How big is too big?
Property managers ranked below FirstService Residential have eagerly been asking that question, as the city’s top firm by size has gobbled up the competition in recent years. In 2023, it acquired Charles H. Greenthal & Co. and Tudor Realty Services Corp. and in 2021, FirstService added Midboro Management and its roughly 15,000 units.
This year, FirstService retained its top spot on The Real Deal’s property management rankings for a fourth straight year, but the vultures have been circling. FirstService saw its unit count fall by over 20,000 from last year to this year, according to the rankings.
TRD analyzed the number of units under management as of Sept. 30, 2025, using building data from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development from all five boroughs.
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In some ways, FirstService’s position is more a paper crown after long-time silver medalist AKAM acquired Metro Management Development and its more than 40,000 units in February. The two firms will maintain distinct brand identities and continue to report totals separately, but the combined entity would surpass FirstService.
AKAM CEO Ken Greene said that the deal for Metro, which specializes in Mitchell-Lama properties, made sense as a complement to AKAM’s portfolio.
“I’m not looking to cut costs by consolidating,” Greene said. “What I’m looking to do is to add — to invest money in programs that add value to a board and property that will lead to economic benefit.”
Though FirstService maintained its top rank, a number of new issues confronted the industry, including new rental laws, an increase in competition for units and soaring costs.
“It’s got to be hard for the smaller players to really compete.”
FirstService’s newly named president Marc Kotler attributed the drop in his company’s unit count to normal market adjustments and some asset sales in the rental world, but he declined to provide specific numbers on how those factors played into the company’s results this year.
For others, the office-to-residential conversion boom has been a boon for growth. A report from the city found that there have been 44 conversion projects started since 2020 that, once completed, are expected to deliver over 17,000 new units to the city — and to property managers that know how to handle them.
“We’ve been advising, supporting, helping [and] in some cases, walking buildings with other owners or developers,” Rose Associates’ Scott Marino said. His firm helped bring Silverstein Properties and Metro Loft’s 571-unit conversion of Goldman Sachs’ former office at 55 Broad to market.
Developers or landowners eyeing conversions often enlist property managers to help understand the minutiae, from how to convert HVAC or electrical systems to rejiggering trash-collection systems originally geared around reams of office paper, according to Marino.
Carving out a niche like conversions may prove to be the way forward for the boutique firms remaining in the city, as the large players continue to take advantage of their economies of scale and resources.
Just weeks ago, Douglas Elliman Property Management, which placed third in this year’s rankings, was sold to Associa, one of the largest property managers in the country.
Greene, who last year boasted about AKAM’s ability to take advantage of M&A turmoil by offering superior service, slightly changed his tune this year about what AKAM can offer.
“It’s got to be hard for the smaller players to really compete,” he said. “We’re looking at some of those companies that are really well run, that have built up great reputations and have great founders, and we’d love them to become part of AKAM.”
Cost problems
The biggest shakeup for landlords, large and small, came from the FARE Act passage this year, which required building owners, rather than would-be renters, to pay broker fees.
But the top property managers downplayed the impact of the new law on their management operations, noting that it was just another piece of the compliance puzzle.
Kotler said most owners working with FirstService were already paying the brokerage fees, and for those that weren’t, it was just a matter of updating budgets.
“We completed a digital audit of all of our websites,” Rose Associates’ Marino said, adding that the focus was just on ensuring fees, like a $20 application charge, were listed on all of the company’s websites.
The bigger issue, as it has been in years past, has been navigating the interminable runup in costs, driven by regulations, utilities and insurance.
“Costs on insurance are just simply out of line, and we need to figure it out,” Marino said.
While insurance costs have risen across the country, the number one culprit in the city is umbrella insurance policies for co-ops and condos that have ballooned by as much as 50 percent, driven by New York’s strict liability laws, according to FirstService Residential’s annual high-rise report.
“We’ve reevaluated the need for some of those huge umbrella numbers that you had historically when you basically were given it for free, and a real discussion of what is really an appropriate amount of umbrella,” said Orsid New York president Neil Davidowitz.
This year also marked the first time fines could be levied under Local Law 97, which requires buildings to hit certain carbon emission thresholds. While some buildings managed to stay below the mandated thresholds for 2025, property managers are already looking ahead to subsequent years, when more stringent requirements will be in place.
“The vast, vast, vast majority of our 265 buildings were not exposed to fines for this year,” Davidowitz said. “But if we don’t make changes, there is a potential exposure for fines in 2030.”
The number of cost drivers has only grown in recent years, forcing property managers and boards to take a more hands-on approach than they have in the past.
“I think boards are very quickly realizing you need to cut that long-term plan,” Century Management CEO A.J. Rexhepi said. “You need to put together funds on an annual basis for long-term capital planning.”
For the industry’s heavyweights, cost-saving solutions have come from economies of scale, something they hope can be a competitive advantage.
“We have an insurance expert and we have an energy expert on staff,” AKAM’s Greene said. “’We’re able to get certain expense items lower than most management companies because we’re using our scale.”
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