Top resi brokers, firms navigate luxury’s new battlegrounds: rankings

At the start of 2025, New York City’s residential market looked like it might spend the year on its heels. 

Dealmaking slowed as buyers and sellers pulled back, spooked by President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and the economic uncertainty they promised to unleash. But by the end of the year, a different picture had come into focus, one where the city’s luxury market emerged as a powerhouse. 

“2025 was a great year for New York,” said Compass’ Carl Gambino, who heads the Gambino Group, which has outposts in the city, the Hamptons, Los Angeles and Miami. “There was a kind of renewed energy, where New York just felt unbelievably alive.”

Long-listed properties finally traded hands, as buyers scooped up lingering Billionaires’ Row inventory and Upper East Side townhouses. Downtown Manhattan resale condos pushed pricing to unprecedented heights, as rumors swirled about nine-figure contracts at the area’s most desirable new development project. In Brooklyn, competition for homes in its prime neighborhoods was fierce.

“Even a house in Park Slope that was cute, but with no A/C, had a bidding war,” said Tali Berzak of Compass’ Berzak Metcalf Team. She added that though the market in Brooklyn was strong, getting sales across the finish line was no walk in the park. “It’s not that deals weren’t getting done, they were just hard to get to close.”

As the year continued, fears that the city’s impending mayoral election would chill momentum began to rise, though deals for properties, especially in the upper echelons of the market, continued to roll in. When signs pointed to former Assembly member Zohran Mamdani’s victory, many in the industry warned that the Democratic Socialist would drive the city’s wealthiest players to greener pastures. 

But — perhaps to the chagrin of South Florida brokers — that flight of wealth hasn’t so far materialized. 

Mamdani’s election “certainly has not been a benefit and is certainly something everyone is talking about,” said Noble Black, who last year moved his team, Noble Black & Partners, from Douglas Elliman to Corcoran. “But it hasn’t hobbled the market.”

Instead, ultra high net worth buyers are “talking about it as they’re buying apartments,” he said. “No one is selling looking to get out.”

The bigger issue facing agents around the city has been a more fundamental one, of supply and demand. The new development offerings have dried up, leaving agents fighting for an edge to find the right homes for their clients. 

“We wish we had more of a pipeline,” Black said. “That’s the biggest hurdle we’re seeing is that there is not enough good inventory.”

Luxury battles

While the entry and middle markets in the city have remained hamstrung by high interest rates for four years now, the luxury market has swelled, marked by a number of record-setting trades around the city this year. 

“The market is generally more polarizing than I’ve ever seen,” said Compass’ Michael Koeneke, pointing to the ultra-luxury market where there has been “record pricing, record price per square foot, and a very high level of demand for certain product.”

The activity has been centered on what has emerged as two of the city’s hotspots: the west side of Downtown and the Upper East Side, which Koeneke, who founded Trove Partners with Ian Slater, estimates makes up around three quarters of the team’s business. 

A $60 million sale at 150 Charles Street set a new Downtown record in March, only to potentially be outdone by deals at Aurora Capital Associates and William Gottlieb Real Estate’s 140 Jane Street, which found a buyer for a penthouse asking $87.5 million, and Atlas Capital Group’s and Zeckendorf Development’s 80 Clarkson, where a buyer signed a contract for a unit asking $129 million in December. 

Compass’ Nick Gavin said those landmark deals give “an entire market confidence to proceed, because there’s so much capital in New York City; it’s just about unleashing it.” 

Part of what has stemmed the tide of capital is a lack of places for wealthy buyers to park their money. Manhattan’s new development market hit a 10-year low in terms of available inventory in 2025, and projects to sink even lower in 2026, according to data from Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group. 

For the few projects with units to sell, the dwindling pipeline was a boon for deals, particularly for those luxury developments located in some of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods.

Douglas Elliman’s Elena Sarkissian said she sold five penthouses last year across her portfolio of projects in Tribeca, Gramercy and the Upper East Side, totaling more than $83 million. 

“There is certainly discretionary income in the market,” said Sarkissian, who pointed to waning inventory as a catalyst for buyers. “They’re aware that if they don’t make a decision now or if they haven’t already, they’ll have to wait until 2027 and into 2028, because that’s the next wave.”

One of the agents selling Extell’s project at 50 West 66th, Corcoran’s Hilary Landis, said that the dearth of new developments on the Upper West Side has made the building stand out among the crowd, or lack thereof.  

More luxury deals are also happening off-market, according to Compass’ Clayton Orrigo and Stephen Ferrara, who estimate their team, Hudson Advisory, did over 20 percent of their deals off-market this past year. 

“It’s not like, ‘Hey, I’m looking for this and just show me what’s on the market,’” Orrigo said of what interests buyers. “It’s really, what can you show me that I don’t know about?”

Looking to the future

While New York City’s luxury market continued its acceleration through the start of 2026, several agents warned that mounting geopolitical headwinds, such as war in Iran, could derail activity. 

“If you had asked me three weeks ago, I would have said we’re going to have a strong year, but only time will tell,” Berzak said. “If gas prices stay high, that will affect everything.”

Serhant’s Peter Zaitzeff said that global unrest can actually boost New York City’s appeal as a “safe haven” for the ultrawealthy to store their money. 

“If anything, it reinforces demand at the top end,” he said. 

Mamdani’s relationship with real estate development and wealthy New Yorkers also remains up in the air, but Brown Harris Stevens’ Ari Harkov said worries over the mayor remain overblown. 

“People make housing decisions based upon jobs and kids and schools and family and spouses and partners and girlfriends and all kinds of different things,” he said. “But people don’t make housing decisions based on who’s sitting at Gracie Mansion.”

This year has already clocked another noteworthy deal at the city’s latest sought-after building, Nahla Capital and Legion Investment Group’s 1122 Madison Avenue, where a buyer signed a contract to purchase the penthouse for $90 million in January. 

Brokers often like to say that New York City is resilient, and last year seemed to prove the city’s mettle. 

“There’s been ebbs and flows around rates and market movements and elections and Israel and Iran and all the things that are going on in the world,” Harkov said. “But if you kind of put it all into a blender, it’s really stable.” 

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