilized buildings has to thaw — and when it does, volume snaps back.
A selection of current YCRE representations. The full portfolio is at yc-re.com/listings.
A triplex townhouse with ten-foot ceilings and two twenty-foot atriums, opening to a private front yard.
A duplex penthouse in walnut and cane, crowned by the building's largest terrace at 343 square feet.
A newly renovated single-family townhouse a half-block from Central Park, six bedrooms across five floors.
Investment offerings from the YCRE platform.