NYC Luxury Market Watch: Week of January 19, 2026

A snowbound week produced the flattest top five of the winter. Between January 19 and 25, 2026, Manhattan signed 23 contracts above $4 million for $190,425,000 in luxury volume. Nothing reached $20 million, and the week's largest contract, $14,600,000 at 1122 Madison Avenue, was separated from the fifth largest by less than $3 million. Every one of the top five was uptown.

The trend: uptown carries the week, and 1122 Madison opens its doors

Twenty-three contracts was the third consecutive weekly increase, but volume fell from $200.9 million to $190.4 million because the top of the market went quiet. With no deal above $20 million, the average contract settled at roughly $8.3 million and the whole top five compressed into a band running from $14.6 million down to $11.75 million. A week earlier that spread had run from $30 million to $9.5 million.

The report was blunt about the cause. Inventory was coming online, up again to 5,146 available units in Manhattan, but not nearly fast enough for contract volume to increase meaningfully. Buyers were following the supply, and the supply was uptown. The Upper East and Upper West Sides accounted for the majority of the week's deal activity while downtown, tight on stock, contributed nothing to the top five at all.

The other event of the week was a launch. 1122 Madison Avenue officially began sales and put several residences into contract almost immediately, taking the top spot on its first week on the market. That building goes on to appear in every remaining report in this series, which is the clearest evidence in the data that the constraint in early 2026 was product rather than demand.

Top 5 deals of the week

1. 1122 Madison Avenue, 11North

$14,600,000 · 5 BD, 4.5 BA, 3,178 SF

The week's top contract, signed in the building's opening week of sales. A Studio Sofield design at the corner of Madison Avenue and East 84th Street, one of 26 condominium residences, a block from Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum. Roughly $4,590 per square foot, the highest rate in the top five.

2. 240 Riverside Boulevard, 1

$14,400,000 · 4 BD, 4.5 BA, 4,673 SF

Two hundred thousand dollars behind the top deal for 1,495 more square feet, at roughly $3,080 per foot. Riverfront exposure on the Upper West Side priced at two thirds of Madison Avenue per square foot.

3. 35 East 76th Street, PH3407

$12,995,000 · 4 BD, 6 BA, 3,981 SF

A penthouse with a planted terrace and open skyline views, at about $3,260 per square foot. Six bathrooms against four bedrooms is the signature of a residence assembled rather than built to a plan.

4. 132 East 62nd Street

$12,950,000 · 5 BD, 6.5 BA, 7,200 SF

The only townhouse in the week's top five and by far the most space for the money at 7,200 square feet, roughly $1,800 per foot. That is less than 40 percent of the rate paid twenty-two blocks north at 1122 Madison for a home under half the size.

5. 770 Park Avenue, 6/7B

$11,750,000 · 4 BD, 6.5 BA

A duplex co-op on Park Avenue closing out an all uptown top five. No square footage was printed for this one, so we have not calculated a rate.

The Elevated take

Twenty-three contracts and not one above $20 million is an unusual combination, and it is the signature of a week where activity was healthy and selection was not. Buyers transacted. They simply had nothing at the very top to transact on, because the trophy listings that would normally supply those deals had not come to market yet. Volume fell while the contract count rose, which is a supply statement, not a demand statement.

The geography is the story. Five out of five uptown, in a market where downtown had spent the autumn producing regular $20 million-plus contracts, is not a shift in taste. Tribeca and the West Village were simply out of stock. Buyers went where the inventory was, and in the third week of January the inventory was on the Upper East and Upper West Sides.

1122 Madison's first week is the piece of this report that aged best. A 26-unit building came to market, sold several residences immediately, and within a month was supplying multiple entries in a single week's top five. When a market this supply-starved gets genuinely good new product in a prime corridor, absorption is not gradual. Sellers competing against a launch like that should have been in contract before it opened, not after.

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.