NYC’s Ultra-Rich Are Inking Sky-High Leases

Earlier this week, former Howard Hughes CEO David Weinreb agreed to rent his West Chelsea penthouse for $177,500 a month, an eye-popping figure that followed a $95,000-a-month lease at a Naftali Group building on the Upper East Side in December. Data on trophy rentals is tough to pin down, but this is likely among the most expensive leases ever inked in New York City.

The two hefty leases came as inventory for Manhattan’s trophy rentals — which appraiser Jonathan Miller defines as the top 1 percent of the market, with rates starting at $25,000 a month — was down more than 40 percent year-over-year in January, as new leases climbed (albeit, at a more modest pace).

The momentum has been building since before the pandemic and accelerated early last year, when leases asking $20,000 a month or more picked up, according to data from UrbanDigs.

Though prices have been on the rise, agents say the big-ticket numbers are exceeding their expectations.

“I personally have never seen prices where they’re at,” Douglas Elliman’s John Giannone told The Real Deal in December. “When the high $100s per square foot for a rental starts to become like the norm, it’s completely different from what we’re used to.”

Miller attributed the uptick in rentals to the strength of the ultra-luxury market, which logged a number of notable deals through the end of 2025 and early 2026.

“It’s really so dominant,” Miller said of the ultraluxury market. When deep-pocketed buyers “can’t get the place they want, they lease.”

Serhant’s Peter Zaitzeff, who worked on the rental deal at Naftali’s the Benson with Giannone and the Lauran Muss Team, chalked the monthly price up to a dearth of supply and “people willing to pay what it takes to get a deal done.”

Market data show ultra high-end rentals are on the rise, but remain a limited field as leases of this caliber are often the result of particular circumstances in the lives of the owner or the tenant.

Zaitzeff’s clients, for example, were looking to rent while renovating their townhouse. Julia Haart, co-owner of the modeling agency Elite World Group, opted to rent the sprawling 70 Vestry Street penthouse she bought with her estranged husband, Silvio Scaglia, for $125,000 a month during their contentious divorce battle. (Haart, who kept the triplex in the divorce, sold it earlier this month for $57 million.)

Not so fast…

In a market starved for inventory, the shiny new stuff is winning.

Legion Investment Group and Nahla Capital’s 1122 Madison Avenue claimed the top two spots in Olshan Realty’s weekly report, with contracts out for condos asking $39 million and $36.5 million. They were the priciest of the 31 Manhattan homes asking $4 million or more that found buyers between Feb. 9 and Feb. 15.

The 26-unit Upper East Side building has already topped weekly contract reports twice since launching sales last month and is also muscling its way into monthly new development reports.

Corcoran Sunshine, which is handling sales, reported the project logged 10 signed contracts in January — more than any other new development — at an average asking price north of $4,200 a foot. Marketproof gave the monthly crown to the Strathmore with 13 deals inked, but flagged a nearly $23 million pending contract at 1122 Madison as one of January’s standouts.

The early momentum isn’t happening in a vacuum. Manhattan’s new development pipeline has waned significantly, with few projects launching even as demand remains high.

“In terms of actual inventory delivery to the market, you’re seeing a lull,” Reuveni Development Marketing’s Daniel Pupke told TRD last fall. “We’re in between two eras of cycles.”

In the meantime, developers like Legion and Nahla are betting on boutique projects in blue-chip neighborhoods, instead of the Billionaires’ Row supertalls that once drove the luxury new development market in Manhattan.

NYC Deal of the Week

Two 78th-floor units at 432 Park Avenue traded for $52.5 million, marking the priciest deal to hit the city’s rolls this week. The apartments were at the heart of a dispute between the buildings’ developers, Harry Maclowe and CIM Group. Macklowe forfeited the units to CIM Group last year after defaulting on loans from the company.