Manhattan Market Report: Q2 2026

April 1 – June 30, 2026

Manhattan closed the second quarter of 2026 with its second-highest average and median sale prices on record, according to Brown Harris Stevens' latest residential market report. The average apartment price reached $2,231,819, up 5% year-over-year, while the median price climbed 6% to $1,290,000. Only the second quarter of 2019 — when buyers rushed to close ahead of that July's mansion and transfer tax increases — posted higher figures for either metric.

Headlines like that invite a simple read: Manhattan is up 5-6%, across the board. The data underneath tells a more precise story, and it's the one that actually matters if you're pricing a listing or writing an offer this summer.

Q2 2026 Key Highlights

• •Median sale price: $1,290,000, up 6% year-over-year — the second-highest quarterly median ever recorded
• •Average sale price: $2,231,819, up 5% year-over-year — also second only to Q2 2019
• •Resale co-op average price rose 9% to $1,550,241, led by three-bedroom-plus apartments
• •Resale condo average price fell 5% to $2,384,749, driven by fewer closings above $20 million
• •New development average price jumped 17%, but the per-square-foot gain was a much more modest 4%
• •Apartments spent an average of 112 days on market, 3% faster than a year ago, and sold for 97.4% of last asking price

A Record Driven by Mix, Not Mania

The clearest way to separate a genuine price surge from a change in what's selling is to compare the headline sale price to the price per square foot — the closest thing the market has to an apples-to-apples measure. In new development, where BHS reports both figures, the gap is telling: the average closing price rose 17% year-over-year, but the average price per square foot rose just 4%, to $2,161. That 13-point spread is almost entirely explained by size — larger, higher-end apartments made up a bigger share of what closed in Q2, not because every unit got meaningfully more valuable, but because the mix of what sold shifted upward.

The West Side accounted for 21.9% of all new development closings in Q2, more than any other market area, a reminder that where new supply is concentrated matters as much as how much of it there is.

Resale Co-ops vs. Condos: A Widening Gap

The resale market split sharply by product type this quarter. Resale co-ops averaged $1,550,241, a 9% increase over last year, with the gain concentrated in three-bedroom-and-larger apartments, whose average price jumped to $3,925,708. One-bedroom co-ops were the only size category that didn't post a year-over-year increase.

Resale condos moved in the opposite direction, averaging $2,384,749, down 5% from Q2 2025. Every size category posted a lower average price than a year ago, but the headline decline is largely a function of fewer closings above $20 million rather than a broad softening in condo values — a single ultra-high-end deal or two can swing a quarterly average of this kind meaningfully.

For buyers who can clear a co-op board's approval process, that divergence is worth sitting with. It means less competition and a wider price gap versus condos at a moment when co-op fundamentals — rooms, layouts, location — haven't changed nearly as much as the closing prices suggest.

Sales Volume & Speed: Steady, Not Frenzied

Transaction volume held essentially flat compared to Q2 2025 — this is not a market being driven by a surge of new buyers, and it isn't cooling in any meaningful way either. What did move was speed and negotiating leverage: apartments spent an average of 112 days on the market, down 3% from a year ago, and sellers received 97.4% of their last asking price, up from 96.9% in Q2 2025.

Read together, faster sales and a tighter sale-to-ask gap point to well-priced listings meeting real, qualified demand — not a market where sellers are chasing buyers, and not one where buyers are chasing every listing that hits the market either.

Where the Market Moved by Neighborhood

East Side

On the Upper East Side, both prewar and postwar co-op apartments posted higher average prices per room than a year ago, and the average resale condo price per square foot rose 6% to $1,578. Studios were the standout, with median price up 9% to $477,000, while one-bedrooms softened 5%.

West Side

The Upper West Side posted the strongest per-square-foot gain of any submarket: resale condo prices rose 11% to $1,756 per square foot, and prewar co-op price per room climbed 4% to $337,231. Three-bedroom-plus median prices fell 10%, a reminder that even in a strong submarket, larger-apartment pricing can move independently of the headline trend.

Midtown

Midtown was the quarter's softest submarket on a per-square-foot basis, with resale condo prices averaging 9% less than a year ago at $1,325 per square foot. Studios were the only size category with a higher median price than Q2 2025, up 12% to $479,500.

Downtown

Downtown from 34th to 14th Street — Chelsea, Flatiron, and Gramercy — saw every size category post a lower median price than a year ago, with resale condo price per square foot essentially flat at $1,740. South of 14th Street, in Tribeca, SoHo, and the West Village, the pattern reversed for studios, whose median price rose 9%, while co-op prices softened for both prewar and postwar apartments.

Upper Manhattan

Upper Manhattan remained the borough's most accessible submarket by a wide margin, with condo prices averaging $832 per square foot. Two-bedroom median prices rose 22% year-over-year, while three-bedroom-plus apartments were the only size category to post a decline, down 24% — a sign that pricing at the top of this submarket is still thin enough for a handful of closings to move the median meaningfully.

What This Means for You

If You're Selling

Price against your actual submarket and product type, not the citywide average. A three-bedroom co-op and a studio condo are living in two different markets right now, and buyers are sophisticated enough to know it. If you own a larger, well-located co-op — the segment that drove this quarter's gains — this is a genuinely strong window. If you're selling a resale condo, especially in Midtown or Downtown between 34th and 14th Street, expect buyers to negotiate off recent comparable closings rather than the borough-wide 5-6% headline.

For guidance on positioning a listing against the comparables that actually matter, see my pricing strategy guide for luxury NYC homes.

If You're Buying

New development is commanding a real premium, but a meaningful share of that premium reflects larger apartments closing, not a 17% jump in what your specific unit would cost. Underwrite new construction on a price-per-square-foot basis against recent resale comps in the same building or block, not against the sponsor's headline pricing alone.

Resale co-ops are the clearest value opportunity this quarter, particularly for buyers who can navigate a board package. If you're weighing the tradeoffs of board approval and financing restrictions against price, my condo vs. co-op guide walks through the current gap in more detail.

If You're Transacting Above $2 Million

Manhattan's mansion and transfer tax brackets scale with price, and they're a meaningful line item at this level regardless of which way quarterly averages move. If you haven't reviewed how those taxes apply to your purchase or sale, my NYC mansion and transfer tax guide breaks down the current thresholds.

Where I See the Market Moving

Manhattan enters the second half of 2026 in a genuinely balanced position — not the seller's market the headline median suggests, and not the buyer's market that flat-to-declining condo averages might imply in isolation. Three things I'm watching heading into Q3:

• •The co-op/condo gap likely narrows rather than widens further, as value-focused buyers rotate toward co-ops and put a floor under that segment's recent softness
• •New development pricing stays elevated on a per-unit basis but should moderate on a per-square-foot basis as more typical-sized inventory reaches the market later in the year
• •Midtown and the Downtown 34th-14th corridor remain the submarkets most likely to see continued price softness, and the best relative negotiating room for buyers, through the fall

None of this points to a market correction. It points to a market where the average and the median are doing their job — describing the whole — while the real decisions, for both buyers and sellers, are still made one comparable sale at a time.

Whether you're evaluating a listing on the Upper East Side or exploring what's currently available, you can browse my current exclusive listings or reach out directly to talk through what this quarter's data means for your specific situation.

This report is based on Brown Harris Stevens' Q2 2026 Manhattan Apartment Market Report, covering closed sales from April 1 through June 30, 2026. All figures represent the best available data as of the report's publication and are subject to revision as additional sales are recorded. For personalized guidance on how these trends apply to your specific building, neighborhood, or transaction, please contact me directly.