Most agents know when to talk with their sales manager about a deal. A negotiation isn’t going well, there’s a problem with a client, an offer has become complicated or something has happened that you haven’t dealt with before. You want another opinion and your sales manager is a logical person to ask.

I think there is another conversation that can be ju…

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Welcome to this week’s Streets365 Weekly. Each Sunday I look at the latest Manhattan market numbers, share what I notice in them, and then talk about something that happened in real estate during the past week that caught my attention. It’s a chance to look beyond any one deal and think about what’s happening around us as we begin another week.

Market Dashboard

Active Inventory — 5,829

New Listings — 418

Signed Contracts — 113

30-Day Contract Pace — 567 — 30-day rolling total

Median Days on Market

Under $1M — 79 days

$1M–$2M — 91 days

$2M–$4M — 82 days

$4M+ — 123 days

30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate — 7.28%

These are the most current figures available to us.

What I Notice

For the third consecutive week, Manhattan inventory increased. Active inventory reached 5,829 apartments, up about 7% from the previous week and the highest level since late July. Another 418 listings came onto the market. That was considerably below the 560 new listings from the previous week, suggesting that the initial September listing surge may be starting to taper off. Even after three weeks of increasing supply, Manhattan inventory remains about 12% below the same period last year.

What concerns me more is what happened on the demand side. Only 113 contracts were signed, down 14% from the previous week and 37% from the same week last year. The 30-day contract pace declined to 567, down 5.2% from the previous week and 16.6% from a year ago. September brought more apartments to the market. Buyers haven’t yet absorbed them at the same pace.

Last week I talked about the significance of the 30-year fixed rate crossing 7% and reaching 7.03%. This week it jumped another quarter point to 7.28%. That’s the highest level in nearly three years and the sixth consecutive weekly increase. A buyer who was hoping that 7% might be a temporary threshold instead saw borrowing costs move substantially farther in the other direction.

Put these numbers together and October becomes particularly interesting. September did what September often does: sellers returned and inventory increased. Now we find out whether buyers respond. They have more apartments to choose from, but they’re making those choices with mortgage rates considerably higher than they were when September began. For sellers and their agents, pricing and positioning become increasingly important when buyers have both more choice and more expensive money.

Thought for the Week

Something happened this week that caught my attention because it involves a part of the real estate business that continues to change: how much technology should influence pricing.

A federal judge in Manhattan temporarily blocked New York State from enforcing a new law that prohibited landlords from using certain algorithmic software to help set rents. The law had been challenged by RealPage, whose software uses data to make rent-pricing recommendations. The judge described the legal question as a close one and issued a preliminary injunction while the case proceeds.

I find this interesting beyond the legal argument.

Real estate has always involved data. Agents look at comparable apartments, current competition, recent deals, days on market and what buyers or renters appear willing to pay. Technology can now process enormous amounts of that information almost instantly and recommend a price. But pricing real estate has never been only about processing numbers.

Two apartments in the same building can have different light, views, condition, layouts and emotional appeal. A seller or landlord can have different priorities about timing. The market can change between the time the data was collected and the time someone has to make a decision.

Technology will continue to become better at giving us information and identifying patterns. I think that’s useful.

What caught my attention about this week’s court decision is the larger question it raises for people who work in real estate: as technology becomes increasingly capable of recommending what something should be worth, where does professional judgment fit?

For NYC agents, I don’t think that question is going away.

Think Beyond The Deal,

George

A new buyer tells you they want to spend about $1.5 million on a New York City apartment. They have a neighborhood in mind, know approximately how much space they want and are ready to start looking.

Before I start sending listings, there are two things I want: a completed financial statement and a mortgage pre-approval.

Together they begin to tell me whe…

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Welcome to this week’s Streets365 Weekly. Each Sunday I look at the latest Manhattan market numbers, share what I notice in them, and then talk about something that happened in real estate during the past week that caught my attention. It’s a chance to look beyond any one deal and think about what’s happening around us as we begin another week.

Market Dashboard

Active Inventory — 5,464

New Listings — 560

Signed Contracts — 131

30-Day Contract Pace — 598 — 30-day rolling total

Median Days on Market

Under $1M — 79 days

$1M–$2M — 91 days

$2M–$4M — 82 days

$4M+ — 123 days

30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate — 7.03%

These are the most current figures available to us.

What I Notice

The September inventory increase we’ve been waiting for has arrived. Manhattan active inventory jumped 13% in a single week to 5,464 apartments, while 560 new listings came to market. That was the second consecutive heavy week of new inventory and brought Manhattan back above 5,000 active listings for the first time since mid-August. Even after that increase, inventory remains 14.4% below the same period last year, so I see this more as the fall market being replenished than Manhattan suddenly having too much inventory.

Buyers also began responding. Signed contracts increased 9% to 131 after the slower post-Labor Day period. The 30-day contract pace is now 598, about 13% below last year’s comparable period. We now have more apartments coming onto the market and some improvement in weekly contract activity, which makes the next few weeks particularly important in determining how much of this new fall inventory buyers are prepared to absorb.

The number that caught my attention most this week is 7.03%. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate has crossed 7%. It was 6.71% three weeks ago, 6.76% two weeks ago and 6.95% last week. This week it moved through a barrier that buyers and agents notice. A difference of eight basis points from last week doesn’t dramatically change an individual buyer’s payment, but crossing from a six to a seven in front of the rate changes the conversation.

This comes just as buyers have more apartments to choose from. Some buyers will continue with their plans, particularly those who have been waiting for better selection. Others may recalculate what they’re comfortable spending, change their price range or simply decide to wait. Sellers entering the fall market now have to compete not only with substantially more inventory but with financing that has become noticeably more expensive in a very short period of time.

Thought for the Week

A Manhattan sale caught my attention this week because of the distance between where the seller started and where the market eventually put the value.

The penthouse beneath the gold dome at the historic Sohmer Piano Building at 170 Fifth Avenue sold at auction for $9 million. The 5,700-square-foot duplex had originally been listed at $25 million in November 2024 and spent about 530 days on the market before going to auction.

This isn’t an ordinary apartment, and I wouldn’t use it to draw conclusions about Manhattan pricing generally. What interested me was what happens when a property is so unusual that there are very few meaningful comparisons. A spectacular apartment can be difficult to price for exactly the same reason that makes it special.

There is also something interesting about the auction. After a long period in which conventional marketing didn’t produce a buyer at the seller’s expectations, the auction created a moment when the market had to answer the question: what will someone actually pay for this apartment today?

The answer was $9 million.

For agents, I think properties like this are a reminder of the difference between what makes an apartment extraordinary and what the market is prepared to pay for those qualities. Those two things don’t always move together. The more unusual the property, the more judgment becomes involved in pricing it, and sometimes the market ultimately provides an answer very different from where the conversation began.

Think Beyond The Deal,

George

Think about all the people whose names are already in your phone. There are friends, neighbors, past clients, renters, attorneys, other agents, people you’ve worked with and people you’ve known for years. Some you speak with regularly and others you probably haven’t spoken with in a long time. What they all have in common is that they live someplace. Th…

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Welcome to another week of Streets365. The fall market is beginning to take shape, and we’re getting a better look at what buyers and sellers are actually doing after the summer slowdown. Inventory remains unusually tight for this time of year, contracts are being signed, and some properties are attracting considerable competition. The next several weeks should give us an increasingly clear picture of the fall market.

Manhattan Market Dashboard

Active Inventory — 4,510

New Listings — 543

Signed Contracts — 117

30-Day Contract Pace — 600 — 30-day rolling total

Median Days on Market — Under $1 Million — 78 days

Median Days on Market — $1 Million–$2 Million — 72 days

Median Days on Market — $2 Million–$4 Million — 81 days

Median Days on Market — $4 Million+ — 96 days

30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate — 6.95%

Most current figures available to us.

What I Notice

The fall market is returning, but it is returning with considerably less inventory than we would normally expect. Manhattan entered September with active inventory more than 20% below last year, which means buyers returning after Labor Day are not necessarily returning to a market filled with new choices.

Contract activity is worth watching against that backdrop. The 30-Day Contract Pace gives us a better view than any single week’s number because it smooths out some of the normal weekly movement. For the next few weeks, I’ll be watching whether that rolling number begins to rise as more buyers and sellers return to the market.

Mortgage rates moved in the other direction this week. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rose to 6.95%, from 6.76% the previous week. For financed buyers, rates close to 7% remain a significant part of the affordability equation.

Thoughts for the Week

One of the more interesting numbers reported this week was that 21.8% of New York City homes sold above their most recent asking price in August. Brooklyn was particularly competitive, with nearly one-third of homes selling above ask, while Manhattan inventory was reported down more than 11% from a year earlier.

There was also an interesting story developing outside the residential market. Manhattan’s office recovery continues to gain momentum. SL Green reported this week that it has signed 129 Manhattan office leases totaling almost 1.8 million square feet so far this year. Its completed leases were signed at rents averaging 15.8% above the previous fully escalated rents for those spaces.

Residential bidding competition and stronger office leasing are very different parts of the real estate market, but both are worth watching as we move into the fall.

Something New From Streets365

Streets365 is all about helping New York City residential agents solve the problems they face today while building stronger businesses for the future.

Streets365 Membership is free.

But agents have been asking for more depth in the articles and more “how to” advice. They also want a place to have a dialogue when something comes up in a deal.

That’s why I’ve created Inside Agent, a paid membership within Streets365.

Inside Agent is for agents who want to keep becoming better at what they do, build a business that clients choose, trust and recommend, and to have a place to turn when they are facing a problem they don’t want to figure out entirely on their own.

It combines ongoing weekly professional development with something I think is particularly important to all agents: The Agent Roundtable, a place where Inside Agents can bring real questions about their clients, deals and businesses and benefit from the experience and perspective of myself and other Inside Agents.

I’m beginning Inside Agent with the Inside Agent Founders Program, giving 20 licensed New York City residential agents the opportunity to experience Inside Agent for themselves.

The Founders Program officially begins this week. I’ve put together a page explaining Inside Agent, what Founding Members receive and how the program will work.

I encourage you to follow the link and see if the Founders Program sounds like something you want to be a part of. You can sign up there for one of the 20 available memberships.

Founders Program

Think Beyond The Deal,

George

What Is Certainty Worth When Your Seller Has Multiple Offers?

When a seller has several offers, comparing prices is the easy part. The more difficult work is evaluating everything that has to happen between accepting an offer and actually closing the deal.

Suppose you’re selling a Manhattan co-op listed at $1,495,000. Buyer A offers $1,500,000 with 20% do…

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Welcome to this week’s Streets365 Weekly. Each week I look at the latest Manhattan market numbers, share a few things that caught my attention, and then talk about something that happened in real estate during the week that I found interesting. It’s a chance to look beyond any one deal and think about what’s happening around us as we begin another week.

Market Dashboard

Active Inventory — 4,341

New Listings — 141

Signed Contracts — 140

30-Day Contract Pace — 771

Median Days on Market

• Under $1M — 79 days

• $1M–$2M — 91 days

• $2M–$4M — 82 days

• $4M+ — 123 days

30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate — 6.76%

These are the most current figures available to us.

What I Notice

Inventory continues to be the number that stands out to me. Active Manhattan listings have fallen to 4,341, down 26.5% from a year ago and the lowest level we’ve seen this year.

What’s particularly interesting is the composition of that inventory. Only 13% of the apartments currently available have been on the market for less than 30 days, while 61% have been sitting for 90 days or longer.

That tells me something different from simply saying there aren’t enough apartments for sale. There aren’t many apartments available, but a significant portion of what is available has already been rejected by the market at its current combination of price, condition and circumstances.

Last week’s activity also reflected the Labor Day period. There were 141 new listings and 140 signed contracts. Contract activity was down 6.7% from the previous week, while new listings increased 12.8%. I wouldn’t read too much into either movement because of the holiday, but I’ll be watching what happens as the September market gets underway.

The luxury market is worth watching as well. Apartments asking $4 million and above are now showing a median 123 days on market. That’s considerably longer than the rest of the market and another reminder that limited overall inventory doesn’t necessarily mean every part of Manhattan is moving at the same pace.

Mortgage rates moved higher again, with the average 30-year fixed rate reaching 6.76%, up from 6.71% last week and 6.35% a year ago. That’s the third consecutive weekly increase and the highest level in more than a year.

Thought for the Week

This week marks 25 years since September 11, 2001, and I found myself thinking about Lower Manhattan.

It’s difficult to remember just how uncertain its future looked after the attacks. The World Trade Center was gone, millions of square feet of commercial space had been destroyed or damaged, businesses had been displaced and there were serious questions about whether people would ever again want to work, live or invest in that part of the city.

Twenty-five years later, Lower Manhattan is a very different place.

Its residential population has roughly tripled. There are now more than 37,000 apartments downtown, compared with about 13,000 in 2000. More than 230,000 people work there, nearly as many as before the attacks, but the neighborhood is no longer defined almost entirely by Wall Street. Technology, media and advertising companies have become part of the business community, while restaurants, hotels, cultural institutions and thousands of new residents have changed what happens there after the workday ends.

I think the residential transformation is particularly interesting. Converting older office buildings into apartments helped turn an area that once emptied out at the end of the business day into a neighborhood where people actually live. Today there are another 23 office-to-residential conversion projects either planned or underway in Lower Manhattan.

We hear a great deal today about converting obsolete office buildings into housing as though it were a new idea. Lower Manhattan gives us 25 years of experience showing both what can happen and how long meaningful change can take.

There are still problems downtown. Office vacancies remain high, and converting office buildings into apartments is complicated and expensive. But it’s difficult to walk through Lower Manhattan today and see the place that so many people feared might never recover.

Real estate is usually discussed in relatively short periods of time. This month’s inventory. This quarter’s sales. This year’s prices. Every once in a while, it’s worth looking at what can happen to a neighborhood over 25 years.

Lower Manhattan is a remarkable example.

Think Beyond The Deal,

George.

Real estate is a much better business when you feel confident about what you’re doing. When you understand your clients, know how you want to handle the problems that come up during a deal and have a clear idea of what you should be doing to develop your next client, you work differently. You have better conversations. You make better decisions. Your clients feel it. And over time, I believe it helps you build a better and more successful real estate business. That’s what I designed Inside Agent to help you do.

Inside Agent is the membership side of Streets365. It’s where we can go beyond the free Streets365 articles and weekly market perspective with more in-depth learning, a growing resource to come back to, The Agent Roundtable and my continuing involvement as your Streets365 Mentor.

I’m inviting 20 licensed NYC residential agents to become Founding Members and spend three months, on me, finding out what that kind of support can mean to their business. If you’re reading this you can be one of them.

The Founding Member Offer

Your first three months are free, with full access to the Wednesday Inside Agent articles, the Inside Agent archive and The Agent Roundtable. You’ll also continue to receive Streets365 Weekly, the free Sunday evening look at the Manhattan residential market and what I’m noticing.

After three months, you decide whether Inside Agent has earned a place in your business. Regular membership is $48 per month or $480 annually. But, as one of the original 20 Founding Members, you can continue for $24 per month for as long as you remain an active Founding Member.

There are 20 Founding Memberships available. When they’re filled, the Founders Program closes and future members will join Inside Agent at the regular membership price.

Keep Getting Better at the Business

Every Wednesday I take something that matters to NYC residential agents and look at it in depth. It might be working with a buyer or seller, pricing an apartment, negotiating a deal or handling something that has gone wrong. Other weeks I’ll talk about developing new business, staying in touch with past clients, building referrals or becoming better at the conversations you have every day.

Becoming a successful agent happens over time. Every client teaches you something and every deal adds to your experience. The Wednesday Inside Agent article is meant to add to that experience by giving you something worth thinking about every week and, hopefully, something you can use in your own business.

Sometimes it may help you right now. Other times you may not realize its value until months later. But if Inside Agent becomes part of your Wednesday routine, a year from now you’ll have spent time thinking about more than 50 subjects that affect your clients, your deals and the business you’re building.

Something to Come Back To

Every Wednesday article becomes part of the Inside Agent archive. As it grows, the archive becomes a place to do some research when you’re thinking about a particular client, dealing with an unfamiliar situation or want to familiarize yourself with a subject again.

You may want to revisit how we discussed an unrealistic seller before a meeting, take another look at something about a co-op board package or go back to what we’ve said about staying in touch with past clients. The information is there when it becomes useful to you, and the resource becomes more valuable every Wednesday.

A Community of Agents Who Understand the Business

Sometimes you want to talk about what’s happening right now. A problem that you must handle today. That’s where The Agent Roundtable comes in handy.

It’s a private community where Inside Agents can chat about the situations they’re dealing with, ask questions, share experiences and learn how other agents see something. I’ll be part of those conversations as your Streets365 Mentor, bringing my experience and perspective to the questions and problems you bring to the Roundtable.

You might be concerned about a conversation with a seller, unsure how to respond to something a buyer has done or wondering what to do with a prospect who suddenly stopped responding. Bring the situation to the Roundtable and we’ll talk about it. I’ll give you my perspective and other Inside Agents can share theirs. There may be several different opinions, and that’s useful. You’re getting the benefit of other people’s experience before deciding what makes sense for you. The decision is always yours.

If there’s a question you would rather ask without having your name attached to it, send it to me privately and I’ll bring it to the Roundtable without identifying you. Most of the time, though, I want agents to know who they’re talking with. Part of the value should come from getting to know other NYC agents, learning from their experience and developing relationships with people you respect.

Real estate can be a lonely business even when you work in an office filled with agents. Sometimes you need help with a problem. Sometimes you can help another agent because you’ve already dealt with something they’re facing. And sometimes it’s simply good to talk with people who understand what your day was like without having to explain why it mattered.

Learn From What Happens to Other Agents

The Roundtable also lets you learn from deals and clients that aren’t yours. Another agent may bring up a problem you’ve never encountered. You can follow the discussion and think about how you might handle it. Months later, when something similar happens to you, you’re no longer seeing it for the first time.

Over time, your experience isn’t limited to what happens in your own business. You’re also learning from what happens to the agents around you. I think that can be very valuable.

Keep Up With the Market Around You

On Sunday evening there’s Streets365 Weekly. Every week I look at what happened in the Manhattan residential market during the previous seven days and share the numbers along with what I noticed about them.

Streets365 Weekly is free to everyone, but I think it belongs in an Inside Agent’s regular routine. Your clients can find plenty of real estate information themselves. What they need from you is perspective. Following the market every week helps you develop that perspective and be better prepared for the next conversation.

What I Want You to Find Out

That’s how I see Inside Agent fitting into your business: something to think about every Wednesday, an archive to come back to, a Roundtable where you can bring the questions and problems that come up, and a regular connection to the market through Streets365 Weekly. None of it requires hours of your time.

The real value should show up in the conversations you have, the decisions you make, the clients you develop, the deals you handle and the business you’re building.

That’s what I want you to pay attention to during your three free months. Are you better prepared for a conversation? Did something you read help you recognize a problem sooner? Did another agent’s experience help you make a better decision? Did an idea about relationships, referrals or developing business lead you to do something you might not otherwise have done?

Ultimately, Inside Agent has to earn a place in your business. I’m giving you three months, on me, to find out if it does.

Join the Inside Agent Founding Members Group

20 licensed NYC residential agents.

Three months free with full access.

$24 per month after your free period for as long as you remain an active Founding Member.

Enrollment closes when the 20 Founding Memberships are filled.

If Inside Agent sounds like something that could make a difference in the business you’re building, I hope you’ll be one of the twenty.

Join the Founding Members Group

Think Beyond The Deal,
George

There comes a point in some client relationships when you’ve done everything you should do. You’ve looked at the comparable sales, explained the differences between the apartments, discussed the competition and given the client your recommendation. They understand what you’re telling them.

And they still disagree with you.

This is a real estate problem, b…

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One of the more difficult situations you will face as an agent comes when your client has a very clear idea about what an apartment is worth and the market is telling you something different. It happens with sellers who believe their apartment should command a certain price, and with buyers who believe their budget should buy more than the apartments they are seeing. The numbers matter, but the real challenge is helping your client understand what those numbers mean without turning the conversation into an argument about who’s right.

Expectations Usually Have a Reason

Before trying to change someone’s expectations, I think it’s important to understand where they came from.

A seller may know that an apartment upstairs sold for $1.4 million and believe theirs should sell for at least as much. What they may not appreciate is that the other apartment had a renovated kitchen, better light or a more desirable layout. A buyer may have seen several apartments online that appear to meet everything they’re looking for, only to discover that the photographs don’t show the condition, the view or something about the building that explains the price.

Those expectations aren’t unreasonable simply because they’re different from your assessment. They’re based on the information the client has.

That gives you somewhere to begin.

Let the Market Help With the Conversation

When you’re discussing value with a client, you should get away from the idea that this is my opinion against theirs.

The market gives us evidence.

With a seller, that means looking carefully at apartments that have actually sold, what is currently competing for the same buyers and what happened to properties that started at prices similar to the one being considered. The differences between apartments matter. In Manhattan, two apartments in the same building can have very different values because of floor, light, condition, exposure or layout.

With a buyer, the evidence is the apartments their budget is actually producing. After seeing enough of them, a pattern usually begins to emerge. If every apartment at a certain price requires the same compromise, the market is telling the buyer something useful.

The conversation becomes less about persuading the client and more about helping them see the information that’s already there.

Give the Client Room to Reach the Decision

You can present the evidence clearly and explain what you believe it means. Then the client has to decide what to do with it.

A seller may still choose a higher asking price. A buyer may decide to continue looking for something that hasn’t appeared yet. Those decisions belong to them.

Your value is in making sure they understand the choices and the likely consequences before they make them.

Sometimes the market itself will eventually reinforce the conversation. A listing doesn’t receive the expected response. A buyer watches another apartment they liked go into contract. Those experiences can change expectations in a way that another discussion never could.

When that happens, you want the client to feel comfortable coming back to you and reconsidering the decision.

The Conversation Can Matter Beyond This Deal

There is another reason these conversations matter.

Clients remember how you handle moments when you disagree.

If you listen to what they’re thinking, understand why they see things the way they do and give them useful information without making the decision for them, you’re demonstrating something about the kind of agent you are.

That matters during the current deal. It can matter even more afterward.

A client who learns that they can rely on your judgment is more likely to call you when another real estate question comes up, work with you again and recommend you when someone they know needs an agent.

That’s one of the ways the work you’re doing on today’s deal becomes part of the business you’re building for tomorrow.

Inside Agent goes deeper into the real-world situations that come up when you’re working with NYC clients and deals, and how experienced agents can think through them.

Think Beyond The Deal,
George.

Welcome to this week’s Streets365 Weekly. Each week I take a look at the latest Manhattan market numbers, share a few things I notice in those numbers, and then talk about something that happened in real estate during the week that caught my attention. My hope is that it gives you a little perspective on the market and something useful to think about as you begin the week ahead.

Market Dashboard

Active Inventory — 4,462

New Listings — 104

Signed Contracts — 160

30-Day Contract Pace — 771

Median Days on Market

• Under $1M — 79 days

• $1M–$2M — 91 days

• $2M–$4M — 82 days

• $4M+ — 98 days

30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate — 6.71%

These are the most current figures available to us.

What I Notice

Inventory continues to be the number that gets my attention. Manhattan finished August with 4,462 active listings, more than 20% below a year ago. At the same time, the 30-day contract pace had fallen to 771 by late August. That combination tells me that this isn’t simply a story about strong demand absorbing everything that comes to market. There are fewer apartments available, but there are also fewer buyers signing contracts as we come out of the summer.

The days-on-market numbers add another dimension. Apartments under $1 million had a median of 79 days on market, while the $1 million to $2 million range was at 91 days and properties over $4 million were at 98 days. Even with limited inventory, buyers are taking their time with apartments that don’t immediately make sense to them.

The luxury market is interesting because it continues to behave somewhat differently. Twenty-four contracts at $4 million and above were signed during the last week of August, nine more than the previous week. That doesn’t change the overall summer slowdown, but it does remind us that there isn’t really one Manhattan market. Different price ranges can be doing very different things at the same time.

Mortgage rates moved in the other direction this week. The average 30-year fixed rate increased to 6.71%, from 6.66% the previous week. For buyers who were hoping that financing costs would begin moving meaningfully lower as we approached the fall market, that hasn’t happened yet.

Thought for the Week

There were two housing stories that caught my attention this week.

The first was the continuing fight over New York City’s rent freeze. A judge heard arguments this week in a lawsuit brought by landlords challenging the Rent Guidelines Board’s decision to freeze rents for roughly one million rent-stabilized apartments. The landlords are arguing that the process was improperly influenced by Mayor Mamdani and that the freeze doesn’t adequately account for the increasing costs of operating their buildings.

I’m interested in where this goes because New York has always struggled with the same basic housing problem. We want housing to remain affordable for the people who live here, while the buildings themselves have to remain financially viable. Property taxes, insurance, labor, repairs and maintenance don’t stop increasing because rents are frozen.

There isn’t an easy answer to that. A rent increase that looks relatively small on paper can be significant to someone already struggling with the cost of living in New York. At the same time, a building has to generate enough income to be properly maintained. Those two realities exist together, and whatever happens with this lawsuit isn’t going to make that underlying problem disappear.

The other story that caught my attention was about first-time homebuyers. Nationally, they now represent only about 21% of buyers, compared with roughly 40% historically.

That number is striking.

New York has never been an easy place to become a first-time homeowner. The price of the apartment is only the beginning. Buyers need substantial cash for a down payment and closing costs, and in a co-op they also need significant post-closing liquidity. Add today’s mortgage rates and monthly maintenance or common charges, and the financial hurdle becomes considerable.

When I put these two stories together, what strikes me is how difficult the housing equation has become. We’re trying to keep rental housing affordable at one end while fewer people nationally are making the move into homeownership at the other.

New York is its own market, and national numbers don’t always translate neatly to Manhattan. Still, I think the direction is worth paying attention to. If fewer people are able to make that transition, it eventually affects more than those individual buyers. It affects the pool of future buyers, how long people remain renters and ultimately the way the housing market functions.

I don’t know that either of these stories has a simple solution. What they have in common is something we’ve been talking about in New York for a very long time: how do we make it possible for people to continue to live here?

I’ll be interested to see where both of these stories go.

Think Beyond The Deal,

George.

When you’re sitting down with a prospective seller, the most important moment does not come when you show them your recommended asking price. By the time you do that, you should already know enough about the seller that your recommendation makes sense within a much broader context. It’s understanding the context that matters most.

Begin by giving the sel…

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Sunday, August 30, 2026

Labor Day is almost here, and we’re about to find out how much of the usual September inventory actually comes back onto the Manhattan market.

Before we get there, here are the numbers I’m looking at.

Market Dashboard

Active Inventory — 4,674

New Listings — 104

Signed Contracts — 174

30-Day Contract Pace — 771

Median Days on Market — Under $1M: 79 days

Median Days on Market — $1M–$2M: 91 days

Median Days on Market — $2M–$4M: 82 days

Median Days on Market — $4M+: 98 days

30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate — 6.66%

The Market Dashboard uses the most current figures available from sources we can verify.

What I Noticed

What caught my attention this week is the combination of very little inventory and buyers who are still signing contracts.

Manhattan is beginning the fall season with considerably fewer apartments for sale than we had a year ago, and yet buyers haven’t gone away. That makes me curious about what happens when the usual September listings begin coming on the market.

I suspect some sellers are going to look at the lack of competition and conclude that they can reach a little further on price. I understand the temptation. If there are fewer apartments competing with yours, that’s certainly helpful. But buyers have spent the summer looking too. They know what they’ve seen, they know what has sold, and they have a pretty good sense of value by the time they walk into a new listing. Limited inventory can make a correctly priced apartment more attractive. It doesn’t change what a buyer is willing to pay simply because a seller wants more.

The mortgage number also feels almost ordinary now. Rates have been sitting in roughly the same range for quite a while, and buyers who remain active have had time to adjust to what that means for their monthly costs. I find that more interesting than another small weekly move up or down. The people still looking are increasingly making their decisions within the market we actually have instead of waiting for the market they hoped might arrive.

There’s one other development I’m watching. The city’s non-primary-residence surcharge is something agents working with potentially affected buyers and sellers should at least know is out there. I wouldn’t try to interpret the tax for anyone. That’s a conversation for the appropriate tax or legal professional. But knowing enough to recognize when the question should be raised is part of understanding the whole deal.

Labor Day always feels like the beginning of another chapter in New York real estate. I’m interested to see what sellers bring to the market, how buyers respond, and whether the shortage of inventory we’ve been watching through the summer changes the tone of those first few weeks.

What caught your eye this week?

Think Beyond The Deal,
George

Manhattan Market Dashboard

Active Inventory — 4,897

New Listings — 127

Signed Contracts — 166

30-Day Contract Pace — 860

Median Days on Market
Under $1M — 79 days
$1M–$2M — 80 days
$2M–$4M — 78 days
$4M+ — 87 days

30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate — 6.65%

The Market Dashboard uses the most current figures available from sources we can verify.

What I Notice

Manhattan inventory fell another 5.6% last week and is now 18.8% below where it was a year ago. New listings dropped to just 127, the lowest weekly influx of the season, while signed contracts fell 14% for the week and 17% from last year. Some of this is what we expect in the middle of August, but the continuing decline in inventory is worth watching. We are going into the fall market with considerably fewer apartments for sale than we had a year ago.

A New Life for the Flatiron Building

I saw something this week about the Flatiron Building that I found interesting. The conversion from offices to luxury apartments isn’t even finished yet, but 18 of the 22 apartments that have been publicly offered are already spoken for. Some of the prices are extraordinary, including apartments well above $20 million, so this certainly isn’t an answer to New York’s housing shortage, what interested me was the building itself.

The Flatiron Building was completed in 1902. For more than 120 years, we’ve thought of it as an office building and, more importantly, as one of those iconic buildings that simply belongs to New York. Now, people are going to live there!

We’ve been talking for several years about converting New York office buildings to residential use. Most of that conversation has understandably been about how many apartments can be created and whether conversions can help with the housing shortage. The Flatiron Building made me think about it a little differently.

New York has always been very good at finding new uses for old buildings. Neighborhoods change, the way we work changes and the way people want to live changes. Buildings that were designed for one purpose sometimes outlive the purpose for which they were built, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have outlived their usefulness.

There is something I like about the idea that the Flatiron Building can become something entirely different without becoming any less a part of New York.

A hundred years from now, people will probably still turn around to look at it when they walk down Fifth Avenue.

They’ll just know that someone lives upstairs.

Think Beyond The Deal,

George

Manhattan Market Dashboard

Metric Latest Weekly Number

30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate 6.67%

Manhattan Active Inventory 6,022

Manhattan New Listings 193

Manhattan Signed Contracts 205

Manhattan Median Days on Market 65 days

The latest Manhattan numbers continue to show a market with limited inventory and buyers who are still making decisions.

There were 205 signed contracts against 193 new listings in the latest weekly report, which is an interesting relationship between new supply and the number of deals being made.

Manhattan rentals are telling us something

The rental numbers coming out of Manhattan this summer are hard to ignore.

The median market-rate rent reached $5,000 in July, according to recent reporting, while listings were down 39% from a year earlier. Apartments are also spending less time on the market. Another report put the average Manhattan rent at $6,655, with a vacancy rate of just 1.49%, the lowest level since 1968.

Those are big numbers. But what interests me more is what they tell us about the people living in New York.

People are still coming here.

That’s easy to forget when we’re surrounded by stories about affordability, taxes and the cost of living. But somebody is signing these leases. In fact, the demand for smaller apartments is particularly strong. The latest Realtor.com data showed Manhattan’s median asking rent at $5,117 in the second quarter, up 9% from a year earlier. Brooklyn was up 5.9%.

For an agent, I think there is a useful lesson here.

A renter paying $5,000 or more every month eventually starts asking a different question. “How long do I want to keep doing this?”

That doesn’t mean every renter becomes a buyer. It does mean that agents who understand both sides of the market have an opportunity to have a much better conversation.

If I’m working with a renter today, I’m interested in more than finding the next apartment. I want to understand where that person sees themselves two or three years from now. Are they building a career? Saving money? Expecting a change in income? Thinking about buying?

The rental market isn’t just a rental story. It’s part of the pipeline into the sales market.

And when rents become this expensive while inventory becomes this scarce, I think it’s worth paying attention to what that may mean for the next group of New Yorkers who decide they want to own instead of rent.

Think beyond the deal,

George

Hello everyone. I hope you’re having a good weekend. As I do every Sunday, I’ve pulled together the latest Manhattan market numbers for you, along with a few things I’ve been thinking about this week.

Manhattan Market Dashboard

Active Inventory: 6,187

New Listings: 221

Signed Contracts: 227

30-Day Contract Pace: 933

Median Days on Market — Under $1 Million: 74 days

Median Days on Market — $1 Million to $2 Million: 64 days

Median Days on Market — $2 Million to $4 Million: 64 days

Median Days on Market — $4 Million and Above: 88 days

30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate: 6.69%

What Might The Numbers Be Telling Us?

The numbers continue to show a market with plenty of activity, but buyers and sellers are taking their time. The 30 day contract pace remains well above the number of contracts signed in any single week, which tells us there is still a meaningful amount of business moving through the market. The differences in days on market across the price ranges are interesting, too, and worth watching as we move further into August.

My Sunday Thoughts

I read something this week that made me stop for a minute. There is a report that Compass has been encouraging some of its New York agents to pull their listings from StreetEasy for a period of time as part of a fall marketing strategy. The story also mentioned discussions involving other large brokerage firms, which makes the whole thing a little more interesting to me.

I don’t know where this is going, and I’m not particularly interested in taking sides. What caught my attention is how different the real estate business has become. StreetEasy is so much a part of the way we work in New York that it is easy to forget there was a time when nothing like it existed. You had your office, your Rolodex, the phone, the newspapers, open houses and a lot of time spent getting to know people.

Technology has made the business easier in a lot of ways. It has also changed the relationship between the agent and the information the agent uses every day. That’s probably why this story caught my attention. It isn’t really about one website. It made me think about how much of our business now lives on platforms that somebody else controls.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Every generation of agents has had tools that changed the way we work. The tools change, we adapt, and then a few years later we wonder how we ever worked without them.

I was also thinking about how important it is for an agent to have something that belongs to the agent. Your relationships belong to you. Your knowledge of the neighborhoods belongs to you. Your knowledge of the process belongs to you. You know how a deal is made, what needs to happen along the way, and how to get it from the first conversation with a client to the closing. The trust you build with a client belongs to you, too. Those things stay with you when the technology changes.

Think Beyond The Deal,

George

Your first meeting with a new buyer is the place you establish your professional credibility and begin building a relationship. So, use all the tools you have. Meet in your conference room and center the discussion on their financial position.

Explain why you’d like to look at their financial statement together. Let your client know that understanding th…

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Hi,

I hope you’re having a chance to slow down a little this weekend before another busy week begins. Like many of you, I spend part of every weekend catching up on what’s happening around the city and thinking about what it means for our business.

But first, let’s take a look at the market stats.

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Market Dashboard

Financing

30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate: 6.66%

Manhattan

Active Inventory: 6,624

New Listings: 353

Signed Contracts: 263

Median Days on Market: 74 Days

Here are a few things that caught my eye this week.

The City issued another stop-work order on an office to residential conversion project. It’s the latest reminder that converting older office buildings into housing is proving to be more complicated than many people first imagined.

It reminded me how easy it is to look at a building and think, “Turn it into apartments.”

But, our business rarely rewards simple answers. Every building has its own issues. Every property has its own challenges. Every deal has its own personalities. What looks straightforward from the outside often becomes much more complicated once you begin asking questions.

That isn’t a criticism of office conversions. New York needs more housing, and I hope many of these projects succeed. It was simply a reminder that progress in this city is almost always harder than it first appears.

Another thing that caught my eye this week was the continued discussion surrounding the FARE Act and it’s impact on rental agents. Whether you agree with it or not isn’t really the point.

It reminded me that our business is always evolving. Markets change. Rules change. Consumer expectations change. Through it all, New York agents do what they’ve always done, we adapt and keep moving forward.

Next week I’ll share some thoughts about helping buyers understand what they can really afford before they fall in love with an apartment.

Think Beyond The Deal.

George

A buyer tells you they’re looking for an apartment up to $1 million.

Before you accept that number, there is something you need to think about.

Where did it come from?

It may be based on the buyer’s available cash. It may have come from a conversation with a lender. It may reflect what the buyer is comfortable spending. Or it may simply be the number they …

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