New York state legislators are weighing a tax on all-cash properties of home purchases of over $1 million in the Big Apple — but where would such a levy have the greatest impact?
Unsurprisingly, the city’s wealthiest enclaves — Lincoln Square, Chelsea and the Upper West Side — had the highest number of $1 million-plus, all-cash home sales in New York in 2025, according to a TRD Data analysis of residential deeds recorded in the city from January 2023 through May 2026.
In general, all-cash purchases have been on the rise over the past couple of years, particularly as borrowing costs also have risen. From 2023 to 2025, the number of all-cash home sales over $1 million climbed by 15 percent to about 4,500 deals, according to TRD Data’s analysis. So far this year, there are 1,530 such sales
State lawmakers floated the proposal for the tax, which would be paid by the buyer, last week as a way to close the city’s budget deficit; the hope is the tax would bring in some $160 million in revenue. The state also is looking into a pied-à-terre tax on second homes worth more than $5 million, but the details of that proposal are complicated and, at this point, unclear.
The real estate industry has opposed both measures. The all-cash levy is likely to be dropped from the state budget as well, according to Thursday reporting from Bloomberg.
But there are markets in the outer boroughs where the growth of high-end, all-cash sales is sky-high, in part because of the smaller number of these deals in these neighborhoods.
For instance, TRD Data looked at neighborhoods that had at least five home sales in both 2024 and 2025. The area with the greatest year-over-year growth in $1 million-plus, all-cash transactions was Sunnyside, Queens, which last year recorded 12 such deals.
In Manhattan, meanwhile, the market with the strongest year-over-year increase in these deals was the Financial District. Last year, FiDi saw 159 of these deals, a nearly 115 percent uptick from the previous year.
As for Brooklyn, East Williamsburg’s 59 deals last year marked a more than 103 percent yearly climb from 2024, which recorded just 29 such deals.