NYC Luxury Market Watch: Week of May 11, 2026

This was the top of the spring. Manhattan signed 38 contracts above $4 million between May 11 and 17, 2026, worth $273,539,999, with two deals above $20 million and a full floor penthouse at 255 East 77th Street leading at $25,770,000. It was also the week the proposed pied-à-terre tax finally acquired numbers.

The trend: peak spring, and a tax still on paper

Thirty eight contracts was the highest weekly count of the season to that point. Nine of them, 23 percent, were in new or recently built buildings, and the average deal sat near $7.2 million.

Both contracts above $20 million were full sized homes rather than compact city apartments: a seven bedroom full floor penthouse and an 8,159 square foot house on Waverly Place. The top of the market that week was buying primary residences, which matters for how the tax news landed.

The pied-à-terre tax was still a proposal at this point, with published rate bands but no formal approval. As drafted, it applied to residential property not used as a primary residence, including property held through trusts, LLCs and corporations, and it exempted owner occupied homes and those let on a bona fide lease of at least a year. It passed later that month.

Inventory remained stagnant at 6,648 units available across Manhattan.

Top 5 deals of the week

1. 255 East 77th Street, PHA

$25,770,000 · 7 BD, 7.5 BA, 5,932 SF

The week's top contract. A full floor penthouse with wraparound views of Central Park and the skyline, two park facing terraces, and entertaining rooms that run straight out to the outdoor space.

2. 146 Waverly Place

$23,500,000 · 5 BD, 6 BA, 8,159 SF

The second deal above $20 million and the largest property in the top five at 8,159 square feet, roughly $2,880 per square foot. A Greenwich Village house with a curved stair and a full height window wall onto the garden.

3. 500 West 18th Street, West 23D

$15,225,000 · 5 BD, 6 BA, 4,004 SF

About $3,800 per square foot in West Chelsea. The same building returned to the top five four weeks later with a far larger penthouse at $26,600,000.

4. 10 West 9th Street

$12,475,000 · 7 BD, 7.5 BA, 7,600 SF

A 7,600 square foot Greenwich Village townhouse at about $1,640 per square foot, the lowest rate in the week's top five by a wide margin and the usual trade-off a house offers against a finished penthouse.

5. 1155 Park Avenue, 10SW

$9,750,000 · 4 BD, 4.5 BA

A Carnegie Hill apartment and the only contract in the top five under $10 million. No square footage was published.

The Elevated take

The tax proposal mattered most for what it did not touch. As drafted, a home occupied by its owner, or let on a genuine lease of at least a year, sat outside it. The week's two largest contracts were exactly that kind of purchase, which is part of how a record week and an unresolved surcharge managed to coexist.

For anyone weighing a second home in Manhattan in mid May, the honest advice was to underwrite the carrying cost with a surcharge built in and see whether the deal still worked. That is the same discipline the 2019 mansion tax demanded, and the market absorbed that one inside a year.

Thirty eight contracts is also a ceiling worth remembering. Every later week in this series gets compared against it, and no week in June came close.

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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.