During the pandemic, it seemed like every week there was another $50 million condo sale, but the market has cooled off in recent months, and an analysis of public data shows that some top tier projects still have large amounts of unsold inventory.
Before we dig in, let’s set the table. Here’s a map of the 66 condo projects filed in New York since 2018 that are projected to sell out for $100 million or more, according to the latest filings with the state Attorney General.
This is one of the hundreds of data sets available on TRD Pro — the one-stop real estate terminal for all the data and market information you need.
On average, these projects are 71 percent sold (the median is 77 percent). Eight of the projects have sold out already, but none of those contain more than 70 units. Altogether, these projects have collective sales of $17 billion.
Within Manhattan, the Upper East Side has been good to developers. Extell Development has just one unsold condo left at 1010 Park Avenue, an 11-unit project with a projected $178 million sellout. Just south, the Naftali Group has its own low-density, high-sellout play with the Benson. The 16-unit boutique project sits on Madison Avenue, just a block east of the MoMA. Naftali is targeting a $238 million sellout, and is on pace to run out of inventory soon: Since declaring sales in the summer of 2021, the developer has sold all but three units.
The Far West Side has also seen a spate of pricey condo filings. Related and Oxford Property Group have sold 238 of the 285 condos and 15 Hudson Yards, a colossal glass high-rise with a projected $1.74 billion sellout. Just north lies 35 Hudson Yards, another collaboration between Related and Oxford. That project is just shy of 40 percent sold and is targeting a $1.65 billion sellout.
Further south sits a project that basically qualifies for diplomatic immunity. Zeckendorf Development and Global Holdings’ 50 United Nations Plaza is 92 percent sold. Buyers at the 44-story highrise, launched sales in 2013, include the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the British Consulate-General in New York, the head of the New Zealand delegation, and the Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar, which purchased four apartments for about $45 million. Zeckendorf and Global previously teamed up on 15 Central Park West, the limestone opus credited with sparking the Central Park West condo boom.
The Queens condos are mostly clustered in Long Island City. One exception is Tangram House South, a 192-unit project in Downtown Flushing developed by F&T Group and Shanghai Construction Group America. With a $220 million projected sellout, this project is making a big bet on luxury demand deep in the outerboros.
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For the most part, Long Island City developers favor boutique projects, and even the largest condos tend not to exceed 200 units. Skyline Tower breaks that tendency, a Manhattan-style condo on the wrong side of the East River. Four years after launching sales, developer Chris Jiashu Xu has sold 63 percent of the project’s 801 units.
The map below shows the 49 condo projects opened in recent years that are less than 60 percent sold. Of course, some have only just launched, and condos take years to sell out. For bigger projects, developers often do not try to sell every unit right away.
One high-profile example is Extell’s One Manhattan Square, an 815-unit tower in Two Bridges that the developer markets as “Manhattan’s best-selling waterfront condominium,” even though it is only 56 percent of the way to sell out. The developer recently refinanced 355 of the unsold apartments, a complicated maneuver given current rates.
In total, there are 4,414 unsold condos in the city, according to data from TRD Pro.