NYC Luxury Market Watch: Week of February 16, 2026

One contract rewrote the week. From February 16 to 22, 2026, Manhattan signed 23 contracts above $4 million for $291,320,000 in luxury volume, and a single deal accounted for almost a third of it: $89,500,000 for the penthouse at 1122 Madison Avenue. Only one other contract that week cleared $20 million. The average contract price of roughly $12.7 million was the highest of the winter, and almost entirely the work of one apartment.

The trend: a record at the top, a thinner market underneath it

Strip out the penthouse and the week looks ordinary. Twenty-three contracts and $201.8 million across the remaining 22 deals works out to an average of about $9.2 million, which is roughly where the market had been sitting in mid-January. The count itself fell back from 31 to 23. The headline figure was set by one transaction, and it is worth separating the two before drawing conclusions.

The report was careful about the record it was announcing. The penthouse contract had officially been released that week, but industry chatter suggested the deal was inked months earlier, well before the public offering. At $89.5 million the report described it as the most expensive apartment sale ever recorded on the Upper East Side, with the explicit caveat that this assumes the closing price lands anywhere near the ask. Two deals cleared $20 million that week, one of them above $80 million.

Inventory stayed stagnant, hovering around 5,382 available units in Manhattan after holding flat the week before. New development supplied 8 of the 23 contracts, 34 percent. The report's structural argument was about the Upper East Side specifically: the rarefied subset of boutique condominiums west of Park Avenue is arguably the most supply-constrained luxury product in Manhattan. Tribeca and the West Village are tight, but still offer meaningful condominium stock. Between Fifth and Park, you would be hard pressed to find more than a dozen true condominium options at any given time, and trophy-level offerings are scarcer still.

Top 5 deals of the week

1. 1122 Madison Avenue, PH

$89,500,000 · 7 BD, 7.5 BA, 9,350 SF

A duplex penthouse spanning 9,350 square feet of interior and exterior space, one of only 26 homes in the building, conceived by Studio Sofield and moments from Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum. Roughly $9,570 per square foot, and by some distance the largest contract in this eight-week series.

2. 125 West 11th Street

$21,500,000 · 5 BD, 5.5 BA, 7,876 SF

The week's only other contract above $20 million, and a very different kind of purchase: 7,876 square feet of Greenwich Village townhouse at roughly $2,730 per square foot. Almost 85 percent of the penthouse's square footage for less than a quarter of its price.

3. 200 East 95th Street, PHC

$16,995,000 · 5 BD, 5.5 BA, 5,188 SF

A penthouse with a wraparound terrace laid out for outdoor dining and open views across the Upper East Side rooftops, at about $3,280 per square foot. Eleven blocks north of the record set the same week, at roughly a third of the rate.

4. 430 Hudson Street, TH

$15,750,000 · 4 BD, 3.5 BA, 6,543 SF

The cheapest square footage in the top five at roughly $2,410 per foot, and the second townhouse-scale home in the group. Two downtown houses of comparable size, one in Greenwich Village and one off Hudson Street, separated by about $320 per square foot.

5. 53 West 53rd Street, 49A

$15,350,000 · 4 BD, 4.5 BA, 3,765 SF

The only Midtown contract in the top five and the smallest home in it, at roughly $4,080 per square foot. A high-floor tower residence with a corner great room and open views over the park and the city beyond.

The Elevated take

Be careful with this week's headline. The $89.5 million penthouse contract was released in the week of February 16, but the deal itself was reportedly signed months earlier. Weekly contract data records when a transaction becomes visible, not when it was agreed, and a single delayed release can make an ordinary week look like a record one. Twenty-two of the twenty-three contracts that week described a market performing about as it had in January.

That said, the record is real and it says something specific about geography. The most expensive apartment contract ever recorded on the Upper East Side landed in a 26-unit boutique condominium on Madison Avenue, not in a supertall on 57th Street. The scarcity argument is the whole explanation: a buyer wanting a genuinely new, genuinely large condominium between Fifth and Park has perhaps a dozen options in the entire city at any moment, and when one of them is the best apartment in the building, price discovery has very little to push against.

The contrast inside the top five is the practical lesson. An 89.5 million dollar penthouse and a 7,876 square foot Greenwich Village townhouse at $21.5 million were signed in the same week. The townhouse buyer got 85 percent of the space for less than a quarter of the money. Neither buyer was wrong. They were buying entirely different things, and the gap between them is a useful reminder that in Manhattan, square footage and price are only loosely related once you leave a given corridor.

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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.