NYC Luxury Market Watch: Week of December 29, 2025

The week that carried Manhattan from one year into the next was the thinnest of the winter. Between December 29, 2025 and January 4, 2026, 13 contracts were signed above $4 million, for $113,434,999 in total luxury volume. The top contract was $24,300,000 at 730 Fifth Avenue, one of two deals that week to clear $20 million. Here is what traded, what the numbers said underneath the headline, and how we read it at the time.

The trend: a holiday trough sitting on a decade low in supply

Thirteen signed contracts is roughly what a week spanning New Year's should produce, and it repeated the week before it almost exactly. The weekly bar chart showed a matched pair of very short bars closing out December, following a stretch of far taller weeks through late October and early November. Nothing in that shape was a surprise. Manhattan's luxury calendar empties out between Christmas and the first full working week of January, and it does so every year.

Volume told a more interesting story than the count. $113,434,999 across 13 deals worked out to an average of roughly $8.7 million per contract, which is a strong average for a week with almost nobody at their desk. Two contracts cleared $20 million, and both of them were in the same building.

The report put available Manhattan inventory at 4,755 units and described that as sitting a few points off a 10-year low. That, not the contract count, was the number worth carrying into 2026. A quiet holiday week resolves itself in January. A supply base near a decade low does not.

Top 5 deals of the week

1. 730 Fifth Avenue, 18B

$24,300,000 · 2 BD, 2.5 BA, 3,416 SF

The week's top contract, and the report described it as a secluded Midtown sanctuary: custom millwork and finishes across 3,416 square feet, Central Park views, a private home theater and a terrace. That works out to roughly $7,100 per square foot.

2. 730 Fifth Avenue, 16B

$21,500,000 · 2 BD, 2.5 BA, 3,646 SF

Two floors below the top deal, in the same line, and the week's only other contract above $20 million. Slightly larger at 3,646 square feet and about $5,900 per square foot against roughly $7,100 upstairs, which is what a few floors of elevation is worth in this building.

3. 201 East 23rd Street, PHA

$9,400,000 · 4 BD, 3.5 BA, 3,256 SF

The penthouse featured on the report's cover, with a planted terrace looking north across the Midtown skyline. Outdoor space of that scale is the reason a Gramercy penthouse prices where a larger interior a few blocks away would not.

4. 165 Charles Street, 14

$7,995,000 · 2 BD, 2.5 BA, 2,356 SF

The only far West Village contract in the week's top five, and at roughly $3,390 per square foot the highest rate in the group. A two-bedroom trading above a five-bedroom uptown is the clearest illustration of what location and light are worth downtown.

5. 188 East 76th Street, 29A

$6,750,000 · 5 BD, 4.5 BA, 4,076 SF

The largest residence in the top five and by far the cheapest per square foot at about $1,660. Five bedrooms and 4,076 square feet for under $7 million is a trade only the Upper East Side reliably offers.

The Elevated take

One address produced both of the week's $20 million contracts. When 13 deals close a week and two of them are in the same line of the same building, the market is not broad, it is concentrated, and a single well-marketed building can move the weekly figures on its own. Read the average price, not the deal count, when a week is this short.

The number that mattered was 4,755. Inventory near a 10-year low is not a seller's market in any useful sense, because it suppresses activity on both sides: buyers cannot find what they want, so they wait, and sellers will not list until they know what they are trading into. That loop is what kept contract counts modest through the winter rather than any weakness in demand.

For owners reading this in hindsight, the lesson of the first week of January is that the quiet is procedural, not structural. The listings that came to market in the first half of January went into a market with almost no competing supply. That is the most favourable launch condition a seller gets all year, and it lasts only until the spring inventory arrives.

Work with Elevated

Elevated advises buyers and sellers across Manhattan's luxury market, with $2B+ in lifetime closings including $500M+ sold off-market. Get in touch or reach Zeve Salman directly at 917-607-1331.