The conventional wisdom in New York City real estate is that cash is king.
At the high end of the market, as deals climb into eight- and nine-figure numbers, more buyers have been foregoing financing. Since the start of 2025, 60 percent of sales in Manhattan were all cash, the highest share of all the boroughs, according to Property Shark’s latest report.
But the outer boroughs are a different story. Staten Island had the largest share of financed deals, with 77 percent of sales including a mortgage. In the Bronx, 60 percent of home sales were backed by loans, and in Queens, two out of three purchases were financed.
Even in Brooklyn — where demand for homes has skyrocketed in the last five years, prices have reached record heights and luxury new developments are reshaping popular neighborhoods — mortgage-backed purchases accounted for two-thirds of home sales since the start of the year.
Though the discussion of cash buyers largely focuses on the luxury market, they’re also concentrated at the lowest end, with most sales under $250,000 across the city going to cash buyers.
The neighborhoods where non-financed sales reigned supreme also point to the cash concentration at the ends of the market, which correlates to the types of buyers purchasing with cash: high-net worth individuals scooping up homes in the city’s priciest neighborhoods, those buying for investment purposes and longtime local buyers.
In Noho and Central Park South in Manhattan, cash buyers accounted for 93 percent and 85 percent of deals, respectively. In Breezy Point and Glen Oaks in the Bronx, all-cash purchases accounted for 100 percent and 85 percent of deals, respectively.
Not so fast…
Headline-grabbing price tags aren’t just for Billionaires’ Row.
Earlier this week, a mansion in Bay Ridge hit the market asking $25 million — more than three times more expensive than the neighborhood’s priciest sale on record. No home in the waterfront community has come close to nabbing such a hefty deal, and it’s miles ahead of the second most expensive listing, a sprawling eight-bedroom home with a pool.
If local history is any indication, the home is not likely to garner such an expensive sale. A nearby mansion in Mill Basin, infamous for its ties to a Russian oligarch and a cameo in the Academy Award-winning film Anora, traded for just $10 million in 2018 after an initial $30 million asking price. When it sold again in 2021, it did so at a roughly $3 million loss.
However, the Bay Ridge home’s eyebrow-raising number — coupled with gilded interiors reminiscent of Versailles — has earned it coverage in The Real Deal, the New York Times and the New York Post.
New York City real estate is no stranger to pie-in-the-sky pricing to attract attention for listings with the hopes of driving traffic, and eventually, snagging a deal. Some of the most egregious examples have been on Billionaires’ Row, including at Central Park Tower, where developer Gary Barnett once listed the pinnacle penthouse for $250 million.
Barnett admitted that his sellout target for the building as a whole was too high, after the building started offloading units for significant discounts. He also cut the price of the penthouse down to $195 million before pulling it off the market completely. It hasn’t returned since, nor has it found a buyer.
NYC Deal of the Week
A condo atop the Plaza Hotel, which closed for $18.9 million, was the most expensive deal to hit the city register this week. Unit 409 at 1 Central Park West was once the home of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who lived in the former hotel suite while he designed the Guggenheim Museum.
The four-bedroom apartment was sold by Galerie magazine founder Lisa Cohen and her husband, Hudson Capital Properties founder James Cohen. The couple bought the 4,000-square-foot unit for $13 million in 2009 and renovated it.
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