Manhattan Luxury:
The Method Behind the Data

A new way to look at the luxury market.

These percentile floors update weekly on The Week page, based on the 52-week trailing average, so the figures will always reflect today’s top 10%, 5%, and 1% of Manhattan contracts. See The Week →

With the three tiers defined, the next question is how each has performed over time.

The Lost Decade.

Ten years of closed sales. Luxury up 5.1%. Prime up 3.8%. Trophy up 11.9%. All three tiers fell hard in 2020, then spent years climbing back. None of them have reclaimed their own decade high yet. Nothing else that touched this market over the same ten years stayed this flat.

This section relies on closed sales numbers rather than signed contracts, as signed-contract records begin at Q2 2021 (see Part 1). While closed prices typically lag signing by 60–90 days, that lag is irrelevant here since the focus is on structural price movement across a full decade. Each figure below is a trailing-twelve-month (TTM) read ending that June, and every closed sale behind it is cross-checked against ACRIS, New York City’s public deed-recording system.

Each column above is a genuine trailing twelve months ending June 30 of that year, the same construction Parts I, III, IV and V use for their own TTM tables, applied here to ten years of closed sales instead of five years of signed contracts.

All three tiers fell roughly 15–18% in the twelve months ending June 2020, the steepest one-year move anywhere in this ten-year span. It took until TTM Jun'23 for Luxury, TTM Jun'25 for Prime, and it still hasn’t happened for Trophy as of TTM Jun'26, to work back toward where each tier had already been years earlier. It now costs 50.2% more to build a Manhattan trophy residence than it did in 2016, and developers don’t have a choice but to pass that cost on, or they can’t build at all. The trophy resale market moved only 11.9% over the same stretch, and now sits within 2.5% of its own TTM Jun'19 high.

That gap is the value signal. Existing trophy inventory is transacting below what it would cost to build the same thing new today, and below its own decade high.

Zooming in from that decade-long view, this section looks at how the market moves quarter to quarter.

Three tiers across three metrics.

From Q2 2021 through Q2 2026, 21 consecutive quarters, Luxury, Prime, and Trophy have moved as three distinct markets, each with its own buyers and at its own pace. Contract counts swing hard by season and by cycle. Median price, as the chart shows once you click into the “Median Price” view, has moved far less.

Click a metric to redraw the chart. Hover a point for the exact reading.

Q2 2021 – Q2 2026 · 21 quarters · signed contracts above each tier’s current percentile floor, held fixed across the series.

The full underlying numbers for all three metrics and all 21 quarters (Contracts, Volume, Median, and PPSF for Luxury, Prime, and Trophy) are reproduced in the Appendix table →

Every year in this five-year window, Q3 was the softest quarter, and every year, prices held. Coming off Q4 2021’s record 441 Luxury contracts, the Fed’s rate-hike cycle (the 30-year mortgage moved from 3.65% to 6.49%) decimated activity. Luxury contracts fell 65% and Trophy fell 81% over the next three quarters; Q3 2022 was the low point with just 6 Trophy deals. Luxury and Prime median price moved far less than Trophy, dropping only 4.5% and 4.8% off the same Q4 2021 baseline. Trophy’s own median that quarter (up 2.1%, on just 6 contracts) isn’t a reliable read either way; that small a sample can’t support a real price conclusion in either direction.

The pattern holds across the entire five years, and it isn’t just a 2022 story: contract counts and dollar volume swing hard by season and by cycle, but median price has stayed remarkably steady the entire time. This section analyzes transaction volume and timing, independent from changes in price.

The year-by-year read only shows the quarter that peaked that particular year, which makes the pattern look more random than it is. This is the more reliable version: it separates the real seasonal pattern (Q2 strong, Q3 weak, every year) from one-off events like the 2022 rate shock. These four numbers are the Domi Data Luxury Lines’ seasonal index for Luxury, Prime, and Trophy.

Index = each quarter’s average ratio-to-trend across 4–5 years (Q2 2021–Q2 2026), normalized so all four quarters average to 1.00. † Trophy’s small quarterly base (6–38 contracts) makes its index a directional reference rather than a precise reading.

Every tier moves differently by quarter. It also moves differently by neighborhood.

Where the capital flows.

This section analyzes where Manhattan’s luxury dollars actually concentrate: which neighborhoods carry the market, and what happens when a neighborhood’s rise turns out to be temporary.

Twelve neighborhoods are shown in the full table (more than the top 10) because the top 10 varied each year: eight neighborhoods held a top-10 spot by dollar volume in all five years, while Greenwich Village, SoHo, Carnegie Hill, and Yorkville moved in and out. The two currently sitting just outside the top 10 by this year’s volume, Carnegie Hill and Yorkville, are shaded below to mark them as borderline rather than a fixed part of the top 10.

Click a metric to re-sort and relabel the table.

Dollar volume of Luxury signed contracts, fixed $4,946,700 borough-wide cutoff, each column a genuine trailing 12 months ending June 30.

The top 10 neighborhoods captured 76–85% of Manhattan’s luxury dollar volume every year since 2022. That range moves year to year rather than holding to a fixed ratio, but it’s always the large majority.

Current-quarter PPSF read, Q2 2026 vs. Q2 2025. See The Quarter, Section 4 →

Where the dollars concentrate only tells part of the story. The rest is how fast that inventory moves.

Supply against velocity.

Months of supply data answers one question: at the current sales pace, how long would it take to sell through everything on the market right now?

Higher months of supply means a slower market with more standing inventory. Lower months of supply means a tighter, faster-moving market. Full quarterly detail (Q2 2022–Q2 2026) is reproduced below.

Trophy is omitted from this chart because Trophy’s 6–38 contracts a quarter (versus 69–441 for Luxury/Prime) swing too wildly to plot reliably. Chart begins Q2 2022, the first quarter with a full trailing-12-month contract history behind it — Q3 2021–Q1 2022 don’t have one, so no MoS figure exists for those quarters.

Now every tier we’ve covered so far has a new factor to deal with.

A new annual cost, now in effect.

This tax targets a specific kind of buyer: someone who owns a home here without living here full time. Plenty of active buyers in this market aren’t pied-à-terre buyers, so this isn’t a cost that touches the whole luxury market. Until now, nobody has been able to say what share of luxury buyers actually are pied-à-terre buyers. This new tax gives Domi Data a way to measure that for the first time, going forward.

It is a recurring annual cost on non-primary-residence property, distinct from the one-time mansion tax paid at closing. All property types, condos, co-ops, and one-to-three-family homes including townhouses, are taxed on their Department of Finance (DOF) estimated market value, per NY Tax Law Article 30-C, §§1350–1356. Condos and co-ops fall under one bracket schedule; one-to-three-family homes fall under a different one, shown alongside.

Non-primary status isn’t decided at closing. A property counts as primary, and stays exempt, if it’s occupied more than half the year by the owner, an immediate family member, or a tenant on a lease of a year or longer. Property held through a trust, LLC, or partnership is tested the same way, against the underlying owner. The classification is set annually, as of January 5 of the prior year. For this first tax year, occupancy on January 5, 2026, already decided the outcome, four months before Governor Hochul signed the law.

One real Manhattan condo shows why the right figure matters. 83 Thompson Street closed in the $19–20M range. Its DOF property tax bill actually lists two different values: a billable assessed value of $1,290,751 (the basis for its ordinary annual property tax) and an estimated market value of $2,868,335 (the basis for this surcharge). That market value lands in the 4.00% bracket for an annual surcharge of $114,733. We report only the number as it appears on the property’s own tax bill. The city’s assessed-value and market-value methodologies are both complex and outside the scope of this report.

Excerpt from 83 Thompson Street, PH’s actual DOF property tax bill (June 2026 statement). Owner name, account numbers, and billing amounts are cropped out; only the property-details and tax-calculation box is shown. Estimated Market Value, the figure this surcharge is based on, is circled for reference.

A second example sharpens the point differently. 15 Central Park West closed in the $21–22M range, a higher price than the first example. Its estimated market value is $1,394,744, also in the 4.00% bracket, for an annual surcharge of $55,790. Despite closing for more, it owes less than half of what 83 Thompson Street owes. The surcharge is calculated off each property’s DOF-estimated market value, regardless of what it sold for.

Excerpt from 15 Central Park West, #8B’s actual DOF property tax bill (June 2026 statement). Owner name, account numbers, and billing amounts are cropped out; only the property-details and tax-calculation box is shown. Estimated Market Value, the figure this surcharge is based on, is circled for reference.

Neither buyer nor seller controls the DOF estimated market value before closing. It isn’t something a buyer can plan around or negotiate away. And the gap between these two examples isn’t a strategy lesson. It’s just how the assessment landed.

These two properties are illustrative examples only. They aren’t a representative sample of pied-à-terre owners or of how the surcharge lands across the broader luxury market.

How the market reacts to the surcharge in the coming quarters will be a strong indicator of the buyer pool most active at Prime and Trophy: international buyers, domestic second-home buyers, and investors holding luxury residential as an asset class.

The Trophy market began cooling the same quarter the surcharge was announced. Contracts fell from 30 in Q1 2026 to 24 in Q2, median price from $25.6M to $24.73M, during what is typically the market’s strongest quarter. Trophy’s quarterly base is small (historically 6–38 contracts), so a move like this should be read directionally rather than as a precise measurement. Luxury’s contract count rose over the same stretch (+3.0% QoQ), while Prime held essentially flat (−0.6% QoQ). Only Trophy pulled back this quarter. Whether that’s the surcharge taking hold early or Q2 2025’s unusually strong base rolling off isn’t resolvable with one quarter of data. Domi Data will track this directly against the Q3 2026 baseline. See Part 3 for the full quarterly count behind this pullback.

This report finally gives unique visibility into how the three luxury tiers and their different buyer types behave. Now that the pied-à-terre tax exists, there’s a way to measure its real impact for the first time: which price point gets hit hardest, and what share of buyers in each tier are actually pied-à-terre buyers, something previously unknowable. If Luxury and Prime keep performing this well once the new cost is actually being billed, that would suggest a large base of full-time local Manhattan buyers, possibly connected to limited suburban inventory keeping people from leaving the city. Domi Data will watch this pattern as more quarters of billing data come in.

NY Tax Law Article 30-C, §§1350–1356 (Part HH, FY2026-27 NY State Budget). Distinct from the 2019 mansion tax (one-time transfer). Phase 1 runs through June 30, 2028. Starting July 2028, Phase 2 folds both property classes into one rate structure above $5M and shifts valuation to a comparable-sales model. The administrative mechanics of that shift, how DOF will actually run the comparison, aren’t public yet. The surcharge itself sunsets June 30, 2031, unless renewed.

Figures as reported on each property’s own DOF tax bill. This is not tax advice. Consult your own accountant or tax advisor for guidance on a specific property. Collection has not begun. First billing is January 1, 2027, and the valuation model itself is scheduled to change in Phase 2 (2028). How collection and enforcement actually unfold remains to be seen.

Live tracking against the Q2 2026 pre-tax baseline: Trophy count and the metrics to watch in Q3. See The Quarter, Section 6 →

21 Quarters · Luxury / Prime / Trophy.

All Manhattan signed contracts above each tier’s trailing-12-month percentile cutoff · Q2 2021 – Q2 2026 · from Data Powered by Marketproof, starting Q2 2021.