New York City Investment Sales Exceeding 2025 Pace: Report

New York City investment sales dipped 10 percent over the second quarter of 2026, according to Avison Young’s latest property sales report. Under the hood, however, the city’s commercial real estate market is barreling past its 2025 pace.

Overall investment sales in New York City rose annually by 60 percent in the first half of 2026 as capital markets and office financing reopened, according to the report, with transaction counts and dollar volumes rising annually across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. The report did not track Staten Island.

The geopolitical and economic upheaval that defined early 2026 did not go unfelt, however, as quarterly sales volume declined to $5.42 billion citywide from $5.68 billion. 

Above the quarterly noise was a market in a welcome recovery cycle. The city is on pace for $22.87 billion in annual sales in 2026, according to the report, approaching New York City’s 10-year average of $23.4 billion. 

Brandon Polakoff, a principal and head of New York City investment sales at Avison Young, compared the city’s path of recovery since 2023 to the years following the Global Financial Crisis, which culminated in a 2015 peak for New York City investment sales.

“Year by year, we’re working in the right direction,” Polakoff said.

Manhattan counted 94 sales in the second quarter of 2026, led in volume by Extell Development’s $451 million move on 405 Park Avenue in May. Other defining deals included Sovereign Partners’ $378 million purchase of 575 Fifth Avenue and the $280 million sale of 250 West 57th Street to Namdar Realty Group.

Development was Manhattan’s breakout asset class for the second quarter, according to Polakoff, climbing year-over-year from three to 13 sales totaling $707 million. 

“We found the demand for development to be astronomical in the past six to eight months,” Polakoff said, pointing to the difficulty of acquiring existing multifamily and the comparative feasibility of stringing together 99-unit rentals to avoid wage requirements under the state’s two-year-old 485-x multifamily incentive.

Manhattan’s office market, not to be outdone, boasted the largest dollar volume for the quarter, at $1.51 billion. Compared to the first six months of 2025 — a year hampered by economic and election anxieties — office sales’ total dollar volume is up 110 percent year-to-date, according to the report, at $3.3 billion.

Multifamily sales in Manhattan are similarly outpacing 2025 by triple-digit percentages, yet sales remain bifurcated between the A-plus trophy assets and everything else. Dollar sales declined over the quarter by 18 percent to $880 million.

The annual climbs and quarterly dips should be taken on balance. 

“What closed in the second quarter was negotiated in the first quarter,” said James Nelson, a principal and head of U.S. investment sales at Avison Young.

The first quarter of 2026 saw the 10-year Treasury climb and the start of U.S. military action against Iran, and Manhattan buyers responded in kind. Notably, Manhattan’s private buyers, as a share of sales volume, rose 53 percent. 

“When there’s uncertainty, you see a lot of the private buyers come in and take advantage of the market, transact,” Nelson said. “The institutions might pause a little bit.”

Meanwhile, foreign buyers in Manhattan made up just 9.7 percent of first-half sales volume in a 10-year low. The number of foreign sellers hasn’t spiked, however, indicating that these owners are in a wait-and-see period, rather than a full-on flight. 

“Even with a lot of the negative macro noise, from a micro standpoint, the fundamentals are incredibly strong,” said Polakoff. 

Emily Davis can be reached at edavis@commercialobserver.com.